Some people think that the true measure of life is not the number of breaths you take, but rather the number of breath-taking moments. There is no doubt that the time we have is valuable. Spend some time today with those you love. Minutes become seconds as time passes. Minutes turn into hours, and hours turn into days. Before you know it, the time has passed quickly as the days turn into years. Have you ever made a split-second decision? You had planned to do X, but you abruptly changed your mind and chose to do Y. Perhaps it was choosing the narrower route rather than the busy one. Whatever the cause, a few brief seconds can be well spent and alter someone’s life for all time.
Have you ever given the number of seconds you have any thought? Let’s count the seconds we have if every second matters. What fraction of a day is a second, for instance? A month? A whole year? But those aren’t the seconds that matter! When we talk about a split second, we usually mean the time it takes to say “one thousand one.” To figure out how many seconds there are in a year, we’ll need to know a little math. To change the unit of measurement for a given quantity, we must first determine the conversion factor. To accomplish this, we must create a ratio, or fraction, that equals one. The conversion factor in a ratio is a multiplier that is applied to the larger unit to multiply it into the smaller unit. Sound confusing? Don’t worry. A simple example will make things clear. Let’s first determine the various units of time measurement used before calculating the number of seconds in a year. The second, minute, hour, day, month, and year are all available.
The year will be the first of these measurements to be discussed. We need to know how many months there are in a year in order to convert years to the next smallest unit, the month. Our ratio would be 1:12 (one year:12 months) or 1/12 since we are aware that there are 12 months in a year. The conversion factor is therefore 12. Simply multiply the number of years by the conversion factor to find out how many months there are in a year. Five years, multiplied by 12 months per year, equals 60 months. Simple enough, yes?
You can perform numerous conversions to smaller and smaller units to determine even smaller units. Just make sure that the units you’re using are all the same. For instance, despite the fact that each day has 24 hours, not every month has the same number of days. You must first convert from months to days, hours, minutes, and finally seconds in order to convert one year to seconds. You must calculate the conversion factor and multiply it at each step. Here is an example of how to convert one year to seconds: (We do not include leap years!) One year is equal to 365 days.
24 hours in a day.
1 hour = 60 minutes
1 Minute = 60 seconds
So…drum roll, please… 31,536,000 seconds, or 365 times 24 times 60 times 60, make up a year. Over the course of the following year, you must spend more than 31 million seconds. How are you going to spend YOUR seconds?
