Editing Minute (section)

==History==
[[Al-Biruni]] first subdivided the hour [[sexagesimal]]ly into minutes, [[second]]s, thirds and fourths in 1000 CE while discussing Jewish months.<ref name="al-Biruni">{{ cite book | author=Al-Biruni | year=1879 | orig-year=1000 | title=The Chronology of Ancient Nations | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pFIEAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA147 | pages=147–149 | translator-last=Sachau | translator-first=C. Edward | author-link=Al-Biruni}}</ref>

Historically, the word "minute" comes from the Latin ''pars minuta prima'', meaning "first small part".  This division of the hour can be further refined with a "second small part" (Latin: ''pars minuta secunda''), and this is where the word "second" comes from.  For even further refinement, the term "third" ({{frac|1|60}} of a second) remains in some languages, for example [[Polish language|Polish]] (''tercja'') and [[Turkish language|Turkish]] (''salise''), although most modern usage subdivides seconds by using decimals.  The symbol notation of the prime for minutes and double prime for seconds can be seen as indicating the first and second cut of the hour (similar to how the foot is the first cut of the [[yard]] or perhaps [[chain (length)|chain]], with inches as the second cut).  In 1267, the medieval scientist [[Roger Bacon]], writing in Latin, defined the division of time between [[full moon]]s as a number of hours, minutes, seconds, thirds, and fourths (''horae'', ''minuta'', ''secunda'', ''tertia'', and ''quarta'') after noon on specified calendar dates.<ref>{{cite book | author=R Bacon | year=2000 | orig-year=1928 | title=The Opus Majus of Roger Bacon | publisher=[[University of Pennsylvania Press]] | page=table facing page 231 | isbn=978-1855068568 |no-pp=true | others=BR Belle}}</ref> Jost Bürgi was the first clock maker to include a minute hand on clock for astronomer Tycho Brahe in 1577.  <ref>{{cite journal | url=https://twpl.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/twpl/article/view/6252/3240 | title=Canadians telling time: A study in Dialect Topography | journal=Toronto Working Papers in Linguistics | date=January 2000 | volume=18 | last1=Pi | first1=Chia-Yi Tony }}</ref> The introduction of the minute hand into watches was possible only after the invention of the [[hairspring]] by [[Thomas Tompion]], an English watchmaker, in 1675.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Mitman|first=Carl |title=The Story of Timekeeping |journal=The Scientific Monthly |date=1926 |volume=22 |issue=5 |pages=424–427 |bibcode=1926SciMo..22..424M |jstor=7652}}</ref>