1. nano
[CMU: from nanosecond] A brief
period of time. “Be with you in a nano” means you really will
be free shortly, i.e., implies what mainstream people mean by “in a
jiffy” (whereas the hackish use of ‘jiffy’ is quite
different — see jiffy).
2. nano
[SI: the next quantifier below micro-;
meaning ×
10-9] Smaller than
micro-, and used in the same rather loose and
connotative way. Thus, one has nanotechnology
(coined by hacker K. Eric Drexler) by analogy with microtechnology; and a few machine
architectures have a nanocode level
below microcode. Tom Duff at Bell
Labs has also pointed out that “Pi seconds is a nanocentury”.
See also quantifiers, pico-,
nanoacre, nanobot,
nanocomputer,
nanofortnight.
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Definitions of nano
