What is the period of a 60 Hz waveform?

• A. 60 s
• B. 1 s
• C. 0.0167 s
• D. 0.60 s

Answer: (C)

60 Hz means the waveform completes 60 cycles every second. The period, which is the time for one complete cycle, is the reciprocal of frequency: T = 1/f. So T = 1/60 s ≈ 0.016666... s, which rounds to 0.0167 s. That’s about 16.7 milliseconds per cycle. The other values don’t fit because 60 seconds per cycle would be incredibly slow (1/60 Hz), 1 second per cycle would be 1 Hz, and 0.60 seconds per cycle is about 1.67 Hz.