Jiffy

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In English, a jiffy describes a short, often unspecified time interval (similar to the German "moment" or "moment"). The term is believed to originate from 18th century criminal slang . In science and computer technology , "Jiffy" can specify different time intervals or time units , each defined for the application , which allows system-related time measurement .

Richard C. Tolman made the unsuccessful suggestion that the time interval required for light to travel the distance of a femtometer , i.e. about 10 −23 seconds, should be called jiffy.

In the field of computer technology, a jiffy stands for the period duration of the timer interrupt and thus represents an operating system and hardware-dependent unit of measurement . In the course of time, when computers became faster, 1/60 of a second has also become common as a jiffy. This corresponds roughly to the image refresh rate of a computer screen.

literature

  • Robert Love: Linux Kernel Manual. Guide to Design and Implementation of Kernel 2.6. Addison-Wesley, Munich et al. 2005, ISBN 3-8273-2204-9 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Douglas Harper: jiffy . In: Online Etymology Dictionary . November 2001. Retrieved July 29, 2008.
  2. ^ Edward Harrison: Cosmology: The Science of the Universe . Cambridge University Press, March 16, 2000, ISBN 978-1-139-64345-0 , p. 474.