A DJ on the radio this morning alluded to an argument he had had with his co-hosts regarding the weight of a full iPod vs. an empty iPod. He felt that a full one would weigh slightly more, and mentioned that he had somehow been vindicated. Bullshit, sez I. Assuming that we are talking about a hard disk-based model, information is stored by rearranging the particles on the disk, not by adding anything to the disk. I am right, am I not? I have forgotten how Flash RAM works, so I can’t comment on that.
If it weighs anything more at all (which I highly doubt - it’s just extra electrons, right?), it would be so infinitesimally little additional weight that a human being wouldn’t be able to perceive it.
Hard drive or flash makes no difference. Neither changes weight when you add or delete data from them. Sometimes radio personalities are just plain stupid and sometimes they are evil geniuses who know exactly what to say to get you to stop and listen.
A point that seems to be glossed over is that a full iPod doesn’t contain any more or less data than an empty one. 00000000 is the same amount of data as 01010101[sup]1[/sup]. So unless you have a reason to believe that stored bits weight more when they’re a one than a zero, you’d have a tough case claiming a full iPod weighs more.
Does a light switch weigh more when it’s on or off?
[sub]1. And unallocated space on an iPod disk is probably full of random bits anyway, not all zeroes[sup]2[/sup].
Firefox doesn’t seem to think “zeroes” is a word.
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Call the radio station and tell the dj he has it backwards. A zero is bigger than a one so zeros must weigh more, thus an empty ipod full of 00000000’s would weigh more than a full one.
If technology hasn’t outstripped my understanding of magnetic storage, a one and a zero are differentiated merely by the direction of a magnetic field on the disc. If the north pole is up, it’s a one, if down, it’s a zero, or vice versa.
While a disk with random 1’s and zero’s wouldn’t weigh any more than a disk with all 1’s or all zero’s, it might be possible to detect whether the data on a disc is randomized, or uniformly 1’s or 0’s, by measuring the resistance of the iPod to rotation in the earth’s magnetic field. All 1’s or 0’s will produce a stronger net magnetic field than would random data.
Um, but that energy doesn’t stay there. Sure, perhaps there’s a small heating effect while writing the data, which adds a little mass, but the moment the temperature is equalised again, that is lost.
When it’s on, there’s some interaction with the Earth’s magnetic field, which would cause the measured weight (as opposed to mass) to change. The magnitude of the difference is left as an exercise for the reader.
I’ve seen DJs with bent to the side necks from the extra weight of their heads. All that extra energy adding weight to the brains through the ears via the earbuds from the ipods.
The way data is stored on magnetic media is not all straightforward, so “all zeroes” in real life is a completely different pattern on the medium.
I once wrote a fake email telling people to delete files from their laptops before travelling so they would lighter. Some small number of people took it seriously.
It is interesting however, how coax cable works. The "1"s are turned on their side and slid down the middle cable and the "0"s just slip around the middle cable. That allows faster transmission because the 1s and 0s can travel at the same time.
That’s obviously false. If it were true, coax cables would have an oval cross section because everyone knows that computer zeros aren’t perfectly round. And what about the zeros that have slashes through them, which account for a good portion of computer zeros? They wouldn’t get anywhere.
You guys are looking at it all wrong. Over time, an iPod accumulates whatever residue is on your fingers when you use it, plus random dirt, dust, etc., just from existing in our reality. On the other hand, some amount of surface has been lost through wear-and-tear. So the question remains, whether there is net loss or gain.