Period

A period is an arbitrary interval of time. The word is applied to many different concepts: * Period, a colloquial, and very common English term for menstrual cycle. * generally, in science, the time taken for one complete cycle of a repeating or oscillating quantity. The period of oscillation of a wave is the time taken for the wave to complete one wavelength. Period is the reciprocal of the frequency. See amplitude, wavelength, simple harmonic motion. * in astronomy, Copernicus used period to refer to the time it takes a planet to complete one orbit. See orbital period. * in mathematics, the period of a function is the length of the interval over which it reappears. See periodic function. * in mathematics, the period of an integer is the length of the repeating pattern in the inverse, i.e. the inverse of 7 = 1/7 = 0.1428571428571... and the period is 6. See recurring decimal. * in chemistry, the term period is often used to mean a periodic table period, a row of the periodic table. * in geology to identify named timespans such as the Cretaceous Period or the Neogene Period. Periods are generally longer than Epoch and shorter than Era. The term Age is sometimes used more or less interchangeably with Period. See geologic period and geologic timescale to put this in perspective. *the word ''period'' is often used in to refer to discrete portions of human history, which are also often called ''ages'' or ''eras'' (see also era). Historical periods include the following: Prehistory, Stone age, Bronze Age, Ice age, Iron Age, Ancient history, Middle Ages, Dark age, Golden age, Edwardian period, Elizabethan era, Victorian era, Information Age, Little Ice Age, Viking Age. *in education, a short period of teaching in a particular subject. See lesson. *''Period'' is also used in a more vague fashion in design, motion picture and theatre in the form of "period" decorating, or "period" furniture, which may be from any historical period, or even "old-fashioned". Further meanings less connected with time: * In rhetoric, Period (rhetoric) refers to well-balanced sentences. * in writing, a period was formerly a name for a long sentence, and from that it is now another name for the full stop punctuation sign: "." because it marks the end of a sentence. * also in writing, a period can refer to any dot. * in music a period (music) is in some ways equivalent to a period in writing: it closes a phrase (music) of music, though the "period" may also be the cadence (music) or close of the phrases. Period novel is also the name of the final book in Dennis Cooper George Miles cycle. Time vi:Chu kỳ

Period

(Does anyone know where the period came from? I'm fairly certain that the Romans didn't have it, since all their sentences ended with the verb they didn't need it.) :What, you mean as in ''vade retro me''? -user:Montrealais

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