Talk:Millisecond

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

WikiProject Time
Time Portal
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Time, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to Time on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please join the project.
??? This article has not yet received a rating on the quality scale.
??? This article has not yet received a rating on the Project's importance scale.

Contents

[edit] Frustration

I got redirected here from "millisecond" and I have not idea what "1 E-3 s" means.

I get frustrated when Microsoft documentation specifies milliseconds but they don't define milliseconds. I know I should know the answer, but I get confused because "millisecond" sounds as if there are a million milliseconds in a second.

This topic page does say that "One millisecond is one-thousandth of a second" and I suppose that is good enough but an alternative explanation would be that one second is a thousand milliseconds. Am I correect that a second is a thousand milliseconds?—This unsigned comment was added by Sam Hobbs (talk • contribs) .

If I am the only one that would prefer the alternative then I can be ignored.

I think "One millisecond is one-thousandth of a second" is better. Yes, of course if one millisecond is one thousandth of a second then one second is a thousand milliseconds.
You might also be interested in SI and SI prefix, which explain how the SI units and their prefixes (like milli) work. A milli of anything is one-thousandth. You might be more familiar with kilo (one thousand) and mega (one million). These are part of the same system.--Srleffler 00:38, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't like the title of this page, not only would it confuse someone learning about lengths of time, but it assumes that you know thas "s" stands for seconds. MichaelBillington 01:56, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Both the prefix "milli~" and the word "million" derive from Latin ... well the latter only indirectly.
“ ... the prefix comes from the Latin mille, meaning one thousand (the plural is milia). ”
“ The name is derived from Italian, where milla was 1,000, and 1,000,000 became millione, "a large thousand!". ”
Hence your confusion but knowing this piece of trivia will probably help. Yes, one second is a thousand milliseconds but I too would prefer things to be stated the other way around. The second is the base unit. The millisecond is defined in terms of the second not the other way around. Jimp 04:05, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree with the OP that this page is very confusing for someone who just wants to know what a millisecond is. 82.46.233.8 10:40, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

I feel your frustration, and I have moved the sentence defining a millisecond to be the lead paragraph on its own. A millisecond is a thousandth of a second. There you go. I see that all the articles on orders of magnitude of time have the same problem and would like to propose that all of them be modified in the same way. If someone else doesn't give a good reason not to, or beat me to it, in the next day or two, I'll do it myself. Dethme0w 07:32, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
I also recently reverted an edit challenging the lack of sourcing for the abbreviation ms. ms is the SI abbreviation for this unit of time and really does not require a citation of its own beyond a link to the second page which already exists, and which in turn links to the SI page which explains all SI abbreviations. To me tagging the abbreviation was questionable considering that there are examples of time spans in this article which probably need more urgently to be cited. Dethme0w 07:43, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] How should we give this article proper referencing?

I'm going to make some changes to try and give this article some references. The reference I will provide is not the best because it will involve a violation of WP:OR which will be explained within the annotation. Lets see how this will turn out. --CyclePat 23:36, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

