Re: Sine waves


Phil Allison wrote:
"Bob Eld"
"Phil Allison"


A pure sine wave has one harmonic, the first harmonic otherwise known
as
the fundamental.


** Since this NG (and the question) is about science and electronics and
NOT musical terms, the above is incorrect.

Harmonics are frequencies that are integer multiples, 2, 3, 4, 5 etc,
of
the fundamental frequency of a complex wave.


I believe you have it backwards.


** I believe you have your head permanently stuck up your arse.


In music the first overtone is the second
harmonic which is 2 times the fundamental in frequency.


** Yawn - not even on the point at issue.


The fundamental in
engineering, audio and related fields is the first harmonic even though
the
word "harmonic" is misleading.


** Yawn - just restates the original error.


As was mentioned, the terminology comes from the Fourier series.


** Not mentioned by you, me or the OP.

Plus not relevant anyhow.


Your statement: "Harmonics are frequencies that are integer multiples, 2,
3, 4, 5 etc, of the fundamental frequency of a complex wave." That is a
true statement but
don't forget that "1" is also an integer.


** How typically asinine & autistic of you.

Cut the verbal diarrhoea.

A pure sine wave is one that simply has NO harmonics present.


This gets down to mere semantics, but I have to agree,
you never really hear people talking about a "first harmonic".
They almost always call the main frequency the "fundamental", and
only use the term "harmonic" for integer multiples of the fundamental,
2x, 3x, 4x, and higher.

But the kicker here is that people will often use the term
"Half-harmonic", to indicate a spur 1/2 the fundamental.
When occuring in power amplifiers, these mysterious half-harmonics
are thought to be caused by some sort of varactor effect.
When they occur in frequency doublers, the failure to suppress
and filter the original fundamental is the obvious cause (the
2nd Harmonic essentially becomes the new fundamental).



Slick

.

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