Talk:Orders of magnitude (time)
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- 109 years - aeon – 106 years - eon – 103 years - millennium – 102 years - century – 101 years - decade – 100 years - year
- annum (a) - kilo-annum (ka) - mega-annum (Ma) - giga-annum (Ga)
- second (s) - millisecond (ms) - microsecond (μs) - nanosecond (ns) - picosecond (ps) - femtosecond (fs)
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[edit] Orders of magnitude
(moved from second)
A millisecond (ms) is equal to one thousandth of a second. It is often used for measuring the duration of speech sounds in phonetics.
- A microsecond (µs) is equal to one millionth (10-6) of a second. It is often used for measuring things like atomic and chemical reactions, which occur in normally imperceptible lengths of time.
- A nanosecond (ns) is equal to 10-9 of a second.
- It is only infrequently put into everyday use. In technical situations it is however a very common unit, especially in computers, telecommunications, pulsed lasers, and some areas of electronics.
- In 1 ns, light travels exactly 299.792458 mm in a vacuum (via the definition of the metre). But the speed of light is slower in materials, indicated by an index of refraction n greater than 1. Thus in air (n = 1.003), light travels about 298.9 mm in 1 ns, but it travels only about 225.4 mm in water (n = 1.33) each nanosecond.
- A picosecond (ps) is equal to 10-12 of a second, or one trillionth in the short scale (ie, one million millionth) of a second.
- The waves of visible light oscillate with a period of about 1 femtosecond.
- An attosecond (as) is an SI unit of time equal to 10-18 of a second.
- The current shortest measurable period of time (as of February 2004) is 100 attoseconds. (BBC News)
- A zeptosecond (zs) is equal to 10-21 of a second.
- A yoctosecond (ys) is equal to 10-24 (one septillionth in the short scale) of a second.
[edit] Conversion to exact seconds
Some articles, such as 1 E6 s provide seconds conversions for the intervals discussed in the article. For example,
*1.54×106 seconds = 17.81 days – half life of californium-253
Other articles, such as 1 E9 s provide only the common times without seconds conversion:
*3.86×109 seconds =122 years and 164 days -- longest recorded lifespan of any known human (Jeanne Calment)
I think we should include the conversions, to aid in comparison especially among disparate units, but the important thing is to settle on one approach and be consistent. Comments? Matchups 13:44, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Centisecond?
Should a Centisecond be added in between the second and millisecond? --Pokekid (talk) 04:11, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Merge?
Oppose, for the same reasons as given in Talk:Orders of magnitude (length)#Possible merger. Cleanup is what is needed, not merge. -Wikianon (talk) 20:51, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
- Comment if consensus has already been found - I couldn't work out what was decided in the archived Talk:Time - then may I remove all the merge tags? Maybe replace with cleanup tags? The concerns of the guideline Wikipedia:Content forking might be resolved by appropriate summarising, or even judicious use of content templates.-Wikianon (talk) 21:02, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Recent redirect to Order of magnitude
Hello Wikianon, This article (or these articles within the magnitude of time) where approved for merger back in January 2008. They do not cite any references or sources and are mostly all stubs and content forks to the subordinate article Orders of magnitude (time). Per Wikipedia:Deletion policy#Merging such articles “that are short and unlikely to be expanded can often be merged.” Furthermore, the terms used for the articles, such as 1 E-21 s, 1 E-18 s, along with the majority found within the template: Associations/Orders of magnitude (time) violate the principals of Wikipedia’s Guidelines on neologisms. In particular, these articles ‘’’do not’’’ cite reliable sources. This contradicts the guideline that a term must cite reliable secondary sources. The reliable secondary sources must comply to Wikipedia’s policies and not contain any Original research. On december 3, 2007 I added a merger template to discuss this issue.[1] A prolonged conversation occurred at talk:time which is now archived here. On January 9th 2008, 7:11 UTC, user: JimWae posted a summary of this discussion. In particular he noted that the “Proposal now is to merge E## articles into Orders of magnitude (time)” Furthermore you will notice that this conversation is from 2008. It is the lasted decision which involved proper procedure (including the somewhat distracting merger templates) and a discussion that lasted several months. Unlike your recent post which shows the Talk:Orders of magnitude (length)#Possible merger discussion between 3 people building a consensus within 6 days, way back in march 2006 (Almost 2 years ago). I plan to undo your change and redirected the page back to the article Orders of magnitude (time) which is the “community’s general concensus.” Your comment, which was left within this edit summary, states that there was “no prior discussion” , when in fact I have just overwhelmingly proved to you that this is not the case. Though it is understandable someone may overlook this “prior discussion”, I find myself unerved, anoyed and finally disturbed by your action considering that on January 13th 2007 you removed the merger request template (as demonstrated by your edit here), which indicates you where aware of all the above circumstances. I would first appreciate and apology and then an explanation on why you continue to edit these articles in such a disruptive maner. Wikipedia has behavioral guidelines on disruption which states:
- “ tendentious: continues editing an article or group of articles in pursuit of a certain point for an extended time despite opposition from one or more other editors” and,
- ” ...fails to cite sources,...”
I believe, you currently pass the test and meet these definitions. Per the guidelines for Wikipedia:Disruption#Dealing with disruptive editors, and this is partially based on the aforementioned fact that you clearly knew about a “prior discussion” (hence lied in your edit summary), I have engaged not only in step 1 and 2, but 3. I trust you will understand that this response is an “attempt to engage in dialogue” and refers “to policies and guidelines as appropriate.” Given the fact that you are not a new editor (actively contributing since September 3, 2006) it makes it difficult for me to asume good faith. In fact, your user contributions (for January 13, 2007) shows that you removed more than 40 of the merger request templates. Hence, I will not hesitate to follow steps 4 and 5. Nevertheless, I will assume good faith and not act as if your mistakes were deliberate. Who know, maybe you didn’t even bother reading the discussion on the talk:time. Nevertheless, I think you have some serious questions that you have to answer as well as some harsh relationship communications obstacles to which we will need to conquer before this leads to something productive. Best regards and I hope I may have answered any of your questions. Thank you kindly for your ambition on this matter. --CyclePat (talk) 06:43, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
- Furthermore, none of the information is being deleted, it is or has simply been merged within this main article Orders of magnitude (time) where we should be able to, in an much easier fashion, colaborate and concentrate on getting reliable, verifiable information. I know there is some information out there... and I know for one we shouldn't be repeating the same "source" (if or when we find some), throughout every article. (I believe this was however already discussed back in January 2008) --CyclePat (talk) 06:59, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
