The variable measured is most often the light's reciprocal centimeters or electron volts, which has a reciprocal relationship to wavelength.
2.
In spectroscopy it is usual to give wavenumbers in cgs unit, i . e ., reciprocal centimeters ( cm & minus; 1 ); in this context the wavenumber was formerly called the " Kayser ", after Heinrich Kayser ( some older scientific papers used this unit, abbreviated as " K ", where 1 K = 1 cm & minus; 1 ).