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DevCentral > Weblogs > Dan Matte - Mental Meandering From F5's SVP of Marketing
 How much does the Internet weigh?
posted on Friday, October 19, 2007 4:25 PM

I was doing some research for a presentation that I will be delivering at our annual sales conference next week and came across an interesting article.

The author makes an attempt to estimate the weight of the data that gets sent across the Internet.  His conclusion is that the data weighs as much as a very small grain of sand.

 
      

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10/22/2007 1:06 PM
Gravatar Whenever you build an airplane, you have to make sure that each part weighs no more than allocated by the designers, and you have to control where the weight it located to keep the center of gravity with limits. So there is an organization called weights which tracks that.

For the 747-100, one of the configuration items was the software for the navigation computer. In those days (mid-1960s), the concept of software was not widely understood. The weight of the software was 0. The weights people didn't understand this so they sent a guy to the software group to understand this. The software people tried mightily to explain that the software was weightless, and the weights guy eventually went away, dubious.

The weights guy comes back a few days later with a box of punch cards (if you don't know what a punch card is, e-mail me and I will explain). The box weighed about 15 pounds. The weights guy said "This box contains software". The software guys inspected the cards and it was, in fact, a computer program. "See?", the wights guy said, "This box weighs about 15 pounds". "You don't understand", the software guys responded, "The software is in the holes".
Jeff Silverman
10/23/2007 7:17 AM
Gravatar Excellent story!
Dan
5/28/2008 7:04 AM
Gravatar Jeff: that story outlines an interesting but flawed perspective: The weight of the software is not in the holes, but in what the holes imply.

Which is to say: Software does not run on weightless ether. Software implies a machine or machines to run it on. The design of the software implies details about the machines.

So yes, software does "have" weight.
eric
5/28/2008 12:38 PM
Gravatar No, the software has no weight. The hardware weighs the same regardless of how much software is loaded. Software is the representation of an idea, and like ideas, it is weightless.
Larry J
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