Time to Decimal Calculator

This time to decimal calculator comes in useful when you want to know the equivalent time in hours, minutes, or seconds in their decimal forms. It converts time in the format hh:mm:ss to just hours, minutes, or seconds. Such conversions are essential if you want to do some math with times, such as adding and subtracting hours, minutes, or seconds. If this is your goal, you may want to visit our add and subtract time calculator.

Using this calculator is easy. Enter the hours, minutes, and seconds of your time, and it will display the decimal values for hours, minutes, and seconds. Read on you find out how to calculate time in decimals manually.

For other tasks related to changing units of time, visit Omni's time unit converter.

The basic principle of converting time to decimal time is quite straightforward. Say you want to know the time in only hours. Therefore, you need to convert the minutes and seconds values to hours, and add these results to the number of hours. The formula for decimal hours is, therefore:

decimal hours = hh + (mm / 60) + (ss / 3600)

where:

• hh is the hours component of the time;
• mm is the minutes component of the time; and
• ss is the seconds component of the time.

There are 60 minutes in an hour, so we divide the number of minutes by 60 to convert minutes to decimal hours. Similarly, for seconds, we divide by 3600, as there are 60 seconds in a minute and 60 minutes in an hour (60 × 60 = 3600).

You can derive formulas for decimal minutes and seconds in the same way:

decimal minutes = (hh × 60) + mm + (ss / 60)

decimal seconds = (hh × 3600) + (mm × 60) + ss

Once you have two times in the same unit of time measurement, such as hours, you can perform mathematic operations on them like regular numbers.

Let's go through a worked example of converting the time 2:30:35 to the decimal forms of hours, minutes, and seconds. First, plug the numbers into the decimal hours equation:

decimal hours = 2 + (30 / 60) + (35 / 3600)

decimal hours = 2 + 0.5 + 0.009722

decimal hours = 2.0597 hr

Then, use the decimal minutes formula to get the time in decimal minutes:

decimal minutes = (2 × 60) + 30 + (35 / 60)

decimal minutes = 120 + 30 + 0.5833

decimal minutes = 150.58 min

Finally, the time in decimal seconds is:

decimal seconds = (2 × 3600) + (30 × 60) + 35

decimal seconds = 7200 + 1800 + 35

decimal seconds = 9035 s

Enter all three components of the time to get the decimal values; that's hours, minutes, and seconds values. If you have a time that has no minutes or seconds (e.g., 2:30:00 has no seconds value), enter a zero in the calculator.

We will then display the decimal values for hours, minutes, and seconds. You can then use these values in any time-based calculations you might want to perform.

Another kind of decimal time, which was made famous during the French Revolution in 1792, is a time system where there are 10 hours in a day, 100 minutes in an hour, and 100 seconds in a minute. This system of time would make doing math with time easy, as all the numbers are in the same number base, base 10.

Unfortunately, the decimal time system only lasted a couple of years. You may also enjoy checking out the French Republican Calendar.