How much does the internet weigh? No more spoiler here. Read more and find out.
The data we upload on the web, the information we share, the chats we do with our friends and every other key typed and every mouse click – everything makes the internet a more vast and complex place.
And, they also continue to make our internet a “heavier” place. So, how much does the internet weigh? How much would all the data on the internet at any one moment weigh?
I was watching random videos on YouTube and I came across this amazing video on Vsauce, a YouTube channel. The video describes and calculates the weight of the internet, after taking the inspiration from reports that indicate that each book loaded onto Amazon Kindle e-reader makes the tablet slightly heavier.
There are lots of theories on the internet that calculate the weight to be as small as a fat strawberry- and some claim it to be as light as a teeny grain of salt.
Using Einstein’s formula e=mc², Professor John Kubiatowicz, a computer scientist at the University of California, Berkeley, calculated that filling a 4GB Kindle would increase by 0.000000000000000001 gram.
Also read: This Amazing Map Shows 885,000 km Internet Cables Hidden Under the Ocean
The Internet runs on electrons and that’s how data is stored. These electrons weigh very less. To make an ordinary email of 50 kb, it takes about 8 billion electrons. This sounds like a big number but it weighs just “two ten-thousandths of a quadrillionth of an ounce.”
In the video below, Vsauce explains how the entire internet weighs about 50 grams. These calculations are based on a decade-old data but it gives us a rough idea. Every year more and more servers are added, the internet gets a few grams heavier.
Watch it here:
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