Useless Information: Weight of a bit.

[Xerol]

This started out about an hour ago when someone proposed the question: "How much bandwidth in a pound?"

After much debate, much argument, many scarred relationships for life, and a bit of quick fingering on Windows Calculator:

[02:13] <Xerol> So, IN [removed]ING CONCLUSION, there are 10,565,047,503,613,845 bits to a pound.

We worked it out a bit more and figured that over a 1 gigabit line(125MB/s) it would take 122 days 6 hours 44 minutes 7.503613848 seconds to transmit a pound of data. Or, as I put it:

[02:24] <Xerol> just divide 1,320,630,937,951,731 by the data rate to get the time to transmit 1 pound

The calculations were based off of the speed of electrons through 1mm copper wire, the weight of an electron, and the number of electrons in a specific amount of copper wire.

So, basically, significant matter transmission can begin when we get Petabyte data lines

 

[Craig_San]

While it would be an interesting exercise to calculate the cost of a bit. There would be a few numbers worth calculating:
- Cost of a bit to get from the internet
- Cost of storing a bit on your hard disk
- Cost of storing a bit on some other media
- Cost of processing a bit (and there are a few different versions of this, cost of comparing a bit, cost of adding a bit, cost of moving a bit etc)

But I'm not really gonna do it. I reckon all the answers will be very very small numbers and as far as I am concerned, I am going to keep on using bits by the million because I reckon that they are as good as free.

 

[Souron]

But computer bits are not electrons. they are electrisity present for a lenght of time much longer than it takes an electron to move from one gate to another.

 

[AtariCrossover]

Listen to Souron.....he is right..........

 

[Perfection]

What if your transmitting via a fiber-optic line or a wireless device...

 

[Neomega]

What if your transmitting via a fiber-optic line or a wireless device...

I was gonna say that this would only apply with a fiber optic line, but was afraid I might be put in my place. My first REACTION was Sourons ReAction. Bits, to be fair, ....myyyaaavveenn..... should count the weight of the trasistor, because the transistor position is just as important as the electro-magnetic imbalance... Aye-Yaay....

 

[Craig_San]

I don't think that bits are fundamentally tied to electrons. Isn't a bit still a bit if it is stored on a CD, or written on paper as a 1, or stored in a punch card, or on that old magnetic memory thing, or a hard disk.

(I didn't want to reply because this is too abstract but I can't help myself.)

 

[Neomega]

I don't think that bits are fundamentally tied to electrons. Isn't a bit still a bit if it is stored on a CD, or written on paper as a 1, or stored in a punch card, or on that old magnetic memory thing, or a hard disk.

(I didn't want to reply because this is too abstract but I can't help myself.)

Yes, it's true. A bit can be stored in any medium.