You literally click through a mass, the internet. Every video, every picture, every line, even these, which you are reading here, fattened the Internet. It has been growing steadily for decades, bytes for bytes. In the meantime it isAccording to StatistaAround 200 billion Zettabyte (e.g.). A e.g. a trillion gigabyte (GB).
But how many kilos, gramms or whatever would the Internet bring on an imaginary scale if we could weigh its content? We investigate this question for you!
A notice:No matter how seriously we try to answer it, this question remains theoretical in nature. Simply take it as a thoughts of thought supported by facts.
Data on the scales!
Last but not least, services such as Steam, Instagram and YouTube have been ensuring a constant accumulation of data together with dozens of further.
These exist on data carriers, race around the earth by radio or hunt through cables around the globe. In order to weigh all of this as if it were matter and no zeros, one or signals in cables, we have to convert them.
As WIRED in cooperation with Christopher WhiteThis would be possible by imagining all the data in one place. As president of an IT research association, White mentally suggests that the amount of energy necessary for this as a value and convert it into mass. According to Einstein's Formula E = MC², this can be done. It would result in a negligible mass that not even reached a milligram.
It will be a little more tangible with an idea that is uprecently presented considerations on the storage capacity of DNAsupports. This is about the basic modules of all life on earth.
- 1 gram of DNA can therefore save 215 Petabytes (PB).
- 1 PB comprises 1024 terabytes (TB)
- 1 TB takes 1024 GB in place
We need around 1.1 tons of DNA for the data stored today. This is a little more than a modern small car (viaengine).
Another calculation method according to the Harvard physicist Russell Seitzwould be to convert the electrical energy for the servers and signal amplifiers into mass.
A handful of strawberries or a fat potato would come out. However, this approach is now dismissed and is considered arbitrary according to White. The value is more a mere statistical gimmick.
According to White, the question of the weight of the Internet remains against WIRED, anyway, very theoretical nature: »The internet is ultimately impossible and objective«.
But his influence and tangible weight on and in all of our lives can hardly be misunderstood. As so often, it escapes as a global, almost lively network of classic drawers of our thinking - or trade fairs.
