[orbsycli]

Is it possible to determine frequency [Hz] by heart rate [BPM]?

[Buffy]

Your heart rate is variable: 70-75 beats per minute is normal for an adult within a *range* of 60-100. So if nothing exciting is happening, you *could* assume that your heart rate is about 1.2 Hz. If you're trying to measure something slower or slightly faster than this, you could probably do it. Much higher and your brain's ability to count beats is probably not there, and even if it was, the resolution of your heart rate is so low that the potential error spread would be huge....

I got a fever of a hundred and three,
Buffy

[CraigD]

Originally Posted by orbsycli

Is it possible to determine frequency [Hz] by heart rate [BPM]?

I’m not sure what your asking, orby. There seem to be two possibilities.

If you mean “is it possible to converts from frequency units of beats per minute (BPM) to cycles per second (Hertz, Hz)?” the answer is a straightforward yes, and is equivalent to converting from minutes to seconds by multiplying by 60. 60 beats/minute = 1 cycle/second.

If you mean “is it possible to measure frequency using heartbeats as a reference?” the answer is also yes, with the limitations Buffy outlines. In my youth, I discovered the trick of opening my Eustachian tubes so that I could hear my pulse (I’ve got pretty wide Eustachian tubes, and can open them by just slightly dropping my jaw, which only a very observant person would notice from looking at me). This allowed me to do very well at the “close you eyes and say when you think one minute has passed” game common at group events when I was a kid, even though, not using the trick, my sense of time is not remarkably better or worse than most folks’.

Tom Wolfe’s 1968 journalistic novel “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test” contains an amusing and purportedly true anecdote in which Ken Kesey, while participating in a 1958 US government sponsored MKULTRA experiment, is asked by a researcher to indicate, while under the influence of a large dose of LSD, when he perceived a minute to pass. Kesey sneaks a finger onto his wrist so he can feel his pulse, and by counting about 75 beats, gives a close guess. The story goes that the researchers repeated the test several times, and, failing to catch him at his trick, were perplexed by this anomalous performance (distorting a subject’s perception of time is a well-known effect of LSD).

[orbsycli]

ah, why thank you Buffy y Craig