Millisecond (ms)
One thousandth of a second. Used for computer response times and sports timing.
1 millisecond = 0.001 seconds (exactly).
About the millisecond
Milliseconds sit on the border between what people perceive and what instruments must be built to catch. Nobody feels a single one: a human blink lasts roughly 100 to 400 of them, and the average resting heart cycle is about 860. The prefix milli- makes the unit exactly one thousandth of a second, so it is a handy yardstick for events a little too quick to notice but slow enough for a stopwatch-style instrument to capture.
A millisecond is one thousandth of a second, and the scale references are easy to picture. Light in a vacuum covers about 300 km in 1 ms, and sound in air covers about 34 cm. A film frame at 24 frames per second lasts about 41.7 ms, one cycle of 60 Hz mains power lasts about 16.7 ms, and a camera shutter set to 1/125 s is open for about 8 ms. Online gamers watch network latency in milliseconds, with typical broadband figures of 5 to 80 ms, and telephone engineers recommend keeping one-way delay under about 150 ms before conversation starts to feel awkward.
Sources: Wikipedia: Millisecond; BIPM: SI Brochure, 9th edition
Millisecond conversion chart
1 millisecond expressed in every other time unit:
| Unit | 1 millisecond |
|---|---|
| Seconds | 0.001 |
| Minutes | 0.00001666666667 |
| Hours | 2.777777778×10⁻⁷ |
| Days | 1.157407407×10⁻⁸ |
| Weeks | 1.653439153×10⁻⁹ |
| Months | 3.802648621×10⁻¹⁰ |
| Years | 3.168873851×10⁻¹¹ |
| Microseconds | 1,000 |
| Nanoseconds | 1,000,000 |
| Decades | 3.168873851×10⁻¹² |
| Centuries | 3.168873851×10⁻¹³ |
| Millennia | 3.168873851×10⁻¹⁴ |
| Picoseconds | 1,000,000,000 |
| Common Years | 3.170979198×10⁻¹¹ |
| Leap Years | 3.162315321×10⁻¹¹ |
| Julian Years | 3.168808781×10⁻¹¹ |
| Tropical Years | 3.16887654×10⁻¹¹ |
| Sidereal Years | 3.168753579×10⁻¹¹ |
| Synodic Months | 3.919350773×10⁻¹⁰ |
| Sidereal Days | 1.160576284×10⁻⁸ |
| Aeons | 3.168873851×10⁻²⁰ |
| Shakes | 100,000 |
| Fortnights | 8.267195767×10⁻¹⁰ |
| Score | 1.584436925×10⁻¹² |
| Lustra | 6.337747701×10⁻¹² |
| Olympiads | 7.922184627×10⁻¹² |
| Indictions | 2.112582567×10⁻¹² |
| Jubilees | 6.337747701×10⁻¹³ |
| Ghati | 6.944444444×10⁻⁷ |
| Muhurtas | 3.472222222×10⁻⁷ |
| Prahar | 9.259259259×10⁻⁸ |
| Shichen | 1.388888889×10⁻⁷ |
| Moments | 0.00001111111111 |
| Ship's Watches | 6.944444444×10⁻⁸ |
| Kin (Maya) | 1.157407407×10⁻⁸ |
| Winals | 5.787037037×10⁻¹⁰ |
| Tun (Maya) | 3.215020576×10⁻¹¹ |
| Katuns | 1.607510288×10⁻¹² |
| Baktuns | 8.03755144×10⁻¹⁴ |
More Metric (SI) units
- second (time)
- microsecond (time)
- nanosecond (time)
- minute (time)
- hour (time)
- day (time)
- meter (length)
- kilometer (length)
- centimeter (length)
- millimeter (length)
- micrometer (length)
- nanometer (length)
- picometer (length)
- decimeter (length)
- hectometer (length)
- decameter (length)
Browse all time units.