Another piece of trivia

I always thought it was peanut butter.

It is exactly how long it used to take my Mom to finish performing some task.

As in; "It'll be done in a jiffy"

Often in reference to food and food preperation. Frequently abbreviated to "jif". As in "Dinner will be done in a jif"

"Dinner will be done in a jif"

This would lead me to believe that a "jif" might be some form of a microwave oven...

Bill

I relate it to time, " I'll be back in a jiffy". Is it something they bought at the boxing day sales?

Regards JD.

! Jiffy = 50 nano-seconds

Think H and Z.

In the Philippines, a Jiffy is a largish Jeep. Probably named because you can say "I'll be there in a Jiffy" and be accurate.

I disagree that the word jiffy, as used colloquially, is a defined length of time. Maybe the original definition was definite but not anymore. It's the same as saying, "I'll be there shortly" or "be back in a flash".

Well folks ...

Whereas I, too, believed the term was ambiguous, describing such as "a while" or "shortly", however, thanks to the magic of the internet, I have learned it is a REAL measurement of time, albeit different in duration depending on the field.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiffy_(time)

[actually, there are many references noted by a simple search]

Very interesting ... useless, but very interesting ... now I can calculate how many giga-jiffies I will work today .

BUT, thanks to YWROADRUNNER, I now have some NEW knowledge, which hopefully will be retained in my memory for more than few jiffies.

Kind regards ...

My research indicates that "Jiffy" comes from the loosely interpreted hieroglyphic, (jeffede), from ancient Egypt to mean "I have to take a wiz right now, so what ever you say, I'm not listening, as I have to take a wiz right now, so I'll catch up to you later, because time is really compressed, and I'm in a hurry, so, I'm sure you understand, and I'll be right back".

But I could be wrong, because there are many references to "jiffy", in the ancient world. More research is needed.

Hang on a tic. I'll be be back in a jif.

Wait on a sec.

I know what a jif is!

It is half a mo - Well only to 2 decimal places!

It depends on who's doing the jiffying.

if it's some slack-jaw then it's 20 to 30 minutes.

but if it's some whiz-kid then it's just nano-seconds.

I won't be a jif...................an engineers response, when asked how long it would be before the job is finished.

OR

The impossible we can do now..............miracles will take a little longer. e.g it won;t take a jiffy..............or in the slightly more correct vernacular, "Piss off I'll let you know when its finished."

A jiffy is slightly more than that finite period of time that you can delay the wife from asking you the second time do something, as in "I'll have it done in a jiffy."

Jiffy is not a legitimate measure of time, but an arbitrary amount of time. You would certainly not use "jiffy" to time an event or measure when to activate a retro rocket on a spaceship. When you say "I'll be there in a jiffy", many other factors come into play that can affect the amount of time till an event. You might fall down a stair and therefore delay that jiffy, or you may get there faster than you had planned.

That is my opimion and I'm sticking with it.

Good to see you Ronseto.

I used to be employed testing stack emmisions for EPA compliance. Spent a great deal of time your way. Mostly at Chevron Pascagoula. Last I was there the place was still pretty beat up from the storms - 2006/2007.

Welcome.

Okay everybody Google. I didn't lie , I was back in a jiffy , I stayed for two jiffy's, I slowed down this time so you can read the answer.

Unfortunately there is no one answer, it varies with milieu. So go ahead and Google, you'll probably get your results in a jiffy.

My definition: A jiffy= A precise unit of time, with no precise definition.

Before committing to a more precise definition, I intend to discuss my thought process with my therapist next week. I mean a jiffy can be the frequency of an alternating current for example 60 cycles per second (actually 59.94 Hz) the time it takes light to travel 1 fermi, varies by which version of Linux you're using or the hardware platform you're relating it to, yet it is precise to .0001 pico seconds.

Should be able to send another therapist into therapy in a jiffy.

Found a couple of good links.

http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Jiffy-(time)

http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/phy00/phy00687.htm

No - a Hz is a measure of frequency (the reciprocal of time). I believe the Jiffy you are referring to is the time for one complete cycle of the power line, or 1/60 of a second (in the USA).

I have no Idea where YWR got that 59.94 Hz. My frequency meter indicates that any variation from 60.0000Hz is in the 4th place after the decimal point, at least over a short time of measurement. Perhaps my power quality is better thatn his...

I should've done a better job of explaining, if you checked the first link, I was referring to the NTSC television standard, when I mentioned 59.94 HZ. The electronics definition for a jiffy is 1/50 or1/60 of a second, depending on where you are.

Last I checked my math, 1 Hz of 60Hz would be 1/60th of a second, an 1Hz of a 50Hz system would be 1/50th of a second. The time measure of a jiffy is determined by the frequency.

If I have erred it is because I typed this in a jiffy.

You didn't make a math error, and typical AC power frequency is definitely one of the definitions of Jiffy , However Jiffy seems to have multiple definitions.

The only universal definition seems to be that it is some fraction of a second, with that in mind if you typed that in a Jiffy, we can test your math skills, how many words a minute does it work out to be?

No you couldn't do that without an ironclad definition.

I intend to propose a new universal standard. A Jiffy= the length of time it takes light to travel 1/100 of a jō .

Based on all the answers given, I'd say that a jiffy is an amount of time defined by the speaker. It can only be measured in shakes of a lamb's tail, twinkles of an eye, or drops of a hat.

FWIW, I once worked on a philosophy class project with the lead singer of a band named Jyffy Trip. He named the band after a local convenience store.

Agreed. I think practically every language has such a notion to determine a duration of something going on. Yes twinkle of an eye or beats of heart.

Now, do you know how long a shake is? and where the two terms come from?

here is a hint.

manhattan

I forget the exact number, but it comes from "One shake of a lambs tail" and was derived during the Manhatten project... development of the first atom bomb.

Bill

Yep, bingo!

10 nanoseconds....

It is the approximate life of a neutron in the throws of a nuclear fission chain reaction.

I'll be back in a flash.............

.................perhaps not!!!!!

a Jiffy = 33.3333 picoseconds or one light centimeter.

oops, I made a small error. The correct value is 33.3564 picoseconds.

Hello YWROADRUNNER:

1) This phrase or word has been used all my life. In a jiffy..........

2) I also knew it was something like 1/60 second, but not sure where from.

3) And it is also 1 to 10 ns.

4) In Planck time it is about 5.4 × 10⁻⁴⁴ seconds........That is an awful lot of zero's, and unless you are in Astro Physics a pretty useless thing to know.

5) In physics a jiffy is, the time it takes for light to move one 'fermi' (the size of a nucleon). Discovered by Edward R Harrison. I fermi is 10-15m, or, in time, 3 x 10-²⁹ seconds. Wonder how he measured it? Nuclear watch perhaps?

Have a great new year to all!