What is period?

A period is the amount of time it takes for something to complete one full cycle or repeat itself.

Imagine you're on a swing at the park. You go up, come down, and then you’re back where you started, that’s one full swing, or one cycle. The period is how long it takes to do that whole swing, from when you start going up until you get back to the starting point again.

Think of a clock. Every second, the hands move a little bit. If you watch the second hand, it goes all the way around the clock face in 60 seconds. That means its period is 60 seconds, because that’s how long it takes to go from one full circle back to where it started.

Or think of a ball bouncing on the ground. It goes up, comes down, and hits the floor again. The time between each bounce, from when it leaves the floor to when it hits it again, is its period. If it bounces every 2 seconds, then its period is 2 seconds.

So whether it’s a swing, a clock, or a ball, the period tells you how long something takes to repeat itself once.