How Heavy Is the Internet? 174
An anonymous reader writes "Ever wondered how much the internet physically weighs? 498,438,559,990kg, according to CNET. To reach this figure, they added together public data on the weight of every computer, server and connecting cable. To this they added 6,075,000kg of iPhones, and over 6,800,000kg of Blackberries. Finally, they added the weight of 287,524 viruses and 85 billion+ webpages."
Re:Slightly heavier then... (Score:4, Interesting)
Top half or bottom?
The internet has no weight... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:The internet has no weight... (Score:3, Interesting)
Data does have mass:
http://scottkurowski.com/massbit/index.htm [scottkurowski.com]
Electrons? (Score:1, Interesting)
And of course they're more massive than you might expect due to relativistic effects.
Re:The internet has no weight... (Score:3, Interesting)
Thank you!!!
I came to read this posting thinking there would be some great discussion on the weight of information. What's the difference in weight between a full hard drive and an empty hard drive for instance, and what can qualify as empty (since it's possible having a series of alternating 1s and 0s is lighter than pure 0s for instance... I wouldn't know) .. point being, that there is a difference between the average drive containing random or "no" bits encoded on it, and one that does actually contain information encoded on it by intention.
But instead this was all about the weight of devices storing said data. Humbug!
I want to know how much all the data (and only the data) on all devices and transmitting on all lines actually weighs. Because the media can and probably will become lighter with time, but information itself can not become any lighter.
I hope some mods gives you some points because this was the best post on here today. Of course, I'm late to the party and this is waaay down the page, so who knows if mods will ever make it down this far :|