Web 4,187,573,5840.0: a desert, yesterday. Photograph: Eugene Hoshiko/AP
Discover Magazine has a fun article which tackles one of those thought-up-in-the-pub questions we all think of from time to time: how much does the internet weigh?
Most of us know that computers represent all types of information... as streams of binary digits, 1s and 0s... They are embodied and manipulated as voltages in electronic circuits. Therefore, every bit of data must have some mass, albeit minuscule. This prompted DISCOVER to ask the question: How much would all the data sent through the Internet on an average day weigh?
In searching for an answer, we scanned technical databases, tore through reference books, Googled like crazy, and checked with experts. It soon became apparent that if we wanted an answer, we were going to have to work it out for ourselves, as no one else appears to have tackled this question before. So we put our thinking caps on and set the coffee machine on extra strong.
What's the answer? Well, it's perhaps no surprise that despite the fact that there are billions of pieces of digital information - so much that a year's output would fill 161bn iPods - a day's throughput weighs just 0.2 millionths of an ounce: the same as a tiny grain of sand.
