minute (min)
1 minute = 60 seconds
What is minute?
A minute is a unit of time equal to 60 seconds. It is universally used for scheduling, cooking, fitness tracking, and expressing short durations in everyday life.
Notes: Time unit
Real-world uses
Minutes structure daily life through meeting schedules, cooking times, exercise intervals, and transportation timetables. Medical professionals measure heart rate in beats per minute and respiratory rate in breaths per minute.
History
The minute comes from the Latin "pars minuta prima" (first small part), referring to the first division of the hour into 60 parts. This sexagesimal division originated with the ancient Babylonians around 2000 BCE.
Common mistakes
Using "m" as an abbreviation for minutes, which conflicts with metres. The correct abbreviation is "min." Also, performing arithmetic on time without accounting for the base-60 system (e.g., 1.5 hours is 1 hour 30 minutes, not 1 hour 50 minutes).
When is this conversion used?
Converting minute to second is useful in the time domain when comparing values across different measurement standards or applying formulas that require a specific unit.
How to convert minute to second
To convert minute to second, multiply the value by 60.
Conversion formula (from base unit)
x * 60.0
Measurement standards
The SI second is defined as the duration of 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium-133 atom, maintained by the BIPM and national metrology institutes worldwide.
Did you know?
Earth's rotation is gradually slowing due to tidal friction with the Moon. To keep atomic time aligned with solar time, "leap seconds" have been inserted 27 times since 1972 — though they are scheduled to be abolished by 2035.
| minutes | seconds |
|---|---|
| 0.1 | 6 |
| 0.5 | 30 |
| 1 | 60 |
| 2 | 120 |
| 5 | 300 |
| 10 | 600 |
| 25 | 1,500 |
| 50 | 3,000 |
| 100 | 6,000 |
| 250 | 15,000 |
| 500 | 30,000 |
| 1,000 | 60,000 |
Common values
| minutes | seconds | |
|---|---|---|
| Blink of an eye | 0.005 minutes | 0.3 seconds |
| Average pop song | 3.5 minutes | 210 seconds |
| Feature film | 120 minutes | 7,200 seconds |
| One work day (8 hrs) | 480 minutes | 28,800 seconds |
| One calendar year | 525,600 minutes | 31,536,000 seconds |
Full minute conversion table
| Unit | Value | Factor |
|---|---|---|
| second | 1 min = 60 s | × 60 |
| hour | 1 min = 0.01666667 h | × 0.01666667 |
| day | 1 min = 0.00069444 d | × 0.00069444 |
| week | 1 min = 0.00009921 wk | × 0.00009921 |
| year (365 d) | 1 min = 0.0000019 yr | × 0.0000019 |
| millisecond | 1 min = 60,000 ms | × 60,000 |
| microsecond | 1 min = 60,000,000 µs | × 60,000,000 |
| nanosecond | 1 min = 6.000000e+10 ns | × 6.000000e+10 |
| century (100 yr) | 1 min = 1.902588e-08 century | × 1.902588e-08 |