different between atomic vs subatomic

English

Etymology

atom +? -ic

Pronunciation

• (General Australian) enPR: ??t?m.?k, IPA^(key): /??t?m.?k/
• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: ??t?m.?k, IPA^(key): /??t?m.?k/
• (General American) enPR: ??tä.m?k, IPA^(key): /??t??.m?k/
• Rhymes: -?m?k

Adjective

atomic (not comparable)

1. (physics, chemistry) Of or relating to atoms; composed of atoms; monatomic.

   Antonym: molecular

2. Employing or relating to nuclear energy or processes.
   • 1955, David J. Dallin, Soviet Espionage (page 495)

     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.

3. Infinitesimally small.

4. Unable to be split or made any smaller.
   1. (programming, of a commit in a VCS) Containing a single change, as opposed to involving numerous unrelated changes.
   2. (logic, of a proposition) Lacking logical operators; unable to be made simpler in logical form.
5. (computing, 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.
   • 2006, Tim Peierls, Brian Goetz, Joshua Bloch, Joseph Bowbeer, Doug Lea, David Holmes, Java Concurrency in Practice, Pearson Education (?ISBN), page 325:

     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.

Derived terms

Translations

Noun

atomic (plural atomics)

1. (computing) An atomic operation.

Anagrams

• -o-matic, matico

Occitan

Pronunciation

Adjective

atomic m (feminine singular atomica, masculine plural atomics, feminine plural atomicas)

1. atomic

Related terms

• atòm, atòme

Romanian

Etymology

From French atomique

Adjective

atomic m or n (feminine singular atomic?, masculine plural atomici, feminine and neuter plural atomice)

1. atomic

Declension

English

Etymology

sub- +? atomic

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -?m?k

Adjective

subatomic (not comparable)

1. (physics) Relating to particles that are constituents of the atom, or are smaller than an atom; such as proton, neutron, electron, etc.
2. Relating to any length or mass that is smaller in scale than a the diameter of a hydrogen atom.

   The electron microscope is able to resolve detail at the subatomic level.

Related terms

• atomic
• subatomically
• subatomic particle

Translations

Romanian

Etymology

From French subatomique

Adjective

subatomic m or n (feminine singular subatomic?, masculine plural subatomici, feminine and neuter plural subatomice)

1. subatomic

Declension