The Hyperfine Physics Podcast

Does Data Have Mass?


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Is your cell phone heavier when it has more data stored in memory? What about an SD card? Magnetic storage drive? Is there a difference?

Zak and Derek dive in to the physics of flash storage, and what that means for mass even on the smallest of small scales. Electron mass? Einstein mass-energy equivalence? Is there any change at all?

Original reddit post:

https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/74rboo/if_my_60_gb_phone_is_full_or_empty_is_there_any/

Maxwell’s demon:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxwell%27s_demon

Our Mathematical Universe, by Max Tegmark:

https://www.amazon.com/Our-Mathematical-Universe-Ultimate-Reality/dp/0307599809

The podcast lives at https://www.thehyperfine.com/

Join our listener community on Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/TheHyperfine/

Follow the show on Instagram @thehyperfine: https://www.instagram.com/thehyperfine/

Derek on Instagram (and Twitter) @liketortilla: https://www.instagram.com/liketortilla/

Zak on Twitter @phyzaks: https://twitter.com/phyzaks

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The Hyperfine Physics PodcastBy Derek Padilla and Zak Espley

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