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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."

17 of 174 comments (clear)

  1. Slightly heavier then... by Anachragnome · · Score: 5, Funny

    "How Heavy Is the Internet?"

    Slightly heavier then the total weight of the worlds useless journalists.

    1. Re:Slightly heavier then... by MightyMartian · · Score: 5, Funny

      What a fucked up metric. That's like asking "how red is 7?" or "what's the personality of a grapefruit?"

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    2. Re:Slightly heavier then... by tool462 · · Score: 5, Funny

      "how red is 7?"

      Just about half, assuming 4 bits per channel.

      "what's the personality of a grapefruit?"

      Bitter.

    3. 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
    4. Re:Slightly heavier then... by TubeSteak · · Score: 5, Funny

      What a fucked up metric. That's like asking "how red is 7?" or "what's the personality of a grapefruit?"

      Your momma is so fat, her circumference is 3.1415 internets.
      /idleispants

      --
      [Fuck Beta]
      o0t!
    5. Re:Slightly heavier then... by LowlyWorm · · Score: 2, Funny

      I believe I do. I never knew it had a name. You are as helpful as 9 :).

      --
      Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
  2. Re:It doesn't weigh anything by MrFancyPants · · Score: 2, Funny

    Argh, hit submit too soon. Reference: IT Crowd

  3. Don't be silly. by Mr.+Bad+Example · · Score: 4, Funny

    The internet doesn't weigh anything.

  4. idleispants by davidwr · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Why isn't this in idle?

    If it's supposed to be serious, you have to amortize the weight of the equipment over its uses. A desktop that spends half its use playing solitaire, 1/4 of its use surfing the web, and 1/4 of its use spamming the world under viral control only counts for half.

    --
    Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
  5. Re:OOOPS! by WaywardGeek · · Score: 4, Funny

    Sorry for this lame thought: One day, long after it as it becomes self-aware, the Internet will collapse under it's own weight into a black hole, becoming the creator of a whole new universe.

    --
    Celebrate failure, and then learn from it - Nolan Bushnell
  6. Rosie O'Donnell still has it beat. by GPLDAN · · Score: 2, Funny

    BOOM! POWZA!

  7. What a useless question by straponego · · Score: 4, Funny

    I need to know how much of the internet is 1, and how much is 0.

    I suppose I could get a start on that by running VMs of the most popular OSs, and examining snapshots of each one, multiplying that by... oh, and do the same with backbone traffic... be a bit of a pain to handle all the embedded stuff, but in principle... well, in principle, the internet could be represented as a single number. I wonder if it's odd or even. I guess it depends on who has the last bit.

    Ooops, time to takes me pills again.

  8. No by N7DR · · Score: 5, Funny

    Ever wondered how much the internet physically weighs?

    No.

    And, oddly, even after someone else has asked the question, I still don't.

  9. 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
  10. Re:Not to mention by machine321 · · Score: 2, Funny

    So, nobody's really sure if he exists or is just a math error?