To whom it may concern:
I would like to know how fast an email travels. How does phsical distance affect the speed of and email?

Sincerely,
*****

Please tell me you're kidding. The speed of an e-mail?? Come ON!

Depends on where it's being sent to/from, and what kind of mail servers are used.

In a general, SMTP to SMTP server fashion, you would send your email via a client, say outlook. Outlook connects to YOUR smtp server to send the message. YOUR server gets the messages, and examines where it needs to go. If it's being sent to someone who checks their mail from the same server, it saves the mail for them. If it goes to a different server, it checks the other server's setup and finds out the IP address on the internet. It connects to that address (or a backup address if that one isn't avilable), and forwards the message to it. That mail server saves the message until the person who picks is up check's their email.

The distance it travels would have the same delay as a ping to that part of the internet, plus a few seconds for processing. If you can ping asia in 60ms, then it will take 60ms, plus a few seconds for processing.