

HFT using neutrino physics: Stats Jackassery - mikexstudios
http://scottlocklin.wordpress.com/2012/06/18/hft-using-neutrino-physics-stats-jackassery/

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retube
At best you could gain a 24.5ms advantage (through the earth to other side @
12,800km versus around it at pi*6,400km).Actually quite significant in HFT
terms.

But: sady this is completely impossible. The weak force is not called the weak
force for no reason. Neutrinos hardly interact with matter at all - that's why
they can stream through 12,800 km of solid iron almost unimpeded. You would
need a detector the size of the solar system in order to collect any
meaningful data volume in real-time.

~~~
tolos
Assuming the radius of the earth is 6378.1 Km (it varies), the distance
traveled over the circumference of half the earth will be 20037.375179 Km,
compared to 12756.2 Km traveling straight through the earth. The difference is
7280.60115 Km. So the best possible case is a time saving of 7280601.15 m /
299792458 m/s = 24.285 mS (what parent said).

Expanding on that a little:

Using more realistic values, the distance between New York City and London is
5567 Km, while the path through the earth is 5392 Km (see
<http://imgur.com/Th6jW>). So this would save 175000 m / 299792458 m/s = 0.583
mS

On the other hand, Spain and New Zealand are pretty much directly opposite
([http://www.freemaptools.com/tunnel-to-other-side-of-the-
eart...](http://www.freemaptools.com/tunnel-to-other-side-of-the-earth.htm))
each other, and Europe to Japan is pretty close to being on directly opposite
sides of the earth.

So London to New York might be cost effective at $25 million, assuming the
same $300M/6mS
([http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/8753784/The-300m-...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/8753784/The-300m-cable-
that-will-save-traders-milliseconds.html)) rate, while best case (Spain to New
Zealand) might be worth $1.2 billion.

Had to brush up on my geometry: <http://www.mathopenref.com/arclength.html>
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_cosines>

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ChuckMcM
Already implemented by the Rochester guys (well the messaging part, not the
HFT part)

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3705953>

Its an interesting application of the potential.

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photon137
Have people forgottten satellites? You don't have to go along the Earth's
crust, you know!

A low orbit satellite with height above surface <= r * (0.5 * theta * cosec
(theta /2) - 1)

where r = radius of earth and theta = angle subtended by the arc between NY
and London at the earth's center

will always transmit signals faster than a transatlantic cable. With actual
values, the height comes out to be around 510 kms.

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joe42
I remember a brief discussion of this on HN from about a year ago:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2425228>

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tocomment
That's a really interesting idea. Does anyone know how much money you could
make with HFT if you were able to communicate through the earth instead of
around it?

If the profit potential is high enough, maybe this is a good way to fund
research?

~~~
comm_it
I'd doubt whether there'd be much money in it from an HFT perspective;
traditional trading might benefit from it, however.

HFT shops co-locate, so they're running their code right there next to the
exchange.

Edit: In case I've missed a point in the article, it wasn't intentional, it's
banned at work so wasn't able to read it.

~~~
pdovy
The use case for this would be communication between different colocations,
which is where the networking "race" really is for HFT. For example, to arb
products on the CME vs. the equities exchanges in the New York area (really
colocated in various places in NJ).

At any rate, as the author mentions this isn't really a feasible technology.

