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A unit of time is any particular time interval, used as a standard way of measuring or expressing duration. The base unit of time in the International System of Units (SI), and by extension most of the Western world, is the second, defined as about 9 billion oscillations of the caesium atom. The exact modern SI definition is "[The second] is defined by taking the fixed numerical value of the cesium frequency, ΔνCs, the unperturbed ground-state hyperfine transition frequency of the cesium 133 atom, to be 9192631770 when expressed in the unit Hz, which is equal to s−1."[1]
Historically, many units of time were defined by the movements of astronomical objects.
- Sun-based: the year is based on the Earth's orbital period around the sun. Historical year-based units include the Olympiad (four years), the lustrum (five years), the indiction (15 years), the decade, the century, and the millennium.
- Moon-based: the month is based on the Moon's orbital period around the Earth.
- Earth-based: the day is based on the time it takes for the Earth to rotate on its own axis, as observed on a sundial[citation needed]. Units originally derived from this base include the week (seven days), and the fortnight (14 days). 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.
These units do not have a consistent relationship with each other and require intercalation. For example, the year cannot be divided into twelve 28-day months since 12 times 28 is 336, well short of 365. The lunar month (as defined by the moon's rotation) is not 28 days but 28.3 days. The year, defined in the Gregorian calendar as 365.2425 days has to be adjusted with leap days and leap seconds. Consequently, these units are now all defined for scientific purposes as multiples of seconds.
Units of time based on orders of magnitude of the second include the nanosecond and the millisecond.
- ^ "The International System of Units – 9th edition – Complete text in English and French (2019)". BIPM. Retrieved 22 July 2022.