Choose a Measurement
Select a measurement and convert between different units
Single conversion
To convert from Millisecond (ms) to Second (s), use the following formula:
Let's convert 5 Millisecond (ms) to Second (s).
Using the formula:
Therefore, 5 Millisecond (ms) is equal to Second (s).
Here are some quick reference conversions from Millisecond (ms) to Second (s):
| Milliseconds | Seconds |
|---|---|
| 0.000001 ms | s |
| 0.001 ms | s |
| 0.1 ms | s |
| 1 ms | s |
| 2 ms | s |
| 3 ms | s |
| 4 ms | s |
| 5 ms | s |
| 6 ms | s |
| 7 ms | s |
| 8 ms | s |
| 9 ms | s |
| 10 ms | s |
| 20 ms | s |
| 30 ms | s |
| 40 ms | s |
| 50 ms | s |
| 100 ms | s |
| 1000 ms | s |
| 10000 ms | s |
A millisecond is a tiny unit of time equal to one-thousandth of a second. To put that in perspective, a single blink of an eye takes about 300 to 400 milliseconds. Often abbreviated as ms, it's a standard unit of measurement essential for understanding speed in technology, biology, and our everyday digital lives.
Our brains are incredibly fast, processing an entire image in just 13 milliseconds.
This incredible speed allows for the smooth motion of still images in movies. For example, most movies are shot at 24 frames per second, with each frame appearing for about 42 milliseconds. Millisecond processing is essential to our interaction with the world around us.
Every millisecond matters online. Tiny delays we barely notice can still hurt performance, annoy users, and cost real money. A few examples:
The human nervous system is a remarkable network that sends messages in just milliseconds. A nerve impulse, also known as an action potential, lasts for only 1 to 2 milliseconds.
In that tiny fraction of time, an electrical signal travels down a neuron, allowing your brain to send commands to the rest of your body almost instantly. This is what will enable us to think, move, and feel in real-time.
Have you ever stopped to think about what a "second" really is?
As the base unit of time in the International System of Units (SI), the second is a fundamental part of our daily lives. But its definition has an intriguing history — from tracking the Sun's movements to measuring the vibrations of a single atom.
While we used to define a second based on the Earth's rotation around the Sun, that method wasn't precise enough for modern science.
Today, the official definition of a second is based on the incredibly consistent and reliable atomic clock.
So, what does that mean? Officially, one second is the time it takes for a caesium-133 atom to oscillate (or vibrate) exactly 9,192,631,770 times. Think of it as a tiny, perfectly predictable pendulum.
This atomic standard is far more stable than measuring the Earth's rotation, which can vary slightly.
The reason we divide minutes and hours into 60 parts dates back thousands of years to the ancient Babylonians. They used a sexagesimal (base-60) numbering system for their advanced mathematical and astronomical calculations.
This practical system was passed down through Greek and Arab scholars and was eventually adopted worldwide for two primary purposes:
If atomic clocks are so perfect, why do we sometimes need to adjust them?
The problem is that the Earth's rotation is not perfectly uniform—it can speed up or slow down by tiny fractions of a second.
This causes a slow drift between the time kept by atomic clocks (Coordinated Universal Time, or UTC) and the time based on the Earth's position relative to the Sun.
To fix this, we occasionally add a leap second — an extra second that keeps our clocks aligned with the solar day, so that sunrise and sunset occur when we expect them to.