Flip-flop

Flip-flops are a simple type of footwear in which there is a band between the big toe and the other toes.

Flip-flop may also refer to:

Flip-flop (politics)

A "flip-flop" (used mostly in the United States), U-turn (used in the United Kingdom, Ireland), or backflip (used in Australia and New Zealand) is a sudden real or apparent change of policy or opinion by a public official, sometimes while trying to claim that both positions are consistent with each other. Often it will occur during the period prior to or following an election in order to maximize the candidate's popularity.

History

In his "On Language" column in The New York Times, William Safire wrote in 1988 that "flip-flop" has a long history as a synonym for "somersault". (He cited George Lorimer in 1902: "...when a fellow's turning flip-flops up among the clouds, he's naturally going to have the farmers gaping at him.") In the late 19th century, a US politician was called "the Florida flopper" by an opponent, Safire noted. The "fl" sound appearing twice is an indication of ridicule, he wrote. Citing grammarian Randolph Quirk, Safire pointed out that the doubling of the sound is also a feature in other two-word phrases used to disparage the actions or words of others, including "mumbo jumbo", "wishy-washy", and higgledy-piggledy".

Flip-flop (electronics)

In electronics, a flip-flop or latch is a circuit that has two stable states and can be used to store state information. A flip-flop is a bistable multivibrator. The circuit can be made to change state by signals applied to one or more control inputs and will have one or two outputs. It is the basic storage element in sequential logic. Flip-flops and latches are a fundamental building block of digital electronics systems used in computers, communications, and many other types of systems.

Flip-flops and latches are used as data storage elements. A flip-flop stores a single bit (binary digit) of data; one of its two states represents a "one" and the other represents a "zero". Such data storage can be used for storage of state, and such a circuit is described as sequential logic. When used in a finite-state machine, the output and next state depend not only on its current input, but also on its current state (and hence, previous inputs). It can also be used for counting of pulses, and for synchronizing variably-timed input signals to some reference timing signal.