[szvsw]

For speed of light, a more direct analogue (though your example still makes sense) would be what is often called the “speed of sound” in numerical methods (like the finite difference method, aka FDM), which is often closely related to both temporal and spatial discretization schemes and can lead to numerical instability (cf. CFL condition, Von Neumann stability analysis, etc). It’s also related to things like stiff problems. It essentially has to do with how fast computational information propagates through the simulated domain. Note that it is still called “the speed of sound” even when you are not simulating the wave equation! (At least by my profs)