The entire internet weighs about as much as a large strawberry
Information on the internet is stored as bits — electrical states of transistors. According to calculations by physicist Russell Seitz, the mass-energy equivalence of all the electrons actively representing data across the global internet amounts to approximately 50 grams — the weight of a large strawberry. This is because electrons have almost no mass. The internet traffic at any given moment represents a tiny fraction of total stored data, and even that tiny fraction converts to almost no physical mass when measured in grams.
The internet feels vast, influential, and all-pervasive — containing essentially all of human knowledge. Discovering that the physical mass of all that information is negligible makes the relationship between information and matter feel philosophically unresolved.
“The entire internet — all its stored data and active traffic — weighs approximately 50 grams. The same as a large strawberry. All of human knowledge, barely detectable on a scale. 🍓💻 #OddlyHuman”