The second (symbol: s) is the base unit of time in the International System of Units (SI) and is also a unit of time in other systems of measurement (abbreviated s or sec). Between 1000 (when al-Biruni used seconds) and 1960 the second was defined as 1/86,400 of a mean solar day (that definition still applies in some astronomical and legal contexts). Between 1960 and 1967, it was defined in terms of the period of the Earth’s orbit around the Sun in 1900, but it is now defined more precisely in atomic terms. Seconds may be measured using mechanical, electric or atomic clocks.
19th- and 20th-century astronomical observations revealed that the mean solar day is slowly but measurably lengthening and the length of a tropical year is not entirely predictable either; thus the sun–earth motion is no longer considered a suitable basis for definition. With the advent of atomic clocks, it became feasible to define the second based on fundamental properties of nature. Since 1967, the second has…