3 ms·

Yes, my objection comes from a preconceived notion of what a Hz is, because it is the SI unit of frequency - so it has an internationally standardised meaning w

Yes, my objection comes from a preconceived notion of what a Hz is, because it is the SI unit of frequency - so it has an internationally standardised meaning which you're meant to be able to rely on! In the same way, when I buy a 9V battery, I rely on my preconceived notion of what a volt is, and that's always worked out okay so far.

rm999 14y ago
As I said, we aren't talking about hz, this is about cycle * hz. You aren't adding hz, you are adding cycles. I argued in my comment why I think this is ok.
- archangel_one 14y ago
  They didn't say "cycle * hz" in their blurb anywhere, so I wasn't talking about it. I'll grant that it's a more sensible way of describing what's going on (although I think "cycles per second" sounds a little more natural, despite being equivalent), but it's unfortunately not what they actually said.
  - rm999 14y ago
    As a unitless unit, when people talk about hz they almost never mean just hz. In the case of computing, "hz" is always shorthand for cycles per second e.g. a 2 Ghz computer is 2 billion cycles per second.
rprospero 14y ago
Interesting choice of example. The 9V battery gets its rectangular shape from being a stack of 6 1.5V batteries in series. Yet, claiming that the battery isn't 9V but 6 x 1.5V would be considered needless pedantry. Now, let's say that I have a cuckoo clock that chimes once per hour. This is a rate of ~ 278 μHz. Now, imagine that I buy 3600 of these clock and set them to offset them by 1 second each. I now have 3600 x 278 μHz signals. However, I also have 1 clock going off every second. Thus, the frequency rate for the entire system is 1 Hz, even though the individual components have a much slower rate. Now, let's say that I didn't do such a great job in aligning the signals of the clocks. Some are 2 seconds apart while others are mere milliseconds apart. From a Fourier transform perspective, there's now multiple signals with multiple frequencies occurring. However, if I average over a long time period, I'm still getting 3600 events per hour, or 1 event per second. The signal may not be a perfect sine curve, but, barring a pathological timing, the strongest Fourier component is going to be the 1Hz signal. Thus, 1Hz would be a reasonable way to describe the cuckoo bird rate of the system.

rm999 14y ago

As I said, we aren't talking about hz, this is about cycle * hz. You aren't adding hz, you are adding cycles. I argued in my comment why I think this is ok.

archangel_one 14y ago
They didn't say "cycle * hz" in their blurb anywhere, so I wasn't talking about it. I'll grant that it's a more sensible way of describing what's going on (although I think "cycles per second" sounds a little more natural, despite being equivalent), but it's unfortunately not what they actually said.
- rm999 14y ago
  As a unitless unit, when people talk about hz they almost never mean just hz. In the case of computing, "hz" is always shorthand for cycles per second e.g. a 2 Ghz computer is 2 billion cycles per second.

rprospero 14y ago

Interesting choice of example. The 9V battery gets its rectangular shape from being a stack of 6 1.5V batteries in series. Yet, claiming that the battery isn't 9V but 6 x 1.5V would be considered needless pedantry. Now, let's say that I have a cuckoo clock that chimes once per hour. This is a rate of ~ 278 μHz. Now, imagine that I buy 3600 of these clock and set them to offset them by 1 second each. I now have 3600 x 278 μHz signals. However, I also have 1 clock going off every second. Thus, the frequency rate for the entire system is 1 Hz, even though the individual components have a much slower rate. Now, let's say that I didn't do such a great job in aligning the signals of the clocks. Some are 2 seconds apart while others are mere milliseconds apart. From a Fourier transform perspective, there's now multiple signals with multiple frequencies occurring. However, if I average over a long time period, I'm still getting 3600 events per hour, or 1 event per second. The signal may not be a perfect sine curve, but, barring a pathological timing, the strongest Fourier component is going to be the 1Hz signal. Thus, 1Hz would be a reasonable way to describe the cuckoo bird rate of the system.