A microsecond is a unit of

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

in the

International System of Units The International System of Units, internationally known by the abbreviation SI (from French ), is the modern form of the metric system and the world's most widely used system of measurement. It is the only system of measurement with official s ...

(SI) equal to one millionth (0.000001 or 10⁻⁶ or ) of a

second The second (symbol: s) is a unit of time derived from the division of the day first into 24 hours, then to 60 minutes, and finally to 60 seconds each (24 × 60 × 60 = 86400). The current and formal definition in the International System of U ...

. Its symbol is μs, sometimes simplified to us when

Unicode Unicode or ''The Unicode Standard'' or TUS is a character encoding standard maintained by the Unicode Consortium designed to support the use of text in all of the world's writing systems that can be digitized. Version 16.0 defines 154,998 Char ...

is not available. A microsecond is to one second, as one second is to approximately 11.57 days. A microsecond is equal to 1000 nanoseconds or of a millisecond. Because the next

SI prefix The International System of Units, internationally known by the abbreviation SI (from French ), is the modern form of the metric system and the world's most widely used system of measurement. It is the only system of measurement with official st ...

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. Frequency is an important parameter used in science and engineering to specify the rate of oscillatory and vibratory phenomena, such as mechanical vibrations, audio ...

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

300 __NOTOC__ Year 300 ( CCC) was a leap year starting on Monday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Constantius and Valerius (or, less frequently, year 1053 ''Ab urbe condita''). The denomination 300 ...

m (AM

medium wave Medium wave (MW) is a 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 daytim ...

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 exactly equal to ). It is exact because, by international agreement, a metre is defined as the length of the path travelled by light in vacuum during a time i ...

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

air-gap flash An air-gap flash is a photographic light source capable of producing sub-microsecond light flashes, allowing for (ultra) high-speed photography. This is achieved by a high-voltage (20 kV typically) electric discharge between two electrodes ...

). * 1 microsecond –

protein folding Protein folding is the physical process by which a protein, after Protein biosynthesis, synthesis by a ribosome as a linear chain of Amino acid, amino acids, changes from an unstable random coil into a more ordered protein tertiary structure, t ...

takes place on the order of microseconds (thus this is the speed of

carbon-based life Carbon is a primary component of all known life on Earth, and represents approximately 45–50% of all dry biomass. Carbon compounds occur naturally in great abundance on Earth. Complex biological molecules consist of carbon atoms bonded with ot ...

). * 1.8 microseconds – the amount of time subtracted from the Earth's

day A day is the time rotation period, period of a full Earth's rotation, rotation of the Earth with respect to the Sun. On average, this is 24 hours (86,400 seconds). As a day passes at a given location it experiences morning, afternoon, evening, ...

as a result of the 2011 Japanese earthquake. * 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 On 26 December 2004, at 07:58:53 local time (UTC+07:00, UTC+7), a major earthquake with a magnitude of 9.2–9.3 struck with an epicenter, epicentre off the west coast of Aceh in northern Sumatra, Indonesia. The Submarine earthquake, undersea ...

. * 3.33564095 microseconds – the time taken by

light Light, visible light, or visible radiation is electromagnetic radiation that can be visual perception, perceived by the human eye. Visible light spans the visible spectrum and is usually defined as having wavelengths in the range of 400– ...

to travel one

kilometre The kilometre (SI symbol: km; or ), spelt kilometer in American English, American and Philippine 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 the ...

in a

vacuum A vacuum (: vacuums or vacua) is space devoid of matter. The word is derived from the Latin adjective (neuter ) meaning "vacant" or "void". An approximation to such vacuum is a region with a gaseous pressure much less than atmospheric pressur ...

. * 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 imperial unit, British imperial unit and United States customary unit of length; both are based on the older English unit of Unit of length, le ...

in a vacuum (or radio waves point-to-point in a near vacuum). * 8 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. * 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

satellite A satellite or an artificial satellite is an object, typically a spacecraft, placed into orbit around a celestial body. They have a variety of uses, including communication relay, weather forecasting, navigation ( GPS), broadcasting, scient ...

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 is a mathematical and scientific description of exponential or gradual decay. Half-life, half life or halflife may also refer to: Film * Half-Life (film), ''Half-Life'' (film), a 2008 independent film by Jennifer Phang * ''Half Life: ...

of polonium-214. * 240 microseconds – half-life of

copernicium Copernicium is a synthetic chemical element; it has 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 and

Roger Bacon Roger Bacon (; or ', also '' Rogerus''; ), also known by the Scholastic accolades, scholastic accolade ''Doctor Mirabilis'', was a medieval English polymath, philosopher, scientist, theologian and Franciscans, Franciscan friar who placed co ...

in 1000 and 1267 AD, respectively. * 490 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). * The average human eye blink 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