Jump to...
Columns:
Advanced Software and Technologies
BYTE Media Lab
Chaos Manor
Conference Reports
Features
Free Features
Gigglebytes
Letters to BYTE.com
Mr. Computer Language Person
New Products
Op/Ed
Portable Computing
Serving with Linux
The Upgrade Advisor
January 1998
/
Inbox
/ The New Physics
I enjoyed "Fiber in the Sky," but there was an inaccuracy in the discussion of the speed of light in the text box "Physics Is Everything." It was given as "300,000 kilometers per second or 187,500 miles per second, which is usually rounded to 186,000 miles per second." All these numbers are OK except 187,500. Perhaps what was meant was 186,300 mile
s per second. To a bit more accuracy, the speed of light in a vacuum is 299,792 kilometers per second or 186,282 miles per second. When traveling through matter, it is less.
Jim Morgan
jhm@watson.ibm.com
Thank you (and other sharp-eyed readers) for pointing out our attempted tampering with the fundamental constants of
physics. As an admitted physicist, I should have caught this long before printing. -- Edmund X. DeJesus, senior technical editor
Matthew Wilson more...
BYTE Digest editors every month analyze and evaluate the best articles from Information Week , EE Times , Dr. Dobb's Journal , Network Computing , Sys Admin ,
and dozens of other CMP publications—bringing
you critical news and information about wireless communication,
computer security, software development, embedded systems,
and more!
Find out more
Th
e New Physics
