Hours to Baktuns (h to baktun)

1 hour equals 2.893518519×10⁻⁷ baktuns (rounded).

1 hour = 2.893518519×10⁻⁷ baktuns

How to convert hours to baktuns

To convert hours to baktuns, multiply the number of hours by 2.893518519×10⁻⁷. The factor is rounded to 10 significant digits. To go the other way, multiply baktuns by 3,456,000.

baktuns = hours × 2.893518519×10⁻⁷

Example: 10 hours = 0.000002893518519 baktuns.

Months and years are not constant. This site uses the average Gregorian year of 365.2425 days, so one 'year' converts to 365.2425 days, not 365; use 'common year' for exactly 365 days.

About these units

Hour (h)

Metric (SI)Current unit

60 minutes or 3,600 seconds, one twenty-fourth of a mean solar day.

Egyptian astronomers gave us the twelve. Coffin lids from about 2150 BC show the night divided into exactly 12 intervals, tied to the rising of star groups called decans, and the day was later split into 12 hours with sundials. These were seasonal hours, a twelfth of the daylight, so a summer hour was longer than a winter one. The word itself comes from Greek hora, originally any span of time, through Latin and Old French into English in the 13th century.

Equal hours of 1/24 of a day were probably first proposed by Hipparchus, and mechanical clocks made them the practical choice, since a clock showing seasonal hours had to be readjusted every morning and evening. Today the hour is exactly 3,600 seconds and is a non-SI unit accepted for use with the SI. Civil time still bends it a little: UTC hours have lasted 3,601 seconds 27 times since 1972 to keep clocks within 0.9 seconds of the Earth's rotation. In practice we use it for working shifts, travel times and electricity bills measured in kilowatt-hours.

1 hour = 3,600 seconds (exactly).

Sources: Wikipedia: Hour; BIPM: SI Brochure, 9th edition

Baktun (baktun)

MayaHistorical unit (no longer in standard use)

20 katuns or 144,000 days (about 394 years). The Long Count completed 13 baktuns on 21 December 2012, a date misread as a doomsday prediction.

The largest unit in everyday Long Count use, the baktun spans 20 katuns, or 144,000 days, about 394.26 tropical years. Dates are written with the baktun count first, so a monument reading 9.15.10.0.0 sits in the ninth baktun, and the Classic period of Maya civilization fell mainly in the eighth and ninth.

Public attention came when the count reached 13.0.0.0.0 on 21 December 2012, under the widely used GMT correlation. Popular writers called it the end of the world, but scholars note there is no evidence the Maya expected that, and the count simply moved on to 14.0.0.0.0. The next such milestone falls in March 2407.

A naming quirk follows from the numbering. The Long Count starts counting from zero, so the baktun that began in 2012 is strictly the fourteenth, though it is usually called the thirteenth. J. Eric S. Thompson judged that usage inaccurate but too entrenched to change. Larger cycles such as the piktun, at 20 baktuns, are rarely attested, and their names are modern coinages.

1 baktun = 12,441,600,000 seconds (exactly).

Sources: Wikipedia: Baktun; Wikipedia: Mesoamerican Long Count calendar; Wikipedia: Maya calendar

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