milisekúndu

Milisekúndu is a unit of time in the metric system, equal to one thousandth of a second. Its standard symbol is ms. Because the prefix milli- denotes 10^-3, one milisekúndu equals 0.001 seconds. There are 1000 milisekúndu in one second, and 1,000,000 microseconds per second.

Milisekúndu are widely used to express short time intervals in science, engineering, computing, and everyday measurements. In computing and digital electronics, they measure processing delays, timers, and frame or refresh rates. In networking and telecommunications, latency and round-trip times are often given in milliseconds. In multimedia, synchronization, buffering, and audio/video processing are described using milliseconds.

Common conversions help put the unit in perspective: 500 ms equals 0.5 seconds, 1,000 ms equals 1 second, and 1,000,000 ms would be about 1000 seconds (roughly 16.7 minutes). Human perceptual and motor processes often fall within the range of tens to hundreds of milliseconds; for example, average human reaction time is around 200 to 250 ms.

Etymology notes that the name milisekúndu combines the SI prefix milli- with the base unit second. The unit is part of the broader family that includes microseconds (10^-6 s) and nanoseconds (10^-9 s), which express progressively shorter intervals.