Second

A second is the smallest unit of time that most people own a clock for. There are sixty in a minute, which is how the minute knows it has finished.^[1]

A second knows it is over because the next second has started. The next second knows it has started because the previous one is over. Clockmakers describe this arrangement as “completely reliable” and decline to discuss it further.

Definition

Since 1967 the second has been defined by a caesium atom, which vibrates 9,192,631,770 times per second. Scientists established how long a second is by counting these vibrations for one second. The atom was not consulted.^[2]

Before 1967 a second was defined as the time it takes to say “one elephant”. This worked well until the elephant was asked to say it, and took eleven seconds.

Wait a second

People who say “wait a second” almost never mean one second. A 2018 study timed 1,200 requests to wait a second and found an average wait of 4 minutes 12 seconds, of which one second was the second requested and the rest was “just finding something”.^[3]

A “split second” is a second that has been divided in two. The pieces are not wasted; they are swept up and used for blinking.

See also

• Minute – sixty of these
• Time
• Number 7 – takes about a second to say
• Jiffy – a shorter one
• Leap second – an extra one

References

1. Tick, T. (1967). Count Until It Stops. Pendulum Press. p. 1.
2. Caesium, C. (1967). “9,192,631,770 and Counting”.
3. Moment, M. (2018). “Just Finding Something”. Journal of Waiting 12.