Is a computer with lots of things stored in it's memory heavier than one without?

Question

If it's storing charge presumably it's mass must be increasing by a tiny tiny amount.

At what point if any does this become measureable?

Answer 1

No!

When you store some data in the computers memory, only REORIENTATION of some storage material (magnetic strips etc)takes place.
A hard disk is a digitally encoded non-volatile storage device which stores data on rapidly rotating platters with magnetic surfaces.

MASS is conserved here since there is not intake or output of any subtance!

So its NOT measurable AT ANY POINT!!(NEVER)

And the fact about transfer of electrons.........they come and go ,memory storage is not due to electrons!

Answer 2

The hard disk drive wouldn't weigh any more regardless of the amount of data, neither would 'magnetic' memory (such as a USB memory stick). The RAM does hold an electrical charge which by definition has a mass so in theory if you have a large enough computer, then you would notice a weight difference - but it would be such a small change the scales would have to be so sensitive they'd break under the weight of the computer.

Great question. It really got me thinking...

Answer 3

Actually no. The computer isn't storing charge, it's flipping magnetic regions. On a hard drive, the data (stored as ones and zeros, or bits) is kept as tiny regions which are either south pole up or north pole up. Flipping the polarity doesn't add charge, it just moves it.

In general, it's nearly impossible to store up any significant charge in an electronic device without an equal and opposite lack of charge somewhere else in the device. A plain, uncompensated, buildup of electrical charge is static electricity, and that destroys delicate circuits. All the functions on the computer work on the principal of moving charge, but not on taking on more or less of it.

Answer 4

In magnetic storage media like disks and tape, you are simply changing the orientation of magnetic particle, not in any way influencing their mask.

In optical storage media like CD/DVD, you are thermally deforming the medium. The only change to mass is the miniscule amount you might lose to evaporation during the writing process.

Semiconductor memories used in processor circuits, cache, main memory, USB flash drives, flash memory cards and so on, operate by varying the charge stored in a tiny capacitive memory cell. The electrons are the mobile charges, so the memory state of the cell is determined by the number of electrons contained in it. I don't know the number for today's memory technologies, but let's say the difference between one and zero is about 100 electrons. Whether more electrons means one or zero is purely convention. For one gigabyte of memory, that's about 100 electrons times 9x10^9 bits, or around 10^12 electrons. With the mass of the electron at about 10^-30 kg, changing a gigabyte of memory all from zero to one would change its mass by 10^-18 kg.

The flash memory market in 2004 was $16 billion dollars US. Guessing at $1.60 per gigabyte, that's 10^10 gigabytes. To tip your scale by a kilogram, you'd need to change from one to zero a hundred million times the amount of flash memory that was manufactured in 2004.

Your computer is grounded, so any excess electrons leak away to earth. If your computer was perfectly insulated, you'd simply be moving electrons from inside the memory cells to the surface of the computer, and its net mass would not change.

Answer 5

No, I can't see that it would.

I'll make a wierd, wierd hypothesis that has a physics basis--maybe when all the bits are lined up (all zeros or all ones), that will have slightly more energy than a 101010 pattern because of the magnetic interaction between bits (although it can't be much or else the bits would interfere with each other, which would be very bad). A random noise pattern would be somewhere in between. (Or it could be vice-versa depending on the magnetic character of the medium) I can't see that the energy difference would ever make enough difference to result in a measureable change in mass though. It would be swamped by thermal energy fluctuations (much less the rest mass of the data device, which is many orders of magnitude greater than the energy we're talking about here).

Answer 6

since there is a current flow INTO the computer that greatly exceeds the stored data then NEVER would be the answer ( the flow varies GREATLY in proportion just due to the hard drive motor )

when i say GREATLY i mean orders of magnitude in fact I'm sure the static charge on the case would exceed the internal magnetic and electrical charge CHANGES !

HEY i should get the points just because the others seem to be missing the point ( ELECTRONS have a measurable mass - and in a circuit they are being stored as potential )

Answer 7

LMAO! Great joke... but just in case it was a serious question, here's my offering...
The weight of the computer will not be affected as nothing physical is added to the hard drive (computer memory). Think of an abacus. It is no heavier if it shows 0 or 100. You just slide the balls across. A hard drive has switches. millions of on or off switches. Hope this helps you chief ;-)

Answer 8

Its funny but if a circuit is put under a full charge, it does gain weight as you say.

For example, a circuit of a mother board on a typical PC will weigh an additional 0.345lbs. A super computer will actually weigh an addtional 200lbs when fully loaded. However, if you electrocute a small frog, it will gain 50lbs for an instant. Thats why you should never hold a frog when you are electrocuting it!

Answer 9

When a computer carrys information stored in its memory, it does not get heavier than a computer that has nothing on its memory. It just uses up space on the hard drive unless the information is stored on to disk.

I hope this answers your question?

Answer 10

I believe the drive works by simply changing the magnetic state of bits of information on the drive. In other words, you aren't adding mass to a hard drive when you write on it, you are simply magnetically altering the state of a drive in a way that is interpreted as information by the computer.