How to Calculate Milliseconds

Metric prefixes are applied to modify the International System of Units (SI). They are a convenient way to express very large or very small numbers. For instance, 2,000 grams can be written as 2 kilograms and the prefix "kilo" implies the magnitude of 1,000. Milliseconds are a unit of time and the prefix "milli" indicates "one thousandth," that is, the magnitude of 0.001.

Difficulty:

Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need

• Calculator

1. Obtain the conversion coefficient "k" between 1 second and 1 millisecond.
   1 second = k x (1 millisecond). Since 1 millisecond equals 0.001 seconds, you can find that k = 1 second/millisecond = 1 second/0.001 seconds = 1,000. Hence,
   1 second = 1 millisecond x 1,000.

2. Find the general formula to convert seconds to milliseconds using the following proportion:

   1 second corresponds to 1 millisecond x 1,000.
   Time (seconds) corresponds to time (milliseconds).

   The solution of this proportion leads to the formula:
   Time (milliseconds) = Time (seconds) x 1,000.

3. Convert 0.0073 seconds into milliseconds using the formula from Step 2.
   Value (milliseconds) = 0.0073 seconds x 1,000 = 7.3 milliseconds.

Resources

• Metric Prefixes