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 An earthquake and a tsunami, known as the Boxing Day Tsunami and, by the scientific community, the Sumatra–Andaman earthquake, occurred at 07:58:53 local time ( UTC+7) on 26 December 2004, with an epicentre off the west coast of northern Su ...

. * 3.33564095 microseconds – the time taken by

light Light or visible light is electromagnetic radiation that can be perceived by the human eye. Visible light is usually defined as having wavelengths in the range of 400–700 nanometres (nm), corresponding to frequencies of 750–420 te ...

to travel one

kilometre The kilometre ( SI symbol: km; or ), spelt kilometer in American English, is a unit of length in the International System of Units (SI), equal to one thousand metres ( kilo- being the SI prefix for ). It is now the measurement unit used for ...

in a

vacuum A vacuum is a space devoid of matter. The word is derived from the Latin adjective ''vacuus'' for "vacant" or " void". An approximation to such vacuum is a region with a gaseous pressure much less than atmospheric pressure. Physicists often di ...

* 5.4 microseconds – the time taken by light to travel one

mile The mile, sometimes the international mile or statute mile to distinguish it from other miles, is a British imperial unit and United States customary unit of distance; both are based on the older English unit of length equal to 5,280 Engli ...

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 fiber optic cable * 10 microseconds (μs) – cycle time for frequency 100 kHz, radio wavelength 3 km * 18 microseconds – net amount per year that the length of the day lengthens, largely due to

tidal acceleration Tidal acceleration is an effect of the tidal forces between an orbiting natural satellite (e.g. the Moon) and the primary planet that it orbits (e.g. Earth). The acceleration causes a gradual recession of a satellite in a prograde orbit away f ...

. * 20.8 microseconds – sampling interval for digital audio with 48,000 samples/s * 22.7 microseconds – sampling interval for CD audio (44,100 samples/s) * 38 microseconds – discrepancy in

GPS The Global Positioning System (GPS), originally Navstar GPS, is a satellite-based radionavigation system owned by the United States government and operated by the United States Space Force. It is one of the global navigation satellite sy ...

satellite A satellite or artificial satellite is an object intentionally placed into orbit in outer space. Except for passive satellites, most satellites have an electricity generation system for equipment on board, such as solar panels or radioiso ...

time per day (compensated by clock speed) due to relativity * 50 microseconds – cycle time for highest 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 Half-life (symbol ) is the time required for a quantity (of substance) to reduce to half of its initial value. The term is commonly used in nuclear physics to describe how quickly unstable atoms undergo radioactive decay or how long stable at ...

polonium Polonium is a chemical element with the symbol Po and atomic number 84. Polonium is a chalcogen. A rare and highly radioactive metal with no stable isotopes, polonium is chemically similar to selenium and tellurium, though its metallic characte ...

-214 * 240 microseconds – half-life of

copernicium Copernicium is a synthetic chemical element with the symbol Cn and atomic number 112. Its known isotopes are extremely radioactive, and have only been created in a laboratory. The most stable known isotope, copernicium-285, has a half-life of ap ...

-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 Abu Rayhan Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Biruni (973 – after 1050) commonly known as al-Biruni, was a Khwarazmian Iranian in scholar and polymath during the Islamic Golden Age. He has been called variously the "founder of Indology", "Father of ...

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

index of refraction In optics, the refractive index (or refraction index) of an optical medium is a dimensionless number that gives the indication of the light bending ability of that medium. The refractive index determines how much the path of light is bent, or ...

). * The average human eye

blink Blinking is a bodily function; it is a semi-autonomic rapid closing of the eyelid. A single blink is determined by the forceful closing of the eyelid or inactivation of the levator palpebrae superioris and the activation of the palpebral porti ...

takes 350,000 microseconds (just over second). * The average human finger snap takes 150,000 microseconds (just over second). * A camera flash illuminates for 1,000 microseconds. * Standard camera

shutter speed In photography, shutter speed or exposure time is the length of time that the film or digital sensor inside the camera is exposed to light (that is, when the camera's shutter (photography), shutter is open) when taking a photograph. The am ...

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