title: What is atomic in boost / C++0x / C++1x / computer sciences?
body: <p>What is atomic in C/C++ programming ?</p>
  
  <p>I just visited the dearly cppreference.com (well I don't take the title for granted but wait for my story to finish), and the home changed to describe some of the C++0x/C++1x (let's call it C+++, okay ?) new features.</p>
  
  <p>There was a mysterious and never seen by my zombie programmer's eye, the new <code>&lt;atomic&gt;</code>.</p>
  
  <p>I guess its purpose is not to program atomic bombs or black holes (but I highly doubt this could have ANY connection with black holes, I don't know how those 2 words slipped here), but I'd like to know something:</p>
  
  <p>What is the purpose of this feature ? Is it a type ? A function ? Is it a data container ? Is it related to threads ? May it have some relation with python's "import antigravity" ? I mean, we are programming here, we're not bloody physicist or semanticists !</p>