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REAL LIFE NEWS: E-BOOKS ARE HEAVY, MAN!

by Hazed

The joy of the Kindle is that it allows you to carry a whole library around with you, with no more effort that hefting one paperback book. But now I learn that the more books you store on the device, the heavier it becomes.

This is worrying, since I have already got several hundred titles on mine.

But it turns out I don't need to panic. The increase in weight is only microscopic.

This effect has been found by John Kubiatowicz at the University of California at Berkeley, as reported in the New York Times last week. He says that energy is bound in the process of storing the book's bits in the flash memory the device uses. According to Einstein's famous equation (you know the one - E=MC 2) this means that the gadget gains an equivalent amount of mass.

We are talking such teeny tiny amounts that they are effectively unmeasurable. 10 -18g, according to his argument. So I don't think I am going to notice any time soon!

Source: http://www.reghardware.com/2011/10/31/boffin_says_ebook_readers_gain_mass_
when_books_are_added/

Foot (or equivalent) note:

Shameless plug - the first e-book from ADVFN Books, formatted and produced by yours truly, is now on sale in Amazon's Kindle store.
US: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0062F6LIM/ a0d23-20
UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0062F6LIM/a05b9-21

This is so exciting! Tell your friends.

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