National Maximum Speed Law for the 55 mph speed limit offered, "Speed limit 55. It's not just a good idea. It's the law.". Intelligentsia riffed that with a more absolute statement based on the speed of light: "186,000 miles per second. It's not just a good idea, it's the law." National Maximum Speed Law The National Maximum Speed Law (NMSL) in the United States was a provision of the Federal 1974 Emergency Highway Energy Conservation Act that prohibited speed limits higher than . It was drafted in response to oil price spikes and supply disruptions during the 1973 oil crisis. While Federal officials hoped
Rømer's determination of the speed of light less accurate than those obtained by Rømer's method. It would be another thirty years before A. A. Michelson in the United States published his more precise results (299,910±50 km/s) and Simon Newcomb confirmed the agreement with astronomical measurements, almost exactly two centuries after Rømer's announcement. Several discussions have suggested that Rømer should not be credited with the measurement of the speed of light, as he never gave a value in Earth-based units. These authors credit Huygens with the first calculation of the speed of light. Huygens's estimate was a value of 110,000,000 "toises" per second: as the "toise" was later