Re: What is a 'Jiffy'

Hi Jon,
        I'm sad to admit I haven't gotten a chance to check out
Pellegrino's book, but I do have a hunch about this.  Is
Pellegrino a Vonnegut-like writer, i.e. uses some dry humor here
and there, kind of sarcastic?  It just seems ironic to me, like
a rather highbrow one-liner joke that he's using for effect.
If he's the kind of writer that would wind up on the back page
of the New Yorker, I'd say that this is definitely just a gag.
        But you never know, so I did look in a few sources.
First of all, I checked my memory-- I'm up to 6 years of physics
classes now, and I don't remember that unit.  Sounds too cute
to be a real scientific term.  But on the other hand, there is a
unit called a "barn" because it's as big as a barn, and the
number "gogol" was named by a child, so there's no accounting for
the physicists/frustrated comedians out there.  The "Concise
Handbook of Mathematics and Physics" by Alenitsyn, Butikov, and
Kondratyev makes no mention of it.  None of the standard
textbooks I drag around with me (Jackon's EM, Sakurai's QM,
my freshman physics book, etc.) talk about it.  The Wordsworth
Reference "Dictionary of Science and Technology" doesn't have it
(though it does have, just below where "jiffy" would be, "JND",
the abbreviation for "Just noticeable difference," which is
at least as weird as "jiffy" would be I think).
        So basically, I'm tentatively calling this a joke, though
I really should read the book to call it for sure.  It's possible
that "jiffy" is some obscure slang used by people working with
light interacting with subatomic particles, and Pellegrino
somehow got ahold of it.  But "jiffy" is certainly not in common
usage in physics, and it's cuteness makes me pretty suspicious.
You could say that as a joke, it's got limited effect in that only
physicists are gonna laugh, but I guess that's literature for you.
        By the way, if anyone has heard of it, please feel free
to cut my answer to pieces.

Cheers,
Sean O'Connor
UCSD Physics