It's amazing what we don't know about things sitting just a few light seconds away at most, too, such as the depths of the oceans or the spiders in my backyard.
I think they're working on the 'bases on other planetary bodies' backup plan, but it will be a few years.
Just FYI, The circumference of earth is roughly 4 * 10^7 metres, and the speed of light is 3 * 10^8 m/s, so light can actually circle the globe almost 7.5 times per second.
The depths of the oceans are just a few milliseconds away (40ms -ish?).
I was going for the distance from some arbitrary spot in North America to some arbitrary spot way out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, where I'd assume the ocean is at its deepest, but this is interesting too.
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It's amazing what we don't know about things sitting just a few light seconds away at most, too, such as the depths of the oceans or the spiders in my backyard.
I think they're working on the 'bases on other planetary bodies' backup plan, but it will be a few years.
Just FYI, The circumference of earth is roughly 4 * 10^7 metres, and the speed of light is 3 * 10^8 m/s, so light can actually circle the globe almost 7.5 times per second.
The depths of the oceans are just a few milliseconds away (40ms -ish?).
I figured it was something like that. Certainly explains why my ping to London is under 100 ms, right?
Yup. My Telecommunications prof back in University told us you can approximate the speed of a network as 2c/3, so that sounds right on the button.
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=depth+of+challenger+dee...
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=time+for+light+to+trave...
40 µs, not ms.
(off topic.. can anyone get wolfram alpha to answer that in one query?)
"Depth of Challenger Deep in light seconds"
I was going for the distance from some arbitrary spot in North America to some arbitrary spot way out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, where I'd assume the ocean is at its deepest, but this is interesting too.