A microsecond is a unit of

time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...

in the

International System of Units The International System of Units, known by the international abbreviation SI in all languages and sometimes pleonastically as the SI system, is the modern form of the metric system and the world's most widely used system of measurement. E ...

(SI) equal to one

millionth One millionth is equal to 0.000 001, or 1 x 10−6 in scientific notation. It is the reciprocal of a million, and can be also written as . Units using this fraction can be indicated using the prefix "micro-" from Greek, meaning "small". Numbers of ...

(0.000001 or 10⁻⁶ or ) of a

second The second (symbol: s) is the unit of time in the International System of Units (SI), historically defined as of a day – this factor derived from the division of the day first into 24 hours, then to 60 minutes and finally to 60 seconds ...

. Its symbol is μs, sometimes simplified to us when

Unicode Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology Technical standard, standard for the consistent character encoding, encoding, representation, and handling of Character (computing), text expre ...

is not available. A microsecond is equal to 1000 nanoseconds or of a

millisecond A millisecond (from '' milli-'' and second; symbol: ms) is a unit of time in the International System of Units (SI) equal to one thousandth (0.001 or 10−3 or 1/1000) of a second and to 1000 microseconds. A unit of 10 milliseconds may be called ...

. Because the next

SI prefix The International System of Units, known by the international abbreviation SI in all languages and sometimes pleonastically as the SI system, is the modern form of the metric system and the world's most widely used system of measurement. E ...

is 1000 times larger, measurements of 10⁻⁵ and 10⁻⁴ seconds are typically expressed as tens or hundreds of microseconds.

Examples

* 1 microsecond (1 μs) – cycle time for

frequency Frequency is the number of occurrences of a repeating event per unit of time. It is also occasionally referred to as ''temporal frequency'' for clarity, and is distinct from ''angular frequency''. Frequency is measured in hertz (Hz) which is eq ...

(1 MHz), the inverse unit. This corresponds to radio wavelength

300 __NOTOC__ Year 300 (Roman numerals, CCC) was a leap year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Constantius and Valerius (or, less frequently, ...

m (AM

medium wave Medium wave (MW) is the part of the medium frequency (MF) radio band used mainly for AM radio broadcasting. The spectrum provides about 120 channels with more limited sound quality than FM stations on the FM broadcast band. During the daytime ...

band), as can be calculated by multiplying 1 μs by the

speed of light The speed of light in vacuum, commonly denoted , is a universal physical constant that is important in many areas of physics. The speed of light is exactly equal to ). According to the special theory of relativity, is the upper limit ...

(approximately ). * 1 microsecond – the length of time of a high-speed, commercial strobe light flash (see air-gap flash). * 1 microsecond –

protein folding Protein folding is the physical process by which a protein chain is translated to its native three-dimensional structure, typically a "folded" conformation by which the protein becomes biologically functional. Via an expeditious and reproduci ...

takes place on the order of microseconds. * 1.8 microseconds – the amount of time subtracted from the Earth's

day A day is the time period of a full rotation of the Earth with respect to the Sun. On average, this is 24 hours, 1440 minutes, or 86,400 seconds. In everyday life, the word "day" often refers to a solar day, which is the length between two so ...

as a result of the

2011 Japanese earthquake Eleven or 11 may refer to: *11 (number), the natural number following 10 and preceding 12 * one of the years 11 BC, AD 11, 1911, 2011, or any year ending in 11 Literature * ''Eleven'' (novel), a 2006 novel by British author David Llewellyn *''El ...

. * 2 microseconds – the lifetime of a muonium particle * 2.68 microseconds – the amount of time subtracted from the Earth's day as a result of the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake. * 3.33564095 microseconds – the time taken by light to travel one kilometre in a vacuum * 5.4 microseconds – the time taken by light to travel one mile in a vacuum (or radio waves point-to-point in a near vacuum) * 8.01 microseconds – the time taken by light to travel one mile in typical Single-mode optical fiber, single-mode fiber optic cable * 10 microseconds (μs) – cycle time for frequency Hertz, 100 kHz, radio wavelength Orders of magnitude (length), 3 kilometre, km * 18 microseconds – net amount per year that the length of the day lengthens, largely due to tidal acceleration. * 20.8 microseconds – Sampling (signal processing), sampling interval for digital audio with 48,000 samples/s * 22.7 microseconds – sampling interval for Compact disc, CD audio (44,100 samples/s) * 38 microseconds – discrepancy in GPS satellite time per day (compensated by clock speed) due to General relativity, relativity * 50 microseconds – cycle time for highest Hearing (sense), human-audible tone (20 kHz) * 50 microseconds – to read the access latency for a modern solid state drive which holds non-volatile computer data * 100 microseconds (0.1 ms) – cycle time for frequency 10 kHz * 125 microseconds – common sampling interval for telephone audio (8000 samples/s) * 164 microseconds – half-life of polonium-214 * 240 microseconds – half-life of copernicium-277 * 260 to 480 microseconds - return trip ICMP ping time, including operating system kernel TCP/IP processing and answer time, between two gigabit ethernet devices connected to the same local area network switch fabric. * 277.8 microseconds – a fourth (a 60th of a 60th of a second), used in astronomical calculations by al-Biruni and Roger Bacon in 1000 and 1267 AD, respectively. * 489.67 microseconds – time for light at a 1550 nm frequency to travel 100 km in a singlemode fiber optic cable (where speed of light is approximately 200 million metres per second due to its Refractive index, index of refraction). * The average human eye blink takes 350,000 microseconds (just over second). * The average human finger Finger snapping, snap takes 150,000 microseconds (just over second). * A Flash (photography), camera flash illuminates for 1,000 microseconds. * Standard camera shutter speed opens the shutter for 4,000 microseconds or 4 milliseconds. * 584542 years of microseconds fit in 64 bits: (2**64)/(1e6*60*60*24*365.25)

References

External links

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
{{DEFAULTSORT:1 E-6 S Orders of magnitude (time) de:Sekunde#Abgeleitete Maßeinheiten

Examples

See also

References

External links