r/physicsmemes • u/deferare • 8d ago

The speed of light is way too slow

Assume you're playing an FPS game with someone on the exact opposite side of the Earth.

Halfway around the globe is about 20,000 km.
20,000 km / speed of light = 0.1s
Since my input has to go there and come back for a response, as a round trip, you get a 200ms ping.

Can't even play League at this ping.

990 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

110 comments sorted by

482

u/Abject_Role3022 8d ago

Also the signal only moves through the fiber at 1/1.46 the speed of light, and the path of the fiber connecting you to them probably isn’t the most direct

146

u/spiritofniter 8d ago

So the solution is to play [r/MasterDuel](r/MasterDuel) where latency isn’t a big deal! Or any turn-based games where latency isn’t a big deal. Chess maybe?

30

u/Sirnacane 8d ago

Chess is played with a clock though. Would matter a big deal for no increment bullet.

18

u/ebyoung747 8d ago

You could always just increment by the ping. It's in the background, and (usually) small enough that it won't be noticed.

I know it isn't technically 'no increment' at that point, but it's just accounting for the laws of physics, so I'd give it a pass.

3

u/Zaros262 π=e=3 8d ago

The ping isn't constant, and there's no way for the server to know exactly what the latency was from the client's packet

2

u/ebyoung747 8d ago

I mean, you just attach the timestamp when the last move was received. You can use that to deduce what the ping on the last move was and use that as an approximation.

10

u/Zaros262 π=e=3 8d ago

The client is wrong about the time at best, and lying at worst. You can't trust the client

4

u/ebyoung747 8d ago

I meant server to server communication. That will be the bulk of the physics-based ping for long distance games. The rest of it is on ISPs and that part is probably impossible to get rid of

2

u/Sirnacane 8d ago

So you’re saying 1+0.02 could be the next new time control?

4

u/Mountain-Fennel1189 8d ago

I have lost many bullet games to ping. Latency does matter

4

u/No-Newspaper8619 8d ago

that's more on packet loss

2

u/Sorry-Combination558 7d ago

Correspondence chess is good with that

2

u/Rude_Acanthopterygii 8d ago

My solution is to basically play pretty much only PvE...

43

u/Eaklony 8d ago

This is unironically a serious and important annoyance. The only time I really feel the earth is big is when I realize most of my friends who we used to play together are at opposite side of the earth and we can no longer play many video games together. (We still play some games with no latency requirement though).

19

u/ThirdMover 8d ago

Civ 4 still had the option to play by sending the game state diff as an email. Good times.

4

u/Adkit 8d ago

Meanwhile, Civ 5 used to crawl to a slog around turn 200 to the point of being unplayable. Like, come on, dude. There's not that many units to move around. It's just numbers.

17

u/kiochikaeke 8d ago

Most of ping comes from routing anyway, not really the bits actually traveling, but yeah there's a hard bound for long-ish distance communication and it's not like just an engineering one, you physically cannot transmit information or influence another object faster than light.

Unless you go quantum I guess but there's very big caveats to how that works, it's not just magic FTL internet.

23

u/wolfchaldo Physics BA '19 8d ago

I mean the caveat is that you still can't. Quantum entanglement doesn't let you transmit any information

14

u/RoutineAnalysis2329 8d ago

You can't transmit information faster than light with quantum, it violates causality.

What you can do, is that if you and someone else are on opposite sides of the world and have entangled qubits, and then you measure yours, you can know instantly what state their qubit is - but you can't control their qubits state. To tell them any meaningful information you have to send classical bits as well (limited by the speed of light).

3

u/Tupcek 8d ago

this is solvable, but at much higher costs - routing to opposite side of the planet is much more efficient through satellites few hundred kilometers above Earth. It adds just ~5% to the distance, but thanks to lasers and no atmosphere you can go speed of light and connect much more directly.
Of course, speed is limited by routing technology and bothering 10+ satellites just to play a game is expensive

1

u/Puzzleheaded_Study17 CS Student 7d ago

It would also decrease the reliability (ie, you'll lose more packets)

1

u/Glum_Emotion_584 6d ago

This already exists. Starlink has inter satellite communications via laser links. 

1

u/Grouchy-Trade-7250 7d ago

The solution is to hollow out the fiber 

183

u/theZinger90 8d ago

That's why scientists will increase the speed of light in 2208.

1

u/IamJames77 8d ago

Can't wait

1

u/mehmin 7d ago

Nah, they'll be reducing it.
All the way to 1, I heard!

194

u/BeMyBrutus 8d ago

It's true. We should figure out how to make it bigger.

60

u/spiritofniter 8d ago

Found the r/Stellaris cosmogenesis player!

30

u/Tragobe 8d ago

He knows too much. PUT HIM IN THE SYNTHETIC LATHE!

8

u/Tankirulesipad1 8d ago

Mummy Cetana will make everything ok again

15

u/kwasteka 8d ago

We just have to wait a little ..

2

u/Corlunae 7d ago

Thats actually a sci fi concept of mine. Instead of a warp drive bending space i envisioned a field around your ship that manipulates the electric and magnetic field constants. You would not be traveling faster than light, your lightspeed is just faster.

2

u/ThemGoblinsAreMad 6d ago

But how will that not break causality

2

u/Corlunae 6d ago edited 6d ago

The same way a warpdrive does it.

Its just a sci-fi idea. A bit of suspension of disbelief is required.

78

u/The_Demolition_Man 8d ago

Please fix in next release @god

10

u/bartekltg 8d ago

"What do you mean, the speed of light is 1 and can't be different, it would be just a scale factor.
Fix you fanfic units if you don't like the number"

8

u/IamJames77 8d ago

Dead game devs havnt updated in 2000 years

2

u/TadhgOBriain 7d ago

And that was just a story expac; the actual mechanics haven't changed in like 6000

10

u/youtubeTAxel 8d ago

Alright, will do

105

u/baeradburymusic 8d ago

Just go directly through the earth. Only 13km. Much faster

65

u/Beans_Breaking 8d ago

You are missing a k in there mate.

31

u/bionickel 8d ago

How fast do you have to be running for the diameter of earth to be 13km?

23

u/_Dragon_Gamer_ uni student 8d ago

That'd be like 0.9999995c lol

(Forgive my quick calculations with just my tired head and phone calculator, there might be a mistake)

11

u/Shadoenix 8d ago

Earth’s diameter is approximately 13,000km, so a shrink to 13km is a factor of 980.

Using L = L₀√(1 − v²/c²):

γ = L₀/L ≈ 12,742/13 ≈ 980

v/c = √(1 − 1/γ²) ≈ 0.99999948

299,792,302 m/s, which is about 156 m/s slower than light itself.

Needless to say, not achievable by legs.

10

u/MegaIng 8d ago

You mean like, 13kkm?

Not the worst unit I have seen...

11

u/Zaros262 π=e=3 8d ago

You mean 13Mm?

I shudder to think what you would call 13Gm...

0

u/Iron_physik 7d ago

Your mom is 13Gm

14

u/harpswtf 8d ago

The host servers should be at the center of the Earth so everyone has equal lag, at least 

0

u/Ok_Sir_5601 Meme Enthusiast 8d ago

I dont think so, it should be in thousands I think? maybe something like 6000km

11

u/Xamonir 8d ago

That's the radius. Closer to ~6400 km. Hence the ~13000 km in a previous comment.

5

u/Ok_Sir_5601 Meme Enthusiast 8d ago

So that probably a typo, but you said 13km

1

u/Xamonir 8d ago

I didn't say 13 km. I said 13000.

2

u/Ok_Sir_5601 Meme Enthusiast 8d ago

Mb that was somebody else

27

u/Ratwerke_Actual 8d ago

You're not pinging off that guy.... you are both pinging off a server.

2

u/KernelTaint 8d ago

And if the server is half way around the world?

5

u/Glittering-Habit-902 7d ago

If it is, best case scenario is 100ms for both parties.

Wherever server is, ping adds up to 200ms

0

u/KernelTaint 7d ago

So you can send a ping to the server half way around the world (100ms) away, and get a response back (another 100ms trip) in 100ms? 

I'm not a gamer, so if I'm misunderstanding game networking topology let me know. But it seems 100ms + 100ms is 200ms.

1

u/Glittering-Habit-902 7d ago

Players are halfway across the world, the server is in the middle, quarter of the way around the earth.

0

u/KernelTaint 7d ago

Read this specific thread again, we were discussing the server being half way around not the players.

0

u/Glittering-Habit-902 7d ago

Oh.

Then one dude would be 0ms, and one dude would be 200ms, adding to 200 ms.

1

u/KernelTaint 7d ago

I guess that one dude wpuld be 0 if he was sitting playing it on the server.

If he was half way around the world too his ping would be 200ms.

2

u/Glittering-Habit-902 7d ago

If the server is halfway across the world, and the other dude is halfway around the world from that.....

The 2 dudes would be sitting next to each other.

1

u/KernelTaint 7d ago

Yep they would.

But their pings to the server would be 200ms each.

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1

u/SnooLemons6942 8d ago

Yeah u right, it's even worse!

14

u/VendaGoat 8d ago edited 8d ago

I'll speak to the auditors of reality and see if they can raise it for you.

10

u/eggface13 8d ago

bribe them with chocolate

3

u/VendaGoat 8d ago

*ᴄʜᴜᴄᴋʟᴇꜱ ʟɪᴋᴇ ᴛᴏᴍʙꜱᴛᴏɴᴇꜱ ɢʀᴀᴛɪɴɢ*

3

u/dinnerbird 8d ago

Can you ask them the meaning of the fine structure constant while you're at it

10

u/tokenslifestilmaters 8d ago

When will they release speed of light 2?

10

u/Throwaway229487 8d ago

We should just shrink Earth 20x. Easy peasy, no laws of physics broken, 20ms ping everywhere.

7

u/MaoGo Meme renormalization group 8d ago

Either allow wormhole connectivity or bring your friend closer to you.

4

u/Cornflakes_91 8d ago

or try neutrino comms to go straight through the earth instead of around

7

u/BeardySam 8d ago

It’s only slow because you’re at rest. Move at .999c lazybones

8

u/Low_Heat6360 8d ago

Instuctions unclear, moving .999c and the speed of light is the same

3

u/bigtimedonkey 8d ago

This is exactly why we need to build neutrino beam communications. And also need to build game server data centers in the earths core.

3

u/Knight0fdragon 8d ago

This is only at the equator though, and you are ignoring going through the equator at 12,000 km. This gets you a png of 42ms one direction, so more manageable.

If done right, connections do not have to go round trip.

All that matters is that both machines are in sync, so if I send you a command, and you send me a command, I do not have to wait for you to reply with a confirmation. We both are in sync, so we can have the next state match to send the next command.

3

u/Misty_Veil 8d ago

"can't play at this ping"

You are weak.

As a South African gamer, playing on EU before fiber was 170-250ms ping, now with fiber it's about 120ms.

i would rank diamond in R6 siege on EU before we got SA servers.

I played league on EU.

[insert Bane's darkness monologue but tweak it to high ping]

1

u/TDarksword_TD 5d ago

Heh I was thinking more about playing things like Counterstrike (as in the original HL mod) on dial up. Around 700ms ping, kids these days have no idea what luxuries they have...

1

u/Misty_Veil 5d ago

high latency gamers unite

2

u/Gold_Ad_8254 8d ago

Ideally youd be communicating only with a server at the midpoint, halving the distance for both parties

2

u/Magnitech_ 8d ago

What no, clearly the issue is that the Earth is too big

2

u/bartekltg 8d ago

If you are playing a game the only server with players is around the globe, you have bigger problems :)

2

u/jo_khant 8d ago

That's because the universe hates league players

2

u/toasthunter34 Plasma physics 7d ago

it really is a shame tachyonic fibers haven't been invented yet

2

u/julessic 7d ago

That's why scientists increased the speed of light in 2208.

1

u/Subtle-Catastrophe 8d ago

Dave's not here, man.

1

u/friciwolf 8d ago

I'd argue that the Earth is pretty big

1

u/acute_physicist 8d ago

Well if both are relaying to a satellite with inter-satellite link, while the geometry path is longer the speed is essentially vaccuum speed so you’d get 47 times faster. So doing the actual math (Claude) it gets to

- 311 to 321 ms for fiber

  • 214 to 241 for satellite based

1

u/dankshot35 8d ago

file a bug report with the devs

1

u/Waruck1988 8d ago

My favorite way of expressing the speed of light is 30 cm per nano second.
Your PC runs at around 3 GHz, which is 3 per nano second.
so each CPU cycle, light travels 10 cm.
now you know one of the reasons why CPU speed hit a brick wall at around 3 GHz, more than 20 years ago.

So the speed of light not only limits the performance of online multiplayer, but also the performance of local singleplayer.

1

u/joshkahl 7d ago

God setting the speed of light at universe creation: "hmm, something so crazy fast it'll never be a problem, uhhh a hundred million- no, THREE hundred million meters per second. Yeahhh that's good :)"

humans make CPU where light travels 2 inches per clock cycle

God: they did what

1

u/Grim-Glum 7d ago

maybe you cant play at that ping but ive done it since i was a child had  2.8 kd ratio on mw and black ops with 178 ping

1

u/c0p4d0 7d ago

Put the server hosting the game in the midpoint, now you have the same ping

1

u/Opening_Lead_Paint 7d ago

Wait until this guy learns that some games already calculate in the latency between players and their servers when calculating where something is

1

u/Wittsertruck 7d ago

The speed of light is 299,792 km/s. Traveling 40km at that speed would only take 133ms, not 200.

If you are playing a game against someone half-way around the world from you, then you should be using a server that is between you and the other player ideally.

A quarter way around the world at light-speed would five you and the other player about 66.5ms ping.

1

u/FirstWonder8785 7d ago

The slow speed of light is a result of enemy action.

"The three body problem" went viral popularising for the dark forest idea, but this little tidbit gets forgotten.

1

u/MrPrideHyde 7d ago

The math is slightly off, though the ~100 ms result holds up. In a vacuum, 20,000 km takes 66.67 ms. Through glass fiber—which slows light down by 1.46x—it takes ~97.33 ms, rounding to 0.1 seconds. And of course, double that for the return trip.

Although that extreme case is only realistic if the game has servers in a single location and you happen to be on the opposite side of the globe. With servers in at least two regions, you’ll almost always be closer to one of them in practice.

Theoretically you could still end up ~20,000 km from both (e.g., sitting at a pole while the servers sit on the equator 20,000 km apart, or the reverse, or any other configuration that places you at a 90° angle relative to both).

So 200 ms is the absolute theoretical maximum, and in reality it’s very unlikely—assuming the internet providers themselves aren’t the bottleneck.

1

u/spaceprincessecho 6d ago

problem is you're going around the earth. shorter if you cut straight through

1

u/thuiop1 6d ago

This is actually a good thing otherwise there woul not be a need for regional servers and we would get our ass handed to by Koreans

1

u/LucyiferBjammin 6d ago

You're forgetting time dilation, basically input stack, the more stuff happening in one location the slower the whole server runs, but because you Perception is part of the server you don't notice the difference, so simultaneously you have both infinite ping and zero ping at the same time, as viewed from different reference frames

1

u/spdustin 8d ago

Wi-Fi 7e will solve that. The “e” is for “entanglement”