atomic
nounEtymology From atom + -ic.
1
Computing, Engineering, Mathematics, Natural sciences, Physical sciences, Sciences An atomic operation.
atomic
adjUK /əˈtɒm.ɪk/ · US /əˈtɑː.mɪk/
Etymology From atom + -ic.
9 senses
- 1Of or relating to atoms; composed of atoms; monatomic.
- 2Employing or relating to nuclear energy or processes.
- 3Very strong and overpowering.
- 4Infinitesimally small.
- 5Unable to be split or made any smaller.
- 6Containing a single change, as opposed to involving…
- 7Lacking logical operators; unable to be made simpler in…
- 8Such that for every element b>0 there exists an atom a…
- 9Guaranteed to complete either fully or not at all while…
1
Chemistry, Natural sciences, Physical sciences, Physics Of or relating to atoms; composed of atoms; monatomic.
- A stream of atomic hydrogen is emitted.
2
Employing or relating to nuclear energy or processes.
- atomic energy; atomic bombs
- Some nutjob once built a small atomic pile in his back yard.
1 more example
- Before the atomic spy Allan Nunn May left Canada to go to London, a treff in London had to be arranged for him and another agent.1955, David J. Dallin, Soviet Espionage, page 495:
3
Broadly, Colloquial Very strong and overpowering.
4
Infinitesimally small.
- The hairs on a dust mite are almost atomic.
5
Unable to be split or made any smaller.
- A bit is an atomic item of data.
6
Computing, Engineering, Mathematics, Natural sciences, Physical sciences, Programming, Sciences Containing a single change, as opposed to involving numerous unrelated changes.
Of a commit in a VCS
7
Human sciences, Logic, Mathematics, Philosophy, Sciences Of a proposition Lacking logical operators; unable to be made simpler in logical form.
8
Mathematics, Order theory, Sciences Such that for every element b>0 there exists an atom a such that b≥a>0.
Of a partially ordered set with a least element 0
9
Computing, Engineering, Mathematics, Natural sciences, Physical sciences, Sciences Of an operation Guaranteed to complete either fully or not at all while waiting in a pause, and running synchronously when called by multiple asynchronous threads.
- In order to avoid race conditions, this operation has to be atomic.
- Whenever possible, use atomic types instead of mutexes.
1 more example
- It also provides an atomic compareAndSet method (which if successful has the memory effects of both reading and writing a volatile variable) and, for convenience, atomic add, increment, and decrement methods.2006, Tim Peierls, Brian Goetz, Joshua Bloch, Joseph Bowbeer, Doug Lea, David Holmes, Java Concurrency in Practice, Pearson Education, →ISBN, page 325:
- Derived terms
80 terms
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