Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The word "minute" comes from the Latin pars minuta prima, meaning "first small part", and "second" from pars minuta secunda or "second small part". Angular measure also uses sexagesimal units; there, it is the degree that is subdivided into minutes and seconds, while in time, it is the hour.
Subdivisions of the day include the hour (1/24 of a day), which is further subdivided into minutes and seconds. The second is the international standard unit (SI unit) for science. Celestial sphere-based: as in sidereal time, where the apparent movement of the stars and constellations across the sky is used to calculate the length of a year.
The prime symbol ′ is also sometimes used informally to denote minutes. [3] In the UTC time standard, a minute on rare occasions has 61 seconds, a consequence of leap seconds; there is also a provision to insert a negative leap second, which would result in a 59-second minute, but this has never happened in more than 40 years under this system.
One hour of time is divided into 60 minutes, and one minute is divided into 60 seconds. Thus, a measurement of time such as 3:23:17 (3 hours, 23 minutes, and 17 seconds) can be interpreted as a whole sexagesimal number (no sexagesimal point), meaning 3 × 60 2 + 23 × 60 1 + 17 × 60 0 seconds.
In present terms, the Babylonian degree of time was thus four minutes long, the "minute" of time was thus four seconds long and the "second" 1/15 of a second. [ 20 ] [ 21 ] In medieval Europe, the Roman hours continued to be marked on sundials but the more important units of time were the canonical hours of the Orthodox and Catholic Church .
Get AOL Mail for FREE! Manage your email like never before with travel, photo & document views. Personalize your inbox with themes & tabs. You've Got Mail!
While this is strictly 24 hours and 1 second in conventional units, a digital clock of suitable capability level will most often display the leap second as 23:59:60 and not 24:00:00 before rolling over to 00:00:00 the next day, as though the last "minute" of the day were crammed with 61 seconds and not 60, and similarly the last "hour" 3601 s ...
AOL Promotions. You’ll no longer see paid ads, but you’ll continue to see promotions for AOL products and brands. We want to keep you in-the-know of our latest product news and information.