Greg Shepherd wrote:
Electo-Magnetic Radiation. Electrons don't count as EMR do they though, (hell they have a mass!) so data in the form we transmit it down copper won't move at this speed will it?
True, electrons have mass, but we are not 'transmitting' electrons. We are oscilating the electrons in the media. This oscilation creats EM energy which propogates down the media, in the form of photos, and will propogate at some percentage of c depending upon the media.
A good way to visualize this is to imagine a long pipe with an inside diameter just large enough to hold a ping pong ball. Imagine that the pipe is completely full of balls from one end to the other - put a ball in one end and a ball falls out the other end. It happens very rapidly (approx. 75% of the speed of light) even though the exact ball you put in didn't travel the entire distance. The balls represent electrons, BTW. -rob