A duty cycle is the time that an entity spends in an active state as a fraction of the total time under consideration. The term is often used pertaining to electrical devices, e.g., switching power supplies. It is also sometimes used pertaining to living systems such as the firing of action potentials by neurons. In an electrical device, a 60% duty cycle means the power is on 60% of the time and off 40% of the time. The "on time" for a 60% duty cycle could be a fraction of a second – or for say, irrigation pumps, days – depending on how long the device's period is. Here one period is the length of time it takes for the device to go through a complete on/off cycle. The term "duty cycle" has no agreed meaning for aperiodic devices.
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Famous quotes containing the words duty and/or cycle:
“If one mistreats citizens of foreign countries, one infringes upon one’s duty toward one’s own subjects; for thus one exposes them to the law of retribution.”
—Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749–1832)
“The Buddha, the Godhead, resides quite as comfortably in the circuits of a digital computer or the gears of a cycle transmission as he does at the top of a mountain or in the petals of a flower.”
—Robert M. Pirsig (b. 1928)