What is Natural Frequency?
- When an object is disturbed and left to oscillate without further interference, it is said to oscillate at its natural frequency.
- Natural frequency is dependent on many factors of the material.

- In the example above, the vibrating ruler creates a standing wave.
- As one end is fixed, it is an node, and the other is an antinode as it is free to vibrate.
- As it has no other nodes or antinodes, it is vibrating in the first harmonic for a standing wave with one open and one fixed end.
- This allows us to find properties such as the wavelength, length and frequency of the ruler.