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How Heavy Is the Internet?

Posted by samzenpus on from the he's-not-heavy-he's-my-router dept.

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."

5 of 174 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Slightly heavier then... by Philip+K+Dickhead · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Top half or bottom?

    --
    "Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act." -- George Orwell
  2. The internet has no weight... by eepok · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The internet is a mass of data interconnected by address. Data is not an object, but the status of variables. Data has no more weight than any other abstract concept.

    1. Re:The internet has no weight... by Rakishi · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Data does have mass:
      http://scottkurowski.com/massbit/index.htm

    2. Re:The internet has no weight... by calzones · · Score: 2, 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 :|

      --
      Asking people to think is like asking them to buy you a new car
  3. Electrons? by dandart · · Score: 1, Interesting

    But, isn't the Internet electrons and light? The internet is not a wire, it flows in a wire.... so surely it's the mass of the electrons and light!

    And of course they're more massive than you might expect due to relativistic effects.