beat

   1. a unit of time equal to 0.001 day or 86.4 seconds. "Metric time," meaningdecimalized time, is an idea dating back at least to the French Revolutionof the 1790's. In most metric time proposals, the day is divided into 10 metrichours, each metric hour into 100 metric minutes (or beats), andeach metric minute into 100 metric seconds (sometimes called blinks).In 1998 the Swatch Corporation repackaged metric time in a very attractiveway as Internet time. In their proposal, time is counted in beatsfrom midnight Central European Standard (winter) time (2300 UniversalTime of the previous day, or 6:00 pm U.S. Eastern Standard Time of theprevious day). The time at n beats is recorded as \@n.beat;thus midnight U.S. Eastern Standard Time is \@250.beat.

   2. a musical unit representing a single rhythmic stress. In most musical compositions,beats are organized into measures, witheach measure containing a set number of beats, one of which carries a primaryor accented stress. At the same time, the tempo of the music is expressedby setting a number of beats equal to a whole note. If there are m beatsin a measure and n beats in a whole note, then the fraction m/n iscalled the time signature of the composition. For example, a waltz has atime signature of 3/4 (3 beats per measure and 4 beats per whole note), whilea march has a time signature of 4/4.

   3. a unit of relative time in acting, representing a short, silent pause fordramatic effect. In the script, playwrights may specify a pause of one, two,or more beats. The unit does not have a definite length, but the directorand the actors usually have an intuitive sense of how long a beat shouldbe at a specific point in the action.