Crossword clues for nanosecond
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
Wiktionary
n. A measure of time equal to one billionth of a second. Abbreviation: ns
WordNet
n. one billionth of a second; one thousandth of a microsecond
Wikipedia
A nanosecond (ns) is a SI unit of time equal to one billionth of a second (10 or / s). One nanosecond is to one second as one second is to 31.69 years.
The word nanosecond is formed by the prefix nano and the unit second. Its symbol is ns.
A nanosecond is equal to 1000 picoseconds or microsecond. Because the next SI unit is 1000 times larger, times of 10 and 10 seconds are typically expressed as tens or hundreds of nanoseconds.
Times of this magnitude are commonly encountered in telecommunications, pulsed lasers and some areas of electronics.
Light travels exactly 29.9792458 centimeters in 1 nanosecond. This is equivalent to 11.8 inches, leading some to refer to a nanosecond as a light-foot. A light-foot is actually ~1.0167033621639674471063578257196 nanoseconds. The earliest use of the term is by George Gamow. Another early reference commonly given is to Admiral Grace Hopper, who used to give out pieces of wire about a foot long to illustrate the eventual problem of building very high speed computers. If it takes light a nanosecond to go a foot (in a vacuum, slower in copper), then a computer built with parts connected by half this distance, of wire, would take at least a nanosecond to send data to a part and get a response. The solution, developed in Hopper's lifetime, was first the integrated circuit and later the multi-core processor.
"Once she presented a piece of wire about a foot long, and explained that it represented a nanosecond, since it was the maximum distance electricity could travel in wire in one-billionth of a second. She often contrasted this nanosecond with a microsecond - a coil of wire nearly a thousand feet long - as she encouraged programmers not to waste even a microsecond."
Usage examples of "nanosecond".
Whatever Evermore had been doing in the machine shop, it would not advance the engine repair by a nanosecond.
It peaked at a billion gauss, then after several nanoseconds fell almost to zero.
Nou-menal Mentality, corrupting and erasing every version of his personality that came on-line, reproducing and hiding and reproducing again, waiting nanoseconds or centuries, howsoever long it should take, in case any copies of Phaethon stored somewhere else ever connected once more with the Mentality, and then waking to strike him down again.
In the nanosecond it took for the scarlet bolt to sizzle through his chest, Nidder realized Kast had positioned him so carefully and precisely because the bounty hunter wanted to kill him.
He had one nanosecond of puzzlement as to why one of his own crew was lifting a saffer at him.
The Swath, fighting to regain control of my kite, until the automatic cutoff kills the synch just nanoseconds before impact.
The nanosecond after the will was read Twa and Threa sued for their quarter of the take.
The fleeting trace was perhaps the only telltale sign that the crashes were caused by a timing problem: a synchronizer stalled in a metastable condition for a few nanoseconds too long.
But on a bustling, perfervid world like Visaria, where business was ongoing around the clock and cred was being accumulated by the nanosecond, every sentient species whose culture allowed for the accrual of wealth by an individual, clan, family, or group had an interest in establishing a presence in the capital city.
His brain took a nanosecond to process the backlighted outline of a female figure pointing a discharged gun.
Almost instantly in less than a thousand nanoseconds he found his master programs installed in these millions of moon-sized brains.
Scientists would soon find themselves adrift in a bewildering realm of particles and antiparticles, where things pop in and out of existence in spans of time that make nanoseconds look plodding and uneventful, where everything is strange.
As the destroyers swept through the disintegrating convoy, both skilled captains brought their warships close enough to the Imperial spaceships for chainguns to be employed, even if for only a few nanoseconds.
How can this living disorder coexist with the fantasy world of nanosecond measurements and picogram quantities?
Only the fact that the much more powerful Shell AI operated in terms of nanoseconds prevented a catastrophe of scandalous proportions.