The term
harmonic in its strictest sense describes any member of the
harmonic series. The term is employed in various disciplines, including music and acoustics, electronic power transmission, radio technology, etc. It is typically applied to repeating signals, such as
sinusoidal waves. A harmonic of such a
wave is a wave with a
frequency that is a positive
integer multiple of the
frequency of the original wave, known as the
fundamental frequency. The original
wave is also called 1st harmonic, the following harmonics are known as higher harmonics. As all harmonics are periodic at the fundamental frequency, the sum of harmonics is also periodic at that frequency. For example, if the
fundamental frequency is 50
Hz, a common
AC power supply frequency, the frequencies of the first three higher harmonics are 100 Hz (2nd harmonic), 150 Hz (3rd harmonic), 200 Hz (4th harmonic) and any addition of waves with these frequencies is periodic at 50 Hz.