It requires little more in the way of references beyond those it already has. Most of the facts in it are uncontroversial and undisputed by anyone but CyclePat. You are misapplying WP:OR here and I now caution you that any changes you make based on that guideline will be subject to much scrutiny. The ice grows thin; skate with care. Dethme0w 23:49, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
CyclePat, instead of continuing to pointlessly hammer on the abbreviation, why not spend some constructive time getting sources for those element half-lives, or maybe the wingbeats? Surely those would have a greater need for sourcing (and even for them, the need is feeble at best) than the universally recognized SI abbreviation. Dethme0w 03:36, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
Hi Dethme0w,
You're not being rational here. Within your own aforementioned statement there is admission that this article is lacking source. I have indicated this and placed the templates on the main article yet you or someone has removed it. Are you reverting good faith edits, to which you seemingly agree too. For example, you agree that there are not enough reference yet removed my reference. You don't have any real explanation asides for saying I'm been "disruptive" and that annoys me because you do not elaborate. I would appreciate a better explanation and an apology. I personally think you are being disruptive. I also believe you are stalking me, per your own admission regarding the other article MS (disambiguation). Again, per your own statement, "surely those would have a greater need for sourcing", there is a lack of sources. This is a disruptive admission because it contradicts everything you have been doing. I would, again appreciate an apology for your statement in the edit summary. I think history will judge who has been the arrogant, ignorant and disruptive. I would just like to say that a consensus was agreed upon by millions of users... WP:V and WP:OR... and is considered policy. Now, you remove proper citations such as ([[International System of Units|SI symbol]]: ''ms'')<ref>Wikipedia contributors, "[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=International_System_of_Units&oldid=170575067 International System of Units]", Section: [[SI#Units|Units]], _Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia_, 10-11-2007, 17:38 UTC, Accessed 13-11-2007. '''Note''': This information is based on the analysis of primary information provided within Wikipedia's article [[SI]]. By cross referencing Table 1's, [[SI base unit]], "s" symbol ([[second]]) with Table 2's, [[SI prefix]], "m" symbol ([[milli]]) it is possible to conclude that the symbol "ms" refers to ther term "millisecond". This synthesis may be in violation of wikipedia's policy [[WP:SYN]].</ref>
I find it to be a sad wiki day when one doesn't ask questions anymore... Always ask questions... Always try to find the source... I find it even sadder when someone is rude about it... Always be polite... and always WP:AGF. Thank you, and I hope you understand why I will continue to add references to every article I find anywhere on Wikipedia, including this one. --CyclePat (talk) 02:02, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
It appears the person who reverted my edit is user:Itub. I have reverted his edit here and hope the above explanation is sufficient. His edit summary stated "Fix errors by cyclepat. The abbreviation of millisecond is ms, not Ms" however his edit removed the two references which show that "Ms" is the abreviation for millisecond. Furthermore he does not provide sources for his "fact". If you look at his edit summary, it does not correspond what what his actions. This is because he removed the sources which I handsomelly provided to the article and essentially reverted the article back to it's original state. Should you have any specific concerns I invite you to address them here in an honest maner where we can work to resolve any possible issues. Until then, per WP:V the information I provide meets general concensus for inclusion. --CyclePat (talk) 18:35, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
I have left a message trying to discuss this item with user talk:Itub. Here is a copy of what I stated:
I would like to invite you to take a look at the discussion happening on the Talk:1 E-3 s. You and I are heading towards a slipery slope of WP:3R. Surelly you can explain in better details and provide some sources for your mis-information. (per WP:V the accronym you have provide does not meet the standards for inclusion)... I'm copying this message to the talk:1 E-3 s.
I hope he will find some sources for his information. --CyclePat (talk) 18:44, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
CyclePat, you are the one being disruptive here.
