A unix timestamp is just a way to count how many seconds have passed since a very specific moment in time.
Imagine you're playing with your favorite toy car, and every time it zooms past you, you say "1 second," "2 seconds," "3 seconds", that's like counting the seconds as they go by. A unix timestamp does something similar but for the whole world!
How it works
The special moment we start counting from is January 1st, 1970, at exactly midnight. This date and time are called the "epoch", it’s like the starting line of a big race.
From that day onward, every second that passes gets counted up. So if today is January 5th, 2025, at midnight, the unix timestamp would be 1,741,689,600, which means that many seconds have passed since the epoch!
Why we use it
People use unix timestamps because they're simple and work everywhere. Whether you're sending messages on your phone or running a video game, this kind of counting helps computers understand time in a way that’s easy to share and compare, just like how you count seconds while racing your toy car!
Examples
- A unix timestamp is like a digital clock that starts counting from January 1, 1970, and keeps counting every second since then.
- Your computer might show a timestamp as just a big number like '1685423456', this is how it tracks time.
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See also
- How Do Computers Know What Time It Is?
- How do computers read code?
- What are threads?
- Who is Epoch Time?
- How Does The Problem with Time & Timezones - Computerphile Work?