Digital Data and Mass

Well probably 3/4 of that is spam...and I would think that it is a credible leap of faith that soon somebody will devise a method to sort legitimate information from the noise that is generated, and the growth rate minus the deletion rate will come into balance, and this prediction, like others that are projections based on the present remaining constant and not dynamic in nature, lead to prognostications remaining well off the mark of reality....social discussions, emails, funny cat videos, and a host of other information that for posterity require no more than sample content, have little to no intrinsic value after a time...The Duplicate content is redundant and massive, so this would be the first target, expiration dates that stamp content with reasonable storage life...then without a granted save rating, self-destruct...

The only thing we lack is a proper management system....

https://www.itbusinessedge.com/articles/how-ai-will-transform-data-management-and-vice-versa.html

Very similar to books, TV shows, movies. Just a different form. This really should come as no surprise to anyone who thinks about it for more than five seconds.

I wholeheartedly agree!

"Knowing exactly what to say,I said nothing." Mark Twain

Along the same crooked line of logic,if 1 boat can sail to Europe in 4 days,then 2 boats can sail there in 2 days.

Figures don't lie,but liars can figure...and so can accountants.

"Does digital data have mass?"

I don't think so. According to the original paper, https://aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/5.0019941:

"Landauer predicted that erasing a bit of information requires a dissipation of energy, equal to at least k_BT · ln(2), where k_B is the Boltzmann constant and T is the temperature at which the information is stored.² Due to the conservation of energy, an energy input of the same value, k_BT · ln(2), is required to create a bit of information."

Essentially the creation of bits of information just increases the entropy of the system by heating up the environment, creating non-recoverable energy.

I asked myself, if I weigh my "empty" memory stick, put data onto it, let it cool down to room temperature again, will it weigh more?

When I read the data back, I heat it up again, creating more entropy and later it still weighs the same?

I think the "mass" of information just evaporates rather quickly...

"Does digital data have mass?"

Programming a NOR memory cell (setting it to logical 0), via hot-electron injection

From a practical standpoint, a blank flash memory is all ones and is programmed by electrons being tunneled into floating gates. So I guess, like in a charged capacitor, there is energy, E, stored in the electric fields of the programmed "0" bits and a mass = E/c².

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_memory

"So I guess, like in a charged capacitor, there is energy, E, stored in the electric fields of the programmed "0" bits and a mass = E/c²."

We know a charged capacitor weighs more than a discharged one; but do the weight /mass of a flash system change, when again at same temperature, when data is loaded or erased?

My understanding is a cleared flash memory is all ones, no charge on the floating gates. Bits programmed as zero have a charge on the floating gate creating an electric field, which has some micro-miniscule mass, E/c². When erased the electrons are allowed to escape and the energy stored in the electric field gets dissipated. So, in this case, programmed zeros "weigh more".

The extra energy for programmed zeros is specific to flash memory. It's easy to imagine a memory device where the energies of zeros and ones are equal. For example, the zeros could be programmed with one polarity of an electric or magnetic field and ones with the opposite polarity, in which case there would be no bias and the content of the data would have no effect on the amount of energy (mass) stored. (I am assuming that there is no coupling between adjacent bits where the energy stored in one bit depends on the state of its neighbors.)

So I'm thinking the amount of stored energy can be zero provided that the energy of a stored one is equal to the energy of a stored zero.

There is some energy required to write information into a memory device or to erase information, but that energy is not stored but is dissipated to the environment and shouldn't change its mass.

Really far out. Especially the number of data bits exceeding the number of atoms. Would you assume a zero has no mass and a one does? Does data exist if it hasn't been observed?

And if the data was observed, you cannot know what it is.

If all data was capable of being sent to one side of the earth at once could it affect the earths rotation , cause changes in crust tension and trigger earthquakes , create potential difference in atmospheric static and trigger super sized lightning strikes ?

just throwing 2 minutes of neuron action at the e-paper here.

At least his article generated contemplation but I don’t see the maths included where digital books weigh less than 100,000 copies of encyclopaedia Brittanica held in storage for 60 years , or the mass of 50,000 libraries around the world being reduced in size.

"Eventually, we will reach a point of full saturation, a period in our evolution in which digital bits will outnumber atoms on Earth, a world "mostly computer simulated and dominated by digital bits and computer code," according to an article published in AIP Advances."

https://phys.org/news/2020-08-digital-content-track-equal-earth.html

And where are we supposed to store all this data?