In theory light could go 5000 km in 16ms. In practice it takes 105ms to get packets from FNAL to CERN. (speed of light is slower in fiber, fiber doesn't go straight, there are several switches). Even 16ms is more of a delay than you want in a musical performance. And you have to do the round trip. Try singing together with someone on zoom if you want to prove the point. The high-speed network doesn't give much benefit over the regular internet in terms of latency. it improves bandwidth but not latency all that much. The only way all these virtual choirs work is that they send out a base track to everyone that the people have locally and then each person records their part on top of it.
Steve Timm (Physicist and amateur church musician, computing and recording remotely for last 10 months) ________________________________ From: [email protected] <[email protected]> on behalf of Keith Lofstrom <[email protected]> Sent: Tuesday, December 22, 2020 6:24 PM To: scientific-linux-users <[email protected]> Subject: Way Off Topic - HEP Network Symphony Orchestra This isn't Scientific Linux, though SL and the team that supports it would be involved in implementation. ---- AFAIK, we are still in the middle of Long Shutdown 2, with the Large Hadron Collider /not/ sending terabytes of experimental data through the dedicated HEP network. Meanwhile, gathering musicians on stage for a symphony orchestra is a big health risk during the COVID pandemic. The speed of sound across a symphony stage is 500,000 times slower than bits on an optical fiber. In theory, musicians could be connected through the HEP network, spread out over 5000 kilometer distances compared to the 10 meter distance across a symphony stage. Distances are smaller than that between groups of European or North American cities. There are probably more symphony fans than high energy physics fans (many physicists are both), so using the HEP network for concerts during the COVID crisis could earn a LOT of political capital, and help with future funding, including funding for the next upgraded HEP network. It would also develop new techniques for synchronizing planet-scale sensor networks. There are likely some excellent astronomical and geophysical uses for that. I'd guess that readers of this list know the people who know the people who know how to do this. What could we slap together in a hurry? Keith -- Keith Lofstrom [email protected]