Maybe you are doing so to make a point of some kind, but it isn't going to fly.
In any case Wikipedia is not a reliable source which could be used to verify anything, and should not be cited in the article, even if it did support your point which it does not.
So stop it, okay? Gene Nygaard (talk) 21:47, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

The Wikipedia page you cite correctly states that the abbreviation for 1 E-3 is "m", not "M". It is not original research to put two trivial facts together, such as an SI prefix from one table and a base unit from another. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to do that; it is covered extensively in elementary school in most countries. As for the second reference you cite, it is simply wrong, and it is not authoritative in any way. It is just a random webpage. If you want a real reference, look at the BIPM or NIST brochures on the SI, which are cited in the relevant articles. --Itub (talk) 20:41, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Please, all I'm asking for is a reference. Can you please give me a webpage a book or something. You example of common teaching doesn't help because teachers generally use text books. (I hope they do, and I hope they use recently published ones too!) If you allow me to give a bad example here is one. Let's take trichloroethylene as an example. Because everyone that has taken chemistry grade 11, enriched class or advanced class (which is (sarcastically) a big part of the world) knows that the equation is:
HC≡CH + 2 Cl2 → Cl2CHCHCl2
That's acetylene + 2 chlorine and 1,1,2,2-tetrachloroethane and etc...
Because everyone knows this right! WRONG! I hope you understand this example or Euphemism. Can you please help this article by providing reliable sources per WP:V. The one I found says Ms. Now, if you had asked me... I believe it is ms because this source has all upper caps on the first letters of its list. But nevertheless, you want to argue about the credibility of the source! HAHAHA You got a be kidding! Well, as per the citation, it's not just someone’s website, it is operated by Stanford University for the U.S. Dept. of Energy, and is part of the Standford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC)(link here) written by (Barry Prentiss, an active employee of SLAC as MechDesign CAD Support. Again, do you have any direct sources, which point directly to the information and do not require a WP:SYNTH, as per the first reference within the article? If so, please hand them out... I'll even format the citation using http://www.easybib.com. In the mean time I’d direct your attention to the line above your edit summary which says "Encyclopedic[sic] content must be verifiable" Thank you. --CyclePat (talk) 21:20, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
I never said the author of the website is not respectable, just that the source is not authoritative (see dictionary definition of authoritative) and that it was wrong. It may have been an accidental typo, or a Microsoft product helpfully turning ms into Ms automatically, but it is still wrong. If you want to add a reliable source to the article, I already mentioned two. I would not have removed a reliable source, even if it is unnecessary in this case IMO. But introducing deliberate misinformation such as Ms = millisecond is vandalism. --Itub (talk) 06:02, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
I agree: I’d like to apologize. If I may, I'm pretty ignorant to the subject and the SI system. I really believed that the source I provided was "reliable", which it should be... but it's "not authorative". Because of this sourced, (the first one I found) I imagined that there was another way of abbreviating the subject matter. (note: there were no real sources at the time either to support ms) If I may summarize this: I now know, by looking at the SI prefix's that "Ms" means Mega second, whereas "ms" means millisecond. The source I provided that talks about Ms is a small point of view... it's so small because we know it's wrong! (The question I ask, have you ever seen ms used for millisecond with an uppercase M? rhetorical question) Anyways, as per WP:NPOV you where right, that reference doesn't need to be here. Again, in short, it wasn't the fact of adding sources, but the fact that the sources weren't that good. Right? Again, sorry about all the commotion.
During my block, I've added some content onto my user talk:CyclePat#Milli seconds References page. If you could take a look at it and copy the ones you prefer to this article that would save us a lot of talking. Essentially, I was wondering if you agree with these references and would like to know which ones you want to add? Thank you! Perhaps we could ask for the article to be unprotected? --CyclePat (talk) 19:05, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Title

