femtomachine

English

Etymology

From femto- +‎ machine, by analogy with micromachine, nanomachine, and so on.

Noun

femtomachine (plural femtomachines)

1. (very rare) A (hypothetical or fictional) machine on the femto scale; that is, a mechanical device whose size is on the order of the femtometer.
   • 2002, Greg Egan, Schild's Ladder, HarperCollins, published 2004, →ISBN, page 21:

     Femtomachines built from exotic nuclei had been employed as special-purpose computers ever since the basic design had been developed, six thousand years before.