How Much Does The Internet Weigh?

I was reading the newspaper on the subway today and read a letter to a tech editor in the paper. His question was:

"How much does the internet weigh?"

The editor replied with a touch of laughter:

"I'll get back to you on that [Goes to sip coffee to find out]


Which begs the question... How much does the internet weigh? The net has been around since 1969, and continues to grow each and every day. It's just like the universe since it keeps expanding. So the net is basically it's own universe... Websites are like planets, and planets are part of the universe. Here's a map of only a portion of the routes that currently exist on the internet:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d2/Internet_map_1024.jpg/600px-Internet_map_1024.jpg

* Dark blue: net, ca, us
* Green: com, org
* Red: mil, gov, edu
* Yellow: jp, cn, tw, au, de
* Magenta: uk, it, pl, fr
* Gold: br, kr, nl
* White: unknown

[Source: Wikipedia]

How can one even try to sum up the size of the net? Surely not using the hdd sizes below:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/be/SixHardDriveFormFactors.jpg/800px-SixHardDriveFormFactors.jpg

^^^Note: I think the big one used to be KNIGHT RIDERS brain. Lol :-D

Seriously though the nets got to be the biggest virtual hdd known to man. With sectors on and off limits to the public. & even if certain parts of the net have restrictions they are still accessed by someone who runs it. Just like private property on our planet. I can't run up into a baseball stadium at 1am. But I sure bet that an employee could.

How much do you think the net weighs?


Something to think about... I'll be back later on to read what you guys think about this topic. For now I'm off to planet EBAY!

:wave

 

I was thinking if you printed everything out.. but here's something..

Source!

 

Just a thought from someone who is still on their first cup of coffee......

Does the Internet exist in our plane of reality? Not really. The internet and all the information that it represents exists only in Cyberspace. I mean really, think about it. What of the internet actually exists in a format that we can see/access without 'special equipment' (read as Computer or internet appliance and hookup). None of it. If you can pull apart a HDD and read the info by looking at the platters, let me know, because I want to be your manager/agent.

Now, taking that supposition that the Internet is a whole different plane of existence that we call Cyberspace, how can we actually apply our planar measurements to something that is extra-planar to us?

Personally, I feel that trying to quantify the internet with something like weight, is like trying to quantify the fourth dimension or some other crazy theory that we can't put our finger on.

Yes, we view and interact with the internet and the information contained within it, but by the same token, people supposedly interact with the afterlife and the 'information' contained there, and we all know that there is no quantifying of that at this time.

I'm no scientist, but it seems rather straightforward to me. The Internet is a foreign dimension that can not support human life. We can only view/interact with it via a special appliance/viewer.

That's my thoughts on the matter

~C

 

Halo, check this out it was a good read

 

I wanted to weigh in on this topic..... but found it beneath me.

 

Data is energy, like light or electricity. But, if you want to know how much the internet weighs, find out how much every server, modem, router, cable or phone line, and computer weighs and add it all together. My guess would be WELL over 10,000. :crap

 

Higher dimensions can be more intuitive than you might think.

For example, the fourth dimension is time. Every position in the space-time continuum can be described with 4 coordinates, 1 for each of our 3 spatial dimensions, and another for our temporal dimension: length, width, height, and time.

Billy stood at (latitude X), (longitude Y), at (altitude Z) on (May 5th, 2008 at 10AM)

 

damn you mada... blowin up my spot like that.. LMAO!!!rolleyes:-D

As I said though, I was only on my first cup of coffe, so I have to have a little lattitude *grin*

I will be sure to work on a better explanation for you so that it will be more accurate on the unquantification of extra-planar space... *heheheh*

~C

 

roflmao....sorry, buddy... leave it to a robot like me. :-D

 

Yup, should have said the 5th dimension, .

 

Sadly, there's an inverse relationship between the number of dimensions, and my ability to explain them :-D

 

Bravo! This is the exact type of conversation I was trying to spark with this thread. Thanks for your input... On a side note can you imagine what scholars would think of such a realm/device(s) say... 2000 years ago? :-D

 

Weren't they a '60'-'70s rock group? :-D Bazza

===

 

Yep, I remember them when I was a kid. They weren’t too bad for the time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fifth_Dimension

But way more interesting:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13070896/

Rubik's Cube in the 4th Dimension:-
http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g309/Zobor/2008_New/4D_RubiksCubecube.gif
View of a Rubik's Cube in 5 dimensions ~ For those that need to know.http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g309/Zobor/2008_New/5D_RubiksCubecube.png

http://mononcqc.wordpress.com/2007/05/11/rubik-cubes-in-the-4th-and-5th-dimension/

Some Physicists believe it makes sense if the universe has 10 to 11 dimensions. Go figure.:confused

 

Fascinating stuff - I never really gave the subject much thought. The closest I guess was one night when I was surfing about the net (there was alcohol involved) and I got to wondering about lost packets of data . . .

You know, like when you use port-forwarding to stealth a port (like 113) so that any data packet that tries to access that port gets forwarded to a non-existent IP address, so the sender has no idea there is a port there. I knew that packets are made up of energy . . . so where does that "energy" go?

I even jotted down some notes . . . then had another beer and promptly forgot about the whole notion till now.

Again, fascinating stuff.

 

Well, we all know that Buckaroo Banzai has the 8th dimension tied up.
Whose got dibs on 6, 7, 9 and 10?:confused

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086856/

 

Well I just curious about all that white up there...the lost packets?