We certainly didn’t expect to hear these news from Facebook. A smaller unit of time than a nanosecond was announced today by the social media platform.
To begin with, Flick is the smallest unit of time that is immediately greater than a nanosecond. It has a length equivalent to 1/705,600,000 of a second. Next, Flick can be used to calculate how many nanoseconds will make up 4 minutes and 37 seconds. The answer would be 8 Flicks. If you’re reasonably wondering what all the fuss was about, the company has made an explaination. Flick were set to help measure the length of time each frame is in video frame rates because the number is easily divisible by 8, 16, 22.05, 24, 25, 30, 32, 44.1, 48, 50, 60, 90, 100 and 120. These numbers are not random, as we see them all the time in front of us when talking about audio and video quality (e.g. 24fps, 25fps, 60fps, etc.).
From now on, developers will be able to synchronize content with even more precision when performing operations with Flicks. For example, the standard of 24fps used in movies translates to 24 frames per second, therefore, each frame has a duration of 0.04166666 and the 6s continues indefinitely. Small matter for us, big problem for a computer. Rounded to 0.04167 it’s convenient, but not accurate.
With Flicks it is expected that this precision problem will be corrected.
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Author: PC-GR
The World of Technology