Why does this article have this obscure title with Millisecond redirecting here? "Millisecond" should be the title. --Bduke (talk) 21:06, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

I wish I could tell you that according to expert so and so... however... unfortunatelly, there are no references in this article. So I'll make a big speculation here and say that it's because it has to do with some mathematical equations? Anyways... I've stated my issues with this article... I'm trying to fix them... as per the past footnotes (above discussion). Good luck, if you find the answer and you then want to put it in this article. I'm about to move on to writting my own essays and publishing them from the University or something. In short... there's a lack of sources and I think we can't figure it out. --CyclePat (talk) 21:27, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
This entire discussion is pointless. This article is part of a series on orders of magnitude. 1 E-3 is the way to denote orders of magnitude. Millisecond would not be an appropriate title for the page as it would be inconsistent with the rest of the series. Scootdive (talk) 04:03, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
I might wish the article were titled "Millisecond" also. I would just guess that it is part of a series, or planned series, of articles about examples of physical phenomena at different time intervals, at millisecond, decisecond, second, decasecond, kilosecond, ... and so on, ranges. I would have a very short article "millisecond" that just says "A millisecond is one thousandth of a second; a second is one thousand milliseconds" with links to Wiktionary, ISO, US Naval Observatory, "second", "time", etc, and a link to "examples of physical phenomena at this time interval" which directs to here (1 E -3).
Millisecond should redirect to second, as most other prefixed units redirect to base units. If the second article had the table like several other base units do, it could redirect as the milliwatt redirect now does, to Watt#SI multiples.
These "order of magnitude" articles are old ones dating back to the days when many prefixed units had their own aricles, including millisecond as you can see from its history.
These articles are more a historical curiousity, something that are interesting, at least to some people, but not all that often used. There aren't a whole lot of people maintaining and updating them (never were, for that matter); for some of the other quantities the various powers of 10 articles have fallen by the wayside, I think sometimes in leaving behind one overall orders of magnitude article for the quantity being measured, and IIRC sometimes grouping them into ranges larger than one decimal order of magnitude, perhaps 109 to 1011 in one article or something along those lines. Gene Nygaard (talk) 14:19, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
Given that most other prefixed units redirect to base units, as Gene points out, yes, Millisecond should redirect to Second for consistancy. However, I'd have to agree with Bduke that the title of this article, as with those of all of these order of magnitude articles, is very obscure. Something such as 10^-3 s would probably be more familiar to most but is still overly technical.
I agree with Gene about merging these articles such that they go by powers of one thousand rather than ten. This would fit in nicely with SI prefixes. 1 E-3 s, 1 E-2 s and 1 E-1 s could all be merged to Millisecond (with Centisecond and Decisecond redirecting there). Of course, this would leave us with the perhaps less-than-desireable situation whereby 1 E0 s, 1 E1 s and 1 E2 s should logically merge to Second, the base unit article.
So, how about this? Merge these order of magnitude articles under titles such as Microseconds to milliseconds, Milliseconds to seconds, Seconds to kiloseconds, Kiloseconds to megaseconds, etc. The prefixed unit articles could be left redirecting to base units or could be redirected to the appropriate one of these new articles. Jɪmp 03:46, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
P.S. Could it even be that that these articles are not all that often used, maintained or updated has something to do with their strange titles & that they are divided so finely (i.e. by decimal order of magnitude instead of something bigger)? Jɪmp 03:51, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
I count approx. 80 edits since 2002. I also observed that the article second appears to explain in better details this SI system and abbreviations. Could it be that the intention was never to have a full article for every one of these subjects? I just can't imagine... well actually I am pretty imaginative and I can imagine each one of these articles probably repeating the same information in regards to history, origin, etymology, etc... Sadly, I'm usually a proponent for having individual article for descriptive items. (ie.: Symphony in B minor - Pathetique which would is a piece from Tchaikovsky.) But this is pretty minute (pun intended) in details. Nothing wrong with that, but I feel that we will inharently have to repeat a lot of information for each article. Merging is a good solution. However it is important to look at other options. Instead of Merging we could stipulate with a template that these articles are "Intentional stub and content forks of the main article ______ (second or SI system)" (WP:CFORK). Ironically, what I would consider to be the "main" article doesn't have the "Magnitude template which is found at the bottom of this article 1 E-3 s. Anyways, I think we must ask ourselves, what is the common denominator for all these articles? Could we have an article on solfège and then on every possible note : do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, si?
Maybe... but the more I think about it... the more I see each microscopic entity (article) becoming a repetitive blurb.
On the other hand. There is no arguing that the "Trivia" section (WP:TRIVIA) is important to this article. (and b.t.w. should be labelled as such!). That's the section where we give many examples. Though it is unsourced, I think it's useful, and should remain included within the article. I can only see it being lost if we merged articles.
So, perhaps a little tag might be the best option and the easiest, (less intrusive), manner of helping out all these articles gain a better level of respect, interest and sourcing! In short, I'm pretty indeferent to merging and if it helps, let's do it! p.s.: make sure we continue to look at other option for a few days before implementing and perhaps contact some other users for feedback. --CyclePat (talk) 18:38, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
I like the idea of merging them all to second. To go through the issues point by point: that having the title as such is in keeping with the series, that's irrelevent. They should all change. If the subject is refered to by one name far more commonly than all others in the English language, that should be the name of the title. As for the trivia, it is actually important to the article. Unlike trivia in most normal articles, this trivia helps the reader gaugue the physical meaning of a millisecond, something that 10-3s simply doesn't get across. And as for why I like the idea of merging, well...it keeps it in line with all the other unit articles ;-) Someguy1221 (talk) 21:05, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
agree: I think you're right here! I support this decission and think it will help all the article which now appear to be content forks. I remember electric bicycle being a fork of motorized bicycle and that article even had some references. In short, you have my support in terms of adding the merge templates doing the transfer! Perhaps it would be coutious to give some warning on a couple editors talk pages who have contributed to the article. I'm waiting for you to make the next move. Best regards. --CyclePat (talk) 00:54, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] millisecond

