If you think about it a hyperlink is the coolest thing ever. You mean to tell me that I can go from one place to another place in an instant? Only time travel can beat that.
We take it for granted. But imagine if we can be transported from one physical place to another in an instant. Wouldn't that be revolutionary? It's like magic.
I guess my frustration comes from the inefficiency of travel. And the difference between Euclidean distance and Manhattan distance. Or the difference between distance and displacement.
The Euclidean distance is the length of the straight line connecting two points. But travelling from one point two another is another story. There are barriers--manmade and natural. So in reality the distance traveled is significantly longer than the Euclidean distance.
But we don't have this problem with "places" on the internet. We can go from one link to another by hyperlinking--transcending physicality.
And even if the internet connection is slow, we still don't feel that we've travelled so far to get there. There's no sense of distance in the internet. You can choose any two "points" and link them just like that.
And if there's a service interruption, it's like being stuck in an elevator. You can wait or you can go to another destination. Or you can turn it off and try again tomorrow.
Extrapolating this to physical travelling would be revolutionary. I know it's gonna be challenging because people and things are matter--they have mass and take up space. That's why matter can't travel at the speed of light. How about near the speed of light?
The reason we can go from one internet place to another is because photons don't have masses. Therefore, they can travel at the speed of light.
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