If a heart beats 70 times per minute...?

Question

I'm getting confused over this period and frequency stuff. If a heart beats 70 times per *minute*, what is the frequency?

Also, if anyone could help me with this problem, it'd be appreciated:

the coffee in a cup oscillates back and forth 4 times each second (plane is experiencing turbulence). if the waves of the coffee have a wavelength of .1m, what is the speed of a wave moving through the coffee?

I know wave speed = (wavelength)(frequency), so I'm just not sure how to get the correct frequency.

thanks a lot.

Answer 1

Frequency, measured in Hz (hertz), simply refers to how many oscillations a wave makes in a second. So in your coffee example, the frequency in Hz is already given to you - four times a second, or 4Hz. You can just plug those figures straight into the speed = frequency * wavelength equation and get the answer in metres per second.

As for the heart example, you're given the rate of 70 beats per minute, so to find out the frequency in Hz, or "beats per second" you just divide by 60.

Answer 2

so 70/60 = 1.16, is that the correct frequency?

YES