Is there a word for a sixtieth of a jiffy?

Question

One definition of a jiffy is that it is a sixtieth of a second, in the same way that a second is a sixtieth of a minute and a minute a sixtieth of an hour. Is there a name for the unit of time that is a sixtieth of a jiffy?

Answer 1

When dealing with units, we are at liberty to define new units as long as the definition is clear. Here are my definitions:

A tenth of a jiffy ---> decijiffy

A hundredth of a jiffy ---> centijiffy

A thousandth of a jiffy ---> millijiffy

A sixtieth of a jiffy ---> sexagesijiffy

Of course the above definitions presuppose that a jiffy has already been defined.

Answer 2

Is there a name for the unit of time that is a sixtieth of a jiffy?

Jiffy

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-mechanical 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.

1. Valve computers

Rather frustratingly definition number 1 is hopelessly out of date as computer clock timers have not run at "... once for every 6 ticks of the clock, or about ten times a second" since valve computers were in service.

The clock rate of the first generation of computers was measured in hertz or kilohertz (kHz), but in the 21st century the speed of modern CPUs is commonly advertised in gigahertz (GHz).

For reference:

• 1 Hz = 1 cycle per second

• 1 KHz = 1*10^3 Hz or 1000 Hz

• 1 MHz= 1*10^6 or 1000,000 Hz

• 1 GHz=1*10^9 or 1000,000,000 Hz

2 Wall Time

Confusingly, the term is sometimes also used for a 1-millisecond wall time interval.

1 millisecond is 1 millisecond, but the definition is more relative:

is the actual time taken from the start of a computer program to the end. In other words, it is the difference between the time at which a task finishes and the time at which the task started.

The difference in time that it would take between "Print Hello World", and "Calculate then Print the Billionth Prime number" should be apparent.

3 and 4

Both definitions are self apparently humorous and so broad as to be very resilient to precise enumeration.

Conclusion

So, to the question:

Is there a name for the unit of time that is a sixtieth of a jiffy?

No such unit of time exists as a "jiffy" beyond 70 year old vague definitions, indeterminacy and humour, it follows that 1/60 th of this is as imprecise.