An Ipod should weigh a little less each time I use it, because it has converted energry into soundwaves. All that energy loss makes it lighter, until I recharge it.
I don’t know off the top of my head exactly how magnetic memory works, but flash memory (as I understand from wikipedia) is literally an array of switches. When a bit is set to 1, that just means its been set to a state which allows current to flow through it. When it’s set to 0, that just means its in a state which does not allow current to flow through it. Hard to see how the weight of the thing would change under such circumstances.
(By the way, a blank block of flash memory is all 1s, not 0s!)
-Kris
Interesting concept. I wonder if listening to Light FM in my car would get me better gas mileage.
I could swear there was a Dilbert comic one year where either Dilbert or Wally told PHB to delete large files off his hard drive to make it lighter. Or maybe they talked Asok into it, or some such.
Seriously, though, does a battery weigh more when full or empty? Does it depend on the battery type?
Ah, the zeroes with the slashes are why the internet tubes get clogged–sometimes a few of them will lock up and packets get caught up behind them, especially in bends in the series of tubes.
Ah, I think he (the DJ) is confusing weight and mass.
While it is true that binary 1s are more massive than binary 0s, they are not affected by gravity and thus do not weigh anything.
So, the answer is the weight does not increase, but the iPod’s mass does…only you can’t measure it because binary mass is not affected by inertia.
What is the iPod is on a treadmill?
Yeah! And what if it’s dripping with yak jizz?
I could swear Cecil answered basically the same question, but with two friends mailing a floppy disk back and forth in a long chess game. But damned if I can find it.
The weight of a flash-based iPod DOES change when data is added to it.
Flash memory works by injecting electrons into a storage layer. Those electrons weigh something.
The iPods weight will be slightly different after the battery iis charged. I doubt that it is measurable using current technology.
What about a light-bulb? Is that heavier when it is switched on? Does energy have a weight?
Since residential power is AC, any effect would average to zero.
No, a light bulb would be lighter when it’s lit, duh.
Actually, the added heat energy would tend to increase the mass of the bulb by a tiny, tiny amount, but it would also cause the bulb to expand by a tiny amount, and the effect of the buoyancy of the bulb in air would swamp the effect of the weight of the extra mass due to heat energy.
AAAAHHHH! Math text flashback!!!
Are you saying that the ipod has a net increase in electrons after it has songs written to it? This is not true. The electrons are just moved from being in the metal layers and silicon to the insulating layer under the gate. There is no increase in electrons just a shift of position.
Then someone’s been listening to some Night Granger.
Why don’t you just weigh it both ways. :rolleyes:
I think scales will have to come a *long *way before they’re capable of detecting the weight of electrons…
And the reason why you shouldn’t kink coax cable is that the 1’s, being long and thin, tend to get stuck going round sharp bends. The 0’s, being round, go through without difficulty. In severe cases you see no signal at all because all the 1’s are blocked and only the 0’s can get through - and of course, all 0’s equals no signal.
I don’t think this is true. The electrons that are injected into the floating gate from the bulk of the transistor are replaced. Persistant holes are not created in the substrate of the FET.