This Would Really Work

The speed of light, and electricity, is about 144,000 miles per second.

The Earth is about 25,000 miles in circumference.

If you were to hook a wire to a switch, wrap the wire around the Earth seven times, and then hook it to a light near you, you would actually see about a one second delay between the time you threw the switch to when the light comes on.

Good luck getting a permit, though.

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I'm reading through this now (7/2/07):

Six times 25,000 equals 150,000. Six times should be sufficient. If the wire were wrapped seven times, it would take about one and one-sixth seconds.

One cannot discount the one-sixth of a second. If you put enough of those together, you end up with a millenia.