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View submission: Ask Anything Wednesday - Engineering, Mathematics, Computer Science
This is actually exactly the definition of the speed of sound in a medium! The speed of sound is really the speed of how long it takes each of those molecules to bump into the ones next to them and convey that information. The speed of sound is generally quite a bit slower than the speed of light, so physically moving a rod doesn't provide much benefit there unfortunately. For reference, the speed of sound in steel is on the order of 5000 m/s, as opposed to 3E8 m/s for light in a vacuum.
There's nothing here!