
Grace Hopper on Letterman
About this video
Grace Hopper appears on Letterman and uses a foot-long piece of wire to show how far light travels in a nanosecond.
Why it appears in the archive
Brought up whenever latency, light speed or the size of a nanosecond comes up, as the classic physical demonstration.
AI-generated summary and labels from the source dataset; verify important details against the video. Source & credits.
From the Hacker News discussion
No mention of the foot per nanosecond is complete without this seminal scene between the great, late Grace Hopper and David Letterman: [VIDEO]
Read original comment ↗Latency Math (Almost 100ms faster then current technology) EDIT: This is only one way ALSO Grace Hopper telling David Letterman what a nano second is! [VIDEO] 1 Nanosecond = distance light travels one foot 1 mile = 5260 nanoseconds (In a vacuum) Current Satellite Internet = 22,000 miles or 115720000 Nano Seconds = 115.72 ms SpaceX Low Orbit = 715 to 823 Miles 823 miles = 4328980 nano seconds = 4.3 ms
Read original comment ↗Lightnanoseconds are a useful measure in everyday life as well. A lightnanosecond is about 30cm, or 1 foot. [VIDEO]
Read original comment ↗