RFCsci| section=millisecond!! reason=Interpretation of WP:V. Are references necessary in this article? See difference !! time=20:36, 28 November 2007 (UTC) Interpretation of WP:V. Are references necessary in this article? See difference --CyclePat (talk) 20:36, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Uh, God no. That reminds of a request someone made for a reference that the number 4601 comes after 4600. The examples should be sourced for sure, however. In this case, the meaning of the word is inherent merely from it's latin prefix, no source required. Someguy1221 (talk) 20:57, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
Full disclosure: I was the one who removed the references in question. I'd say it's pretty pointless to have a footnote just to confirm that yes, indeed, a millisecond is a thousandth of a second. It's downright ridiculous to have four footnotes. It's a clear, uncontroversial and straightforward use of SI units (which are fully referenced in that article, which is linked from second, which is linked from this article).
In an administrative capacity, it should be noted that I have recently blocked CyclePat for POINTy edit warring over references. I also warned him explicitly not to do exactly what he's insisting on doing here. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 21:42, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
(comment) I was astonished at CyclePat's insistence (above) that the correct abbreviation for millisecond is "Ms" instead of "ms". That's grade-school level material. However, Wiki article titles all upcase the first letter. The disambiguation page Ms (with capital 'M') spells it out (currently), but for example, "e. e. cummings" gets you "E. e. cummings" (which directs to "E. E. Cummings"); you can't title a page "e. e. cummings" no matter what you think of the significance of the capitalization. So Cyclepat's mistake is understandable, but still astonishing innumeracy, and I'm concerned about the (relatively) abrupt deletions of the references (though that was done by TenOfAllTrades). One should keep in mind that the most fundamental things can be the most complex (what, exactly, is a kilogram?) and the references are a relatively unobtrusive way to allow pursuit of the technicalities. Pete St.John (talk) 22:57, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
On the other hand, we have to be sensible in the degree of footnoting and referencing that we do. The abbreviation ms is capitalized and defined correctly in the very first sentence of the article lede; there's no room for confusion there. We just don't footnote (with a dictionary definition, of all things) every word in Wikipedia. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 23:42, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
A reference for this trivial fact is not really necessary, but if we wanted a reference, http://www.bipm.org/en/si/si_brochure/ is more than enough, and is authoritative. Using a dictionary (or four!) to reference a fact in metrology is ridiculous. --Itub (talk) 12:23, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
  • I'm probably one of the biggest citation hawks around and even I think it is excessive to cite "ms" as referring to Millisecond.--Isotope23 talk 17:26, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
That would make a nice external link in the article... but like I said above, an inline cite isn't really necessary.--Isotope23 talk 19:57, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
Would adding an external link section such as a "see also" or something similar be an acceptable? (Personnally, I've made my opinion quite clear on the user talk:TenOfAllTrades, and believe there should be some sort of reference per WP:CITE. But, we're all reasonable people and I'm sure we can agree "that we disagree on this point.") In light of the aforementioned comment from Isotope regarding a "see also" or "external links" section, I believe the addition of the "bipm.org" brochure would be a fair compromise. --CyclePat (talk) 21:36, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Move

I've no idea how or why this happened, but 1 E-3 s redirected to Millisecond and Talk:Millisecond redirected to Talk:1 E-3 s. I've moved the talk to Talk:Millisecond for consistency.--Isotope23 talk 17:24, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

It was a bad move, contrary to existing discussion here, contrary to all logic. The orders of magnitude article should not be here; it can exist where it was, to be used when specifically linked to. Millisecond should redirect to second. It doesn't have any special distinguishing characteristics that warrant a separate article rather than cluttering up the main unit article, such as micrometre (because of the need to distinguish micrometers as length units from micrometer (device), and because of the deprecated old name micron) and gram (the base unit in cgs systems, as well as the root to which SI prefixes are added).
The move should be reversed, and millisecond changed to a redirect to second. Gene Nygaard (talk) 18:42, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
  • False consistency. People look for millisecond at millisecond. Guy (Help!) 19:25, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
This was changed long ago. Now you are making a mess of it again, though you aren't alone
People looking for millisecond deserve useful information. People looking for an orders of magnitude page can have this one, or better yet they could have one basic orders of magnitude page.
What we have now is an almost hopeless mess of inconsistency:
But
Furthermore
But
  • millimeter redirects millimetre which is similar to what most of the old prefixed-unit articles were. It is not one of those single-decimal-order-of-magnitude pages like the one you have moved here to millisecond—that remains the separate article at 1 E-3 m mentioned above.
The symbols are understandably influenced by the fact that many have to go to disambiguation pages. That will always be true for milli- since symbols starting with "m" are indistinguishable from symbols starting with "M" for mega- as long as initial capitalization is turned on. Some of them staring with other letters don't need disambiguation. For example,
I initially argued for the retention of the former, more useful articles on the separate prefixed units (not the orders of magnitude pages, which were different and distinct then). I have since come to the realization that most of them are much better served by the redirects to the base unit article. Gene Nygaard (talk) 21:18, 29 November 2007 (UTC)


  • Don't care either way... but the mainspace and talkpage should be at the same name, where ever consensus deems they should exist.--Isotope23 talk 19:50, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Hi Gene, Please see the above discussion at Talk:Millisecond#Title. It appears JzG and I are not the only ones that support the move. My reason is noted as a possible WP:CFORK. --CyclePat (talk) 21:40, 29 November 2007 (UTC)