r/interesting • u/Nukro666 • 10h ago
SCIENCE & TECH The actual weight of the Internet is equivalent to 50 grams
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u/superbos88 10h ago
This was a very old statement from around 2014-2015, now the internet could weight as much as 10 coconuts if we consider how much it grew
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u/Coinsworthy 10h ago
2700% increase, so it's a pineapple at best.
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u/Illustrious-Neat5123 10h ago
This, because of over repeated informations thanks dead internet theory and IA that recycles stuff and duplicates infinitely on the Internet
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u/davidjschloss 7h ago
But doesn't that use the same amount of electrons?
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u/ITBoss 5h ago
I'm not sure what you're asking, if it's duplicated across the Internet then it's two times the electrons. You can't deduplicate across sites unless there was a central storage the sites shared. And even on a single website, deduping is a fairly expensive operation when compared to storage. The only deduping most likely would be when someone intentionally shares it across the site (retweet, cross-post, etc)
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u/siamak1991 9h ago
Yall can imagine whats stored in just 2 of those coconuts
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u/W1D0WM4K3R 5h ago
TIFU and accidentally fucked the Internet coconut
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u/Sane_Scroller 10h ago
Wish I could consume and store that data the same way I consume strawberries...
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u/BenDover_15 10h ago
You don't have a floppy drive in your neck?
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u/Warchief_Ripnugget 9h ago
Idk man, there's probably a lot of data out there that you don't want to know about.
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u/ConscientiousApathis 8h ago
I am pretty sure eating a strawberries weight of electrons would kill you.
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u/pempoczky 9h ago
Why is internet storage measured in electrons???
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u/SuperIntendantDuck 9h ago
It isn't, they made this up. Nobody's counting electrons, and they don't know how many devices comprise the internet, let alone how much data is stored on each... unless there's something they're not telling us
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u/Patefon2000 8h ago
cloud storage mfs when they learn there's no cloud and their data is stored in google's servers
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u/ArchibaldCamambertII 7h ago
And the internet is also the physical infrastructure itself, which involves of course data centers and cables and such, but also massive lines that criss-cross the ocean and that almost certainly weighs more than a few pounds.
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u/SuperIntendantDuck 4h ago
Yep! To try and quantify all the infrastructure at this point is a ridiculously unlikely task. And you'd want to measure by something meaningful and at least slightly measurable... not electrons, which I highly doubt CAN even be weighed.
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u/Bhaaldukar 1h ago
Electrons have an atomic mass, so to speak, but they don't really have a usable weight. You can't fill a bucket with them and put it on the scale.
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u/muon-antineutrino 7h ago
The actual mass of 540 billion trillion electrons is around 4.92e-7 kg or 492 nanograms, not 50 grams.
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u/hat_eater 8h ago
This is complete and utter bullshit and a challenge to all the nerds who would like to know the truth, or at least why the weight of the internet makes as much sense as the shade of silence.
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u/Entire-Assistant8302 9h ago
Bro I wonder if all the electrons were teleported to one place what would happen i wonder
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u/333Deutschblaze 8h ago edited 7h ago
Did they have to stick a plug up a strawberry to tell us that
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u/bytewheel 6h ago
What are we measuring here? Charge? Voltage potential? Why is this getting upvotes, this is so blatantly incorrect. 540 "billion trillion" electrons weighs ~0.00000000091 grams, not 50. wtf is this post why would you EVER measure the ""internet"" in electron count the hell
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u/MaybeMightbeMystery 5h ago
Oh, yeah, I think a much more reasonable way would be to use bytes.
Funnily enough, using the DNA of one strawberry, we could probably store the internet.
This post is wrong, but it is so close to being right.
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u/celtbygod 6h ago
That is one expensive strawberry considering how much money flows and is generated within the internet. It is almost as pricey as grocery store strawberries with tariffs tacked on.
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u/MaybeMightbeMystery 5h ago
That's nothing.
A single gram of DNA can hold 450 EXAbytes.
That's 450,000,000,000,000,000,000 bytes.
That's 3,750,000,000,000 copies of Skyrim.
In a SINGLE gram.
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u/puppypupperoon 5h ago
one strawberry doesnt nearly weight 50g lol. a giant strawberry may be like 25
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u/Ok_Law219 4h ago
Even if it were true (I don't know), it's like saying you are less than the weight of a speck of dust because the electrons in your DNA weigh less than a speck of dust.
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u/Choice_Educator3210 1h ago
Receiving a text message adds 0.00000000000000000000000000000000004kg to the weight of your phone
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u/charmlessman1 30m ago
An unsited claim from 10 years ago that doesn't even bother to correct typos. Cool.
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