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Minute

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This article is about the unit of time. For angle, see Minute of arc. For the written record of a meeting, see Minutes. For other uses, see Minute (disambiguation).
minute
Image
An analogue clock showing one minute after twelve
General information
Unit oftime
Symbolmin
Conversions
1 min in ...... is equal to ...
   SI units   60 s
   Non-SI units   ⁠1/60⁠ h

A minute is a unit of time defined as equal to 60 seconds. The symbol for minutes is min (without a dot).[1] The prime symbol ′ is also sometimes used informally to denote minutes.[2]

In the UTC time standard, a minute on rare occasions has 61 seconds, a consequence of leap seconds; there is also a provision to insert a negative leap second, which would result in a 59-second minute, but this has never happened in more than 40 years under this system.

History

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Al-Biruni first subdivided the hour sexagesimally into minutes, seconds, thirds and fourths in 1000 CE while discussing Jewish months.[3]

Historically, the word "minute" comes from the Latin pars minuta prima, meaning "first small part". This division of the hour can be further refined with a "second small part" (Latin: pars minuta secunda), and this is where the word "second" comes from. For even further refinement, the term "third" (1⁄60 of a second) was once used, but most modern usage subdivides seconds by using decimals. The symbol notation of the prime for minutes and double prime for seconds can be seen as indicating the first and second cut of the hour (similar to how the foot is the first cut of the yard or perhaps chain, with inches as the second cut). In 1267, the medieval scientist Roger Bacon, writing in Latin, defined the division of time between full moons as a number of hours, minutes, seconds, thirds, and fourths (horae, minuta, secunda, tertia, and quarta) after noon on specified calendar dates.[4] Jost Bürgi was the first clock maker to include a minute hand on clock for astronomer Tycho Brahe in 1577.[5] The introduction of the minute hand into watches was possible only after the invention of the hairspring by Thomas Tompion, an English watchmaker, in 1675.[6]

See also

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Notes and references

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  1. ^ "SI-Brochure-9". BIPM (4.01 ed.). June 2026. pp. 140–141. doi:10.59161/AUEZ1291. Retrieved 2026-06-08.
  2. ^ Nelson, D. (2008). "Prime symbol (accent)". The Penguin Dictionary of Mathematics (4th ed.). Penguin UK. ISBN 978-0141920870.
  3. ^ Al-Biruni (1879) [1000]. The Chronology of Ancient Nations. Translated by Sachau, C. Edward. pp. 147–149.
  4. ^ R Bacon (2000) [1928]. The Opus Majus of Roger Bacon. BR Belle. University of Pennsylvania Press. table facing page 231. ISBN 978-1855068568.
  5. ^ Pi, Chia-Yi Tony (January 2000). "Canadians telling time: A study in Dialect Topography". Toronto Working Papers in Linguistics. 18.
  6. ^ Mitman, Carl (1926). "The Story of Timekeeping". The Scientific Monthly. 22 (5): 424–427. Bibcode:1926SciMo..22..424M. JSTOR 7652.

Bibliography

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