section_path: Practical effects of finiteness/Large distances on Earth
section_name: Large distances on Earth
paragraph_text: Large distances on Earth
  
  Given that the equatorial circumference of the Earth is about 40 075 km and that c is about 300 000 km/s, the theoretical shortest time for a piece of information to travel half the globe along the surface is about 67 milliseconds. When light is traveling in optical fibre (a transparent material) the actual transit time is longer, in part because the speed of light is slower by about 35% in optical fibre, depending on its refractive index n. Straight lines are rare in global communications and the travel time increases when signals pass through electronic switches or signal regenerators.
  
  Although this distance is largely irrelevant for most applications, latency becomes important in fields such as high-frequency trading, where traders seek to gain minute advantages by delivering their trades to exchanges fractions of a second ahead of other traders. For example, traders have been switching to microwave communications between trading hubs, because of the advantage which radio waves travelling at near to the speed of light through air have over comparatively slower fibre optic signals.