AI engineering glossary · Computing foundations
What is unix time?
Unix time (also called Epoch time, Timestamp): A way of representing a moment as the number of seconds elapsed since 00:00:00 UTC on 1 January 1970, ignoring leap seconds. Computers use it because it is a simple number that is easy to store, compare and subtract.
Unix time: an example
The Unix timestamp 0 means midnight UTC on 1 January 1970, and adding 86400 moves it forward one day.
Related terms
More Computing foundations terms
- Uptime
- User space
- UTF-8
- Virtual machine
- Virtual memory
- Virtual private network
- Von Neumann architecture
- VRAM
Where you learn it
Unix time is part of the AI Engineering Program, which teaches it with notes, a hands-on lab and an exam. The first lesson is free.