Hertz Hertz Historic list of cities of Europe Category="SI derived units"Category="Units of frequency"
See also the car rental company, The Hertz Corporation, and Hertz (disambiguation).
The hertz (symbol: Hz) is the SI unit of Frequency. It is named in honour of the German physicist Heinrich Rudolf Hertz who made important scientific contributions to Electromagnetism.

Definition

One hertz is defined as one cycle per second.
1 Hz = 1 s−1

SI multiples

MultipleNameSymbolMultipleNameSymbol
100hertzHz   
101decahertz daHz10–1decihertz dHz
102hectohertz hHz10–2centihertz cHz
103kilohertz kHz10–3millihertz mHz
106megahertz MHz10–6microhertz µHz
109gigahertz GHz10–9nanohertz nHz
1012terahertz THz10–12picohertz pHz
1015petahertz PHz10–15femtohertz fHz
1018exahertz EHz10–18attohertz aHz
1021zettahertz ZHz10–21zeptohertz zHz
1024yottahertzYHz10–24yoctohertzyHz

Explanation

One hertz simply means "one per Second" (1 / s); 100 Hz means "one hundred per second", and so on. The unit may be applied to any periodic event - for example, a clock might be said to tick at 1 Hz, or a human heart might be said to beat at 1.2 Hz. Frequency of random events, such as radioactive decays, is expressed in becquerels.

The name hertz was adopted by the CGPM (Conférence générale des poids et mesures) in 1960, replacing the previous name for the unit, cycles per second (cps), along with its related multiples, primarily kilocycles (kc) and megacycles (mc). Hertz largely replaced cycles in common use by 1970.

See also