> So, assuming the source material is correct and electrons indeed have mass, SSDs do get heavier with more data.
replyThat is definitely wrong! No way the source material has more electrons. The only way it could do that is by being charged.
Richard Feynman, The Feynman Lectures: "If you were standing at arm's length from someone and each of you had one percent more electrons than protons, the repelling force would be incredible. How great? Enough to lift the Empire State Building? No! To lift Mount Everest? No! The repulsion would be enough to lift a "weight" equal to that of the entire earth!"
From: https://tycho.parkland.edu/cc/parkland/phy142/summer/lecture...
Not sure I'd survive that experiment.
replySee, now, if this was Reddit...this is the opportunity for a yo momma joke. But here we are on HN, so I'll just point out that this is the opportunity for a yo momma joke.
reply>2.43×10^-15 electrons
replyI believe TFA reads 2.43×10^-15 kg, not electrons. Unless SSDs are creating new and exciting physics, one can't have less than one electron, as it's an elementary particle.
Well you could have a virtual particle whose mass could be time-averaged.
replyNeutrinos weight far less than electrons (but while NAND flash involves super weird physics it's not that weird)
replyThey do weigh far less, but a quantity of "10^-15 electrons" is still impossible.
reply10^–15 is not a negative number, just a small one. https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=10%5E-15+
replyAnd it is less than one?
replyI think my favorite part of that comment is "documenting" that 10^(-15) is not negative by appealing to Wolfram Alpha.
replyTFA started out seeming well enough written but definitely turned LLM-padded in the middle. And yeah, I think you're right about the actual science.
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