Here's some funny trivia about som units of time you might not be aware of:
>From Dr. Joe Burns' HTML Goodies Express newsletter:
And Remember: Have you every heard of a "Jiffy"? Ever waited
"Two shakes of a lamb's tail"? Did you know they are true
lengths of time? Apparently some mathematicians had a sense
of humor and used the titles to represent some calculations.
Jiffy: 3.3357 times 10 raised to the -11 (3.3357x10^-11)
seconds. It's named for the length of time it takes light to
travel a centimeter in a vacuum.
Shakes of a lamb's tail: This one was named during the
"Manhattan Project". One shake = 1x10^-8 sec. That's the
time is took for an imploding shell of uranium to reach the
center of the sphere.
That's fast, huh?
Anyone else have some funny units to share?
Mike Lorrey
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Jul 27 2000 - 14:10:58 MDT