atomic

1. not comparablechemistryOf or relating to atoms; composed of atoms; monatomic.

   A stream of atomic hydrogen is emitted.

   Antonyms: molecular

2. not comparableEmploying or relating to nuclear energy or processes.

   atomic energy; atomic bombs

   2 more examples

   Some nutjob once built a small atomic pile in his back yard.

   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

   1. broadlycolloquialnot comparableVery strong and overpowering.

      Synonyms: nuclear

3. not comparableInfinitesimally small.

   The hairs on a dust mite are almost atomic.

4. not comparableUnable to be split or made any smaller.

   A bit is an atomic item of data.

   Synonyms: discrete, indivisible, unatomizable

   1. not comparablecomputingContaining a single change, as opposed to involving numerous unrelated changes.

      Synonyms: discrete, indivisible, unatomizable

   2. not comparablehuman sciencesLacking logical operators; unable to be made simpler in logical form.

      Synonyms: discrete, indivisible, unatomizable

   3. not comparablemathematicsSuch that for every element b>0 there exists an atom a such that b≥a>0.

      Synonyms: discrete, indivisible, unatomizable

5. not comparablecomputingGuaranteed to complete either fully or not at all while waiting in a pause, and running synchronously when called by multiple asynchronous threads.

   Whenever possible, use atomic types instead of mutexes.

   2 more examples

   In order to avoid race conditions, this operation has to be atomic.

   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

plural atomics

1. computingAn atomic operation.