On 7/21/24 4:05 PM, Josh Luthman wrote:
Mel,
Voyager is using radio waves, which travel faster than the speed of
light (in a vacuum, too!). But my point is more Earth to outside the
solar system is ~24 hours so where did circumnavigating the globe get
three days of latency?
::Albert Einstein has entered the chat::
Mike
On Sun, Jul 21, 2024 at 2:29 PM Mel Beckman <m...@beckman.org> wrote:
Chris,
Of course I do.
-mel
> On Jul 21, 2024, at 8:55 AM, Chris Adams <c...@cmadams.net> wrote:
>
> Once upon a time, Mel Beckman <m...@beckman.org> said:
>> Because the speed of light is different in different mediums.
It depends on the index of refraction. Most of the Internet is on
fiber optics, and the speed of light in glass fiber is
dramatically slower than in a vacuum. Long distance single-mode
communication fiber typically has a core index of refraction of
1.4682 at 1550nm (mid-C-band). So the speed of light in this type
of fiber is the speed of light in a vacuum 299,792,458 m/s divided
by 1.4682 = 204,190,477 m/s. You have to add to that the latency
of any optical to electrical transformations, which happens in
most every router or switch. Three days is probably an underestimate.
>
> Uh, you do know that Voyager isn't unspooling fiber as it goes,
right?
>
> --
> Chris Adams <c...@cmadams.net>
