The weight of an electronic library.
November 28, 2011 7:04 AM   Subscribe

E-readers are meant to let bookworms carry their entire libraries with them without any additional weight – but the devices actually get heavier every time a new text is downloaded.

The weight difference is unlikely to make much difference to holidaymakers' baggage allowances, however, because each new tome is about as heavy as a single molecule of DNA.

Trivial, but interesting.
posted by nevercalm (6 comments total)

This post was deleted for the following reason: Neat phenomenon, maybe there's a post in there if there's some interesting commentary on it, but this is a super thin little pop-sci blurb. -- cortex



 
And if you swapped the electrical representation of 1s and 0s, then loading more books into your Kindle would make it lighter, much in the way that punching data into a punchcard or paper tape did.
posted by acb at 7:13 AM on November 28, 2011 [3 favorites]


Have they ruled out any contribution from dark matter?
posted by Renoroc at 7:16 AM on November 28, 2011


Set against this, the heat of the 3g modem/wifi radio will expand the plastic on a microscopic level. I claim that the flex involved would lead to microsopic cracks (external - internally any dust would just resettle), and the device would become slightly lighter as individual molecules broke from the main body. I thus claim that the devices actually become lighter as one downloads the texts.

Actual scientists may disagree.
posted by jaduncan at 7:17 AM on November 28, 2011


How do I get a gig as a science journalist?
posted by Grimgrin at 7:19 AM on November 28, 2011


How much does metafilter weigh?
posted by The Whelk at 7:25 AM on November 28, 2011


How much does metafilter weigh?

Depends how many beans are on the plate at any given time.
posted by yoink at 7:28 AM on November 28, 2011 [1 favorite]


« Older Never Events   |   Grumpy Old (Lines)Men Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments