The speed of light often seems so fast as to be infinite, or at least hard to comprehend, in daily life. I was surprised the first time I calculated the minimum possible round trip time from New York to San Francisco, as the crow flies: it's just under 28ms not counting any overhead whatsoever from switching, electronics, etc. It amazes me that an actual network ping is only about double that, considering all the overhead of switching, and that light doesn't travel at full speed in fiber optic cables.