11-02-2024, 11:00 AM
I had a timing problem with a computer thingie once. It turned out that one of the cables was longer than expected. We hadn't accounted for that.
One extra foot of cable throws the timing off by one nanosecond -- a billionth of a second -- because that's how long it takes a photon to travel that distance.
So now when I hear computer stuff measured in "gigahertz" -- billions of cycles per second -- I think of a billion little steppy ticks of electrons moving one foot per tick, around in their little circuit chip maze.
Nosh would understand!
One extra foot of cable throws the timing off by one nanosecond -- a billionth of a second -- because that's how long it takes a photon to travel that distance.
So now when I hear computer stuff measured in "gigahertz" -- billions of cycles per second -- I think of a billion little steppy ticks of electrons moving one foot per tick, around in their little circuit chip maze.
Nosh would understand!
