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Grace Hopper on Letterman

TheLazlo1011 HN recommenders · 2016–2018
448K views · interview · evergreen · Uploaded 2012-12-12

Grace Hopper appears on Letterman and uses a foot-long piece of wire to show how far light travels in a nanosecond.

Brought up whenever latency, light speed or the size of a nanosecond comes up, as the classic physical demonstration.

History of computingTech pioneers & interviewsFundamental physics

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3 comments from Hacker News

@baldfat2016 · in “SpaceX plans worldwide satellite Internet with low latency, gigabit speed”

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

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@bouvin2017 · in “The fifth hyperfactorial: 5⁵ × 4⁴ × 3³ × 2² × 1¹ milliseconds is exactly 1 day”

No mention of the foot per nanosecond is complete without this seminal scene between the great, late Grace Hopper and David Letterman: [VIDEO]

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@adrianN2018 · in “Traveling to the Sun: Why Won't Parker Solar Probe Melt?”

Lightnanoseconds are a useful measure in everyday life as well. A lightnanosecond is about 30cm, or 1 foot. [VIDEO]

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