Re:The Meter, Golden Ratio, Pyramids, and Cubits, Oh My
by troymc on Tuesday March 04, 2025 @09:08AM
(#43254774)
One use case is to estimate the minimum latency for communications between two points on opposite sides of the Earth, which would be how long it takes light to travel halfway around the Earth:
= 20,000 km / (speed of light)
~= 66.7 milliseconds
Re:The Meter, Golden Ratio, Pyramids, and Cubits, Oh My
by whatshisface on Tuesday March 04, 2025 @11:49AM
(#43257143)
Not quite the minimum. :-)
Beams of neutrinos can be sent through the Earth and detected on the other side.
https://www.livescience.com/19075-neutrino-particle-communic...
Re:The Meter, Golden Ratio, Pyramids, and Cubits, Oh My
by troymc on Tuesday March 04, 2025 @05:11PM
(#43260339)
This is true. Using a neutrino beam, the minimum latency would be approximately:
(diameter of Earth) / (speed of light) ~= 42.5 milliseconds
Some high-frequency traders might actually be able to justify the investment needed to enable such low-latency communications!
Come to think of it, you could also use gravitational waves...
It means, for example, that the circumference of the Earth is four times as big, or 40,000 km (roughly speaking; I know that the Earth is smooshed due to its rotation etc.). And then to estimate the diameter, you just divide that by pi:
40,000 km / 3.14159... ~= 12,732 km
and half that is the radius of the Earth:
r_Earth ~= 6366 km