the.com/ping
A sound you fling into the void, just to hear it come back.
means A short, sharp signal or message sent to test whether something is present, awake, or reachable — and to get a quick response back.
from Pure onomatopoeia: 'ping' was coined in the 19th century to imitate the high, ringing sound of a bullet striking metal or a small bell. The computing sense was deliberately borrowed in 1983, when programmer Mike Muuss wrote a network utility to test connections — he named it after sonar, where a ship sends out a sound pulse ('ping') and listens for the echo bouncing back off another object. So today's 'ping me' carries, faintly, the memory of a submarine listening in the dark.
- named for
- Sonar pulse hunting submarines in the deep
- author
- Written by Mike Muuss in one 1983 evening
- unit
- Latency measured in pure round-trip milliseconds
- flatline
- No reply means your packet died alone
- sonar echo
- Bats and whales pinged before any router did
ping pong diplomacy — 1971 us-china relations thaw initiated by table tennis match in beijing
ping survival game — 2008 chinese art installation where participants stood still for 2 hours
ping restaurant — michelin-starred restaurant in london founded by chef heather hardie