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speed of light

   Also found in: Dictionary/thesaurus, Medical, Legal, Financial, Acronyms, Wikipedia, Hutchinson 0.04 sec.

All electromagnetic radiation, including light, radio transmission and electricity, travels at approximately 186,000 miles (300,000 kilometers) per second; more than seven times around the equator in one second. More precisely, the speed is 299,792,458 meters per second in a vacuum.

Never Fast Enough!
This inherent speed of Mother Nature is why computers work so fast. Within the tiny chip, electricity has to flow only a couple of millimeters, and, within an entire computer, only a few feet. Yet, as fast as that is, it is never fast enough. There is resistance in the lines, which slows down the current, and even though transistors switch in billionths of a second, scientific and multimedia applications are always exhausting the fastest computers.
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? Mentioned in ? References in classic literature
 
Then there was a wild yelp of agony and the poodle went sailing up the aisle; the yelps continued, and so did the dog; he crossed the house in front of the altar; he flew down the other aisle; he crossed before the doors; he clamored up the home-stretch; his anguish grew with his progress, till presently he was but a woolly comet moving in its orbit with the gleam and the speed of light.
Tom Sawyer by Twain, Mark View in context
The whole composite vision was achieved with the speed of light, producing no pause in the conversation, nor interrupting his calm train of thought.
Martin Eden by London, Jack View in context
At first, he was dead of all the diseases that ever were known, and of several bran-new maladies invented with the speed of Light to meet the demand of the occasion.
Little Dorrit by Dickens, Charles View in context
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