cps Calculator
Convert counts per second to per minute, per hour, hertz, rpm and back — with the period.
The same rate over longer spans
| Interval | Counts |
|---|---|
| Per second | 10 |
| Per minute | 600 |
| Per hour | 36,000 |
| Per day | 864,000 |
| Per week | 6,048,000 |
| Per year | 315,569,520 |
cps and hertz are the same unit
One count per second is one hertz. Hz is the SI name for "per second" applied to anything periodic, so 10 cps and 10 Hz are identical — the different names are conventions of different fields, not different quantities.
The conversions are all factors of 60:
per minute = cps × 60
per hour = cps × 3600
Rate and period are reciprocals
period = 1 ÷ rate
10 cps means one count every 0.1 seconds. This is the one that trips people up: halving the period doubles the rate, so the relationship is not linear. A rate of zero has no defined period, and a period of zero has no defined rate.
Where each name is used
- cps — radiation counters, click-speed tests, particle detectors.
- Hz — physics and engineering, for waves and oscillators.
- rpm — anything rotating. 3,000 rpm is 50 Hz.
- bpm — heart rate and music tempo. A resting pulse of 60 bpm is exactly 1 Hz.
- cpm — Geiger counters and industrial counting.
For radiation, counts per second is what the instrument detects — not a dose. Converting counts to sieverts needs the detector's efficiency and the energy of the radiation.