ChatterBank27 mins ago
I'll be there in a jiffy
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i've heard many times that the word jiffy is actually an amount of time, my question is how big or small of an amount of time, or is it merely a period IN time?
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For more on marking an answer as the "Best Answer", please visit our FAQ.jiffy: n.
1. The duration of one tick of the system clock on your computer (see tick). Often one AC cycle time (1/60 second in the U.S. and Canada, 1/50 most other places), but more recently 1/100 sec has become common. �The swapper runs every 6 jiffies� means that the virtual memory management routine is executed once for every 6 ticks of the clock, or about ten times a second.
2. Confusingly, the term is sometimes also used for a 1-millisecond wall time interval.
3. Even more confusingly, physicists semi-jokingly use �jiffy� to mean the time required for light to travel one foot in a vacuum, which turns out to be close to one nanosecond. Other physicists use the term for the quantum-nechanical lower bound on meaningful time lengths,
4. Indeterminate time from a few seconds to forever. �I'll do it in a jiffy� means certainly not now and possibly never. This is a bit contrary to the more widespread use of the word. Oppose nano. See also Real Soon Now.
1. The duration of one tick of the system clock on your computer (see tick). Often one AC cycle time (1/60 second in the U.S. and Canada, 1/50 most other places), but more recently 1/100 sec has become common. �The swapper runs every 6 jiffies� means that the virtual memory management routine is executed once for every 6 ticks of the clock, or about ten times a second.
2. Confusingly, the term is sometimes also used for a 1-millisecond wall time interval.
3. Even more confusingly, physicists semi-jokingly use �jiffy� to mean the time required for light to travel one foot in a vacuum, which turns out to be close to one nanosecond. Other physicists use the term for the quantum-nechanical lower bound on meaningful time lengths,
4. Indeterminate time from a few seconds to forever. �I'll do it in a jiffy� means certainly not now and possibly never. This is a bit contrary to the more widespread use of the word. Oppose nano. See also Real Soon Now.