Unix time
How to read it
Unix time is a count of seconds from 00:00:00 UTC on 1 January 1970.1 It is widely used in computing, often underneath whatever time a machine shows you.
It pretends that every day has exactly 86,400 seconds, so it skips leap seconds: when one happens, the count repeats a second.1 Below the count is the time left until a signed 32-bit counter runs out, one second after 03:14:07 UTC on 19 January 2038.1
Where it came from
The count passed one billion at 01:46:40 UTC on 9 September 2001, and people in Copenhagen marked it at 03:46:40 local time.1 It is the youngest clock in this cabinet.
Sources
- Unix time (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0)