• Question: how is it that when I'm in Scotland and my cousin is in Australia , when I send a text it is there within seconds ?

    Asked by bladair 11 to Emma on 15 Mar 2017.
    • Photo: Emma Ryan

      Emma Ryan answered on 15 Mar 2017:

      Magic!

      Well, the magic of the internet I would guess. I am going to assume that you send texts via Whats App or something similar, which relies on the internet.

      This BBC guide can explain the internet better than I can. http://www.bbc.co.uk/guides/z3tbgk7

      It’s similar even with normal text messages, data is transferred to a tower and then to a central database and then to your couin’s tower in Australia (I think! I’m not too sure of the details. There may be satellites involved too).

      It doesn’t take too long because a text message doesn’t contain a lot of data – text is a very basic form of data. Also, the data is transferred using radiowaves which are very quick – they move at the speed of light. For example, it only takes light from the Sun 8 minutes to get to the Earth and the Sun is very, very far away.

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