The minute equals 60 seconds exactly. It is the base unit for short daily-life durations — meetings, cooking times, exercise intervals. The Babylonian sexagesimal system gave us the 60-second minute (and 60-minute hour).
Real-world: Standard meeting: 30 or 60 min. Pasta: 8–12 min. UK to Paris on Eurostar: 134 min.
Read full minute reference →The second is the SI base unit of time. It is defined by the caesium-133 atomic transition: 9,192,631,770 cycles of this oscillation equal one second. Modern atomic clocks maintain the second to about 10⁻¹⁶ accuracy — you would lose one second in 100 million years.
Real-world: A blink takes 100–400 ms. Heartbeat at rest ~1 s. The 100 m sprint world record is 9.58 s (Usain Bolt).
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