This simulation showed what it would look like if you went around Earth at the speed of light, and it’s mind-blowing.
How fast is the speed of light exactly? 186,000 miles per second – try to visualize that.
Well, thanks to a simulation posted to YouTube by Airplane Mode, you needn’t imagine any longer.
Buckle up, because it’s time to take a trip around the world in a matter of seconds.
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Around the world at the speed of light
If you were to fly around the world at a cruising speed of between 575mph and 600mph, you could theoretically do it within 42 hours.
At the speed of light? It can be done in 0.13 seconds.
Starting in New York City, the simulation passed across the US and over the Pacific Ocean.
Passing over Brisbane, Australia, the simulation cut through Zimbabwe and back over the Atlantic Ocean.
All of that took 0.13 seconds – aka eight frames.
Isn’t that hard to comprehend?
For the sake of comparison, the simulation also looked at how long it would take to circle the Earth at the speed of sound.
For reference, that’s around 343 meters per second.
So obviously not nearly as fast as the speed of light, but certainly no slouch.
But the full journey around the world wasn’t covered in the video.
Why? Well, it would have made the journey around the world in around 32 hours.
So obviously, a lot slower than light – but still 10 hours faster than the standard plane.
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Will we ever see airplanes moving this fast?
You don’t need us to tell you this, but there’s currently no airplane that can travel at the speed of light.
In fact, who would want to? Sure, you’d get to places in the blink of an eye, but it would surely be nauseating.
And that’s not forgetting all the health and safety implications of planes whizzing around the planet at such a speed.
At any rate, traveling on hypersonic flights is probably the closest we’ll get.
At speeds of 3,800mph, it’s considerably slower than the speed of light.
Although it’s highly unlikely we’ll ever travel at those speeds, plenty of simulations are on hand to help us visualize it, especially when comparing it to sound.
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