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
Speed of light of light was made in 1676 by Rømer (see Rømer's determination of the speed of light). From the observation that the periods of Jupiter's innermost moon Io appeared to be shorter when the Earth was approaching Jupiter than when receding from it, he concluded that light travels at a finite speed, and estimated that it takes light 22 minutes to cross the diameter of Earth's orbit. Christiaan Huygens combined this estimate with an estimate for the diameter of the Earth's orbit to obtain an estimate of speed of light of , 26% lower than the actual value. In his 1704