Speed of light medium (but still slower than "c"). When a charged particle does that in a dielectric material, the electromagnetic equivalent of a shock wave, known as Cherenkov radiation, is emitted. The speed of light is of relevance to communications: the one-way and round-trip delay time are greater than zero. This applies from small to astronomical scales. On the other hand, some techniques depend on the finite speed of light, for example in distance measurements. In supercomputers, the speed of light imposes a limit on how quickly data can be sent between processors. If a processor operates at 1 gigahertz, a signal
Speed of light (cellular automaton) is because it's impossible to build a spaceship that can move every generation. (This is not true, though, for cellular automata in general; for instance many light-speed spaceships exist in Seeds.) It is, however, possible for objects to travel at the speed of light if they move through a medium other than empty space. Such media include trails of hives, and alternating stripes of live and dead cells. Certain patterns can appear to move at a speed greater than one cell per generation, but like faster than light phenomena in physics this is illusory. An example is the "Star Gate",