ever said that you’ll be back in a jiffy? well, apparently you don’t have long! π
#tdil that a ‘jiffy’ is an actual unit used to measure time! β°
yep, turns out that the fun little word that everyone uses on a whim is an actual unit of time! β±
it even has a couple of different uses and everything π± originally used as thieves slave in the 18th century for ‘lightning’ … it has been adopted by everyone from scientists to computer peeps π
so, let’s go down the computer route first π – in computer engineering, a jiffy is the length of one cycle of a computer’s system clock (~10 milliseconds) ππ»
next, the science route! π€ about a century and a half after its invention in the 18th century, the word was reclaimed by the same guy who invented the word ‘photon’ … a physical chemist called gilbert newton lewis.
his meaning of the word was/is the amount of time it takes for light to travel one centimetre in a vacuum ππ» … that’s about 33.3564 picoseconds (nope, i’ve no idea what they are either π)
hope you enjoyed! π
lates π #tdil
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love a pointless but interesting fact π fancy reading more? just take a gander ->here<-
(piccy time again ππ» the header is ->here<-, picture one is ->here<- and two is ->here<-)