In physics and music, describing vibrations or frequencies that don't follow simple harmonic patterns or don't fit standard musical intervals.
From Greek 'an-' (not) + 'harmonic' (from 'harmonia', fitting together). Coined in 19th-century physics to describe oscillations that violate harmonic relationships.
When musical instruments make strange sounds or when atoms vibrate in weird ways, that's anharmonic—it's the reason real pianos sound slightly different from perfect mathematical frequencies!
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