The document discusses how little the internet actually weighs physically. It explains that according to estimates, the entire internet only weighs about 50 grams, about the weight of a strawberry. This is calculated based on the number of electrons and amount of electricity needed to power all the servers that store and transmit internet data. Even individual files, emails, photos, etc. weigh incredibly small amounts, with one email estimated to weigh just two ten-thousandths of a quadrillionth of an ounce.

1. Internet and weight
Notecard ppt.

2. intro
• Internet only weighs 50 grams
• Strawberry
• According to russel seitz, also happens to be
the weight of entire internet

3. Body 1
• So what does that mean?
• Internet is a gigantic place
• How can it possibly weigh so little.
• How do you even measure information?
• Well to determine that, we have to start a
little bit smaller, with a nook.

4. Body 2
• Right now im reading gadsby
• Great novel, written entirely without “e”
• But when I put it on my nook, did it gain any
weight?
• Theoretically, yes it did.

5. Body 3
• Information is stored on my nook, and
flashdrives like this, in binary.
• Binary physically exists because electrons
charge floating gate transistors
• All of these transistors add up to make packets
• When I say packets, what do I even mean?
• Heres a video ([{PLAY VIDEO}])

6. Body 4
• Now these packets make up the information
that makes a book.
• A professor at Berkely estimated
• 10^-18 grams
• Mind blowingly miniscule
• When you charge the battery, it gains 100
million times more mass.

7. Body 5
• That number is so small, its impossible to
measure
• We have only made a scale (most specific)
• Only measure 10^-9th grams.

8. Body 6
• Lets get bigger.
• Seitz came up with his measurement because
internet is posed of servers
• 75-100 million servers in operation to make
the internet work
• Combined, all of those servers= about 40
billion watts of electricity

9. Body 7
• we know that an amp is 10^18th electrons per
second.
• Since we know the weight of an electron
• We can calculate entire internet only weighs
about 50 grams
• This is only the electrons in motion of course.

10. Body 8
• Now, that number only includes servers
• Seitz says if you want to add personal
computers, that number gets to be about
three times larger
• But theres a weight of the internet that
impresses me a little bit more

11. Body 9
• It’s a calculation not of the energy it takes to
serve.
• But the energy stored in the info. itself
• The pictures, the emails, the videos.

12. Body 9
• How much do they actually weigh when
stored?
• Well heres the thing:
• Takes about 8 Billion electrons to store one
email (assuming the email is 50Kb)
• Sounds like a lot, but its really not

13. Body 10
• Electrons are so tiny
• So one email weighs only about two
tenthousanths of a quadrillionth of an ounce!
• But! The internet contains lots of
emails, right?
And lots of video, celebrity rumors, so how
much does it weigh all together?

14. Body 11
• Well the first thing we must ask is; how big is
the internet?
• …and that’s difficult to calculate: but eric
Schmidt, the Executive Chairman of
Google, once estimated that the entire
internet contains about 5 million terrabytes
(doubling every 5 years of course

15. Body 12
• Now we know how many electrons it takes to
form a single byte, and we know the mass of
an electron.
• So with a little math, we can figure out that
the entire internet, (IMPACT MOMENT) only
weighs about .2 millionths of an ounce!

16. Conclusion
• Think of it this way, every single video on
youtube, every single video across the entire
internet, every single image, every single
website, every single email you have ever
sent. Every single email you’ve ever
received, every photo uploaded, is collectively
held within an amount of mass that is about
the size of the smallest possible grain of sand.