Talk:Yottabyte

Discussion about centralization took place at Talk:Binary prefix.

Yotta vs Yoda

The title says Yotta and the article starts with "A yodabyte (derived from the SI prefix yoda-)" So wich one is correct ? I guess Yoda is StarWars-only :-) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.190.229.68 (talk) 12:16, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Binary vs Decimal

Why does the binary approximation need citation? The suffix may not be in common usage at this point, but it doesn't seem hard to imagine that future computers manufactured and described will have exactly that amount (1024^8) of addressable memory. Once we have that amount, considering precedent, common terminology will unlikely match the unambiguous SI term. This may be a bit crystal ball, but I don't think the world is likely to change that much between now, and when a yottabyte is feasibly and usefully attainable. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.231.183.2 (talk) 01:18, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

You said it yourself. The article is not about how the term might be used in the future, but about how the term is used now, in July 2008. Can you cite any uses in the binary sense? Thunderbird2 (talk) 08:52, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Thank you. I now understand a bit more about the wiki project (and I like that they used the term "crystal ball" :) The 2nd sub-paragraph shows exactly why my reasoning was incorrect. So, yes, this needs to have a citation. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.231.183.2 (talk) 04:02, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Comments below (in a different section) show that IEC 60027 has something to say about this. I don't know enough about that standard to comment, but could someone who does know comment on a) whether that standard suggests that it is acceptable to use yottabyte to refer to 1024^8 and b) whether this counts as a significant citation. Maybe the article should be changed to refer to yobibyte, and simply state that there isn't precedent to say that yottabyte and yobibyte can be synonyms in common usage. The yobibyte article seems also to make the assertion that they are synonyms, so it should also have a needs-citation flag. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.231.183.2 (talk) 04:13, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

IEC makes it clear that (according to their definitions) a yottabyte is exactly 1000^8 bytes, whereas a yobibyte is exactly 1024^8 bytes. The yobibyte article cites the IEC standard and therefore doesn't need the flag. To my knowledge there is no standards body that defines the yottabyte as 1024^8 bytes - for me that is the key difference. Thunderbird2 (talk) 10:25, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Vandalism

Recent "you suck" and derogatory comments were integrated into the article.... I blanked and then reverted the page, therefore removing the offending comments. ---Your friendly neighborhood 24.238.177.246-

"The term "macabtyte" refers to a storage unit used on Apple computers. It appears larger, is in fact smaller but considerably more expensive than the equivalent PC storage unit. Macabytes have a glowing Apple printed on each byte." -- based on some google searching there is no such thing. This looks better fit for uncyclopedia than wikipedia. I am gonna remove it. - 96-35-10-239.dhcp.stls.mo.charter.com July 7 2009 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.35.10.239 (talk) 02:31, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Dude, Google isn't always right, you Apple biggot. (You had to GOOGLE that? What a lamer. How's the pocket protector?) (talk) 02:31, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Obvious vandalism occuring, I suggest that the page gets locked.

AFD

Why does someone want this page on the "Votes for deletion" page?? --Anon

My mistake. I withdrew it. --Dpbsmith 04:09, 21 Mar 2004 (UTC)

"A mole of bytes"

I removed the statement:

"A yottabyte (2⁸⁰ bytes) is about 2.01 moles of bytes."

Unless I'm greatly mistaken, this is nonsense. A mole is a gram-molecular weight, and bytes do not have a molecular weight. The article on mole says:

"[a mole] is defined as the amount of substance of a system that contains as many elementary entities as there are atoms in 0.012 kilogram of carbon-12. This is known as Avogadro's constant and is approximately 6.02 × 10²³."

Bytes are not a substance. It is not meaningful to speak of "a mole of bytes." Even if it were, it is not at all clear to me how one can derive the stated figure.

If someone wants to reinsert the above statement I request that they give an explanation on this talk page of the meaning of the phrase "a mole of bytes" and that they summarize the calculation that shows that a yottabyte = 2.01 moles. --Dpbsmith 04:09, 21 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I suppose they're trying to say that there's as many bytes in a yottabyte as there are moles in 0.012 kg of C-12? --Dysprosia 04:10, 21 Mar 2004 (UTC)

The out-of-context use of mole comes unexpected, but is essentially correct. This is a typical form of humor. Someone is being dense here, and innumerate besides. Dysprosia's comment is meant humorously too, one might hope…

—Herbee 00:00, 2004 Apr 3 (UTC)

My first chemistry teacher, Mrs. Murray of sainted memory, illustrated the size of a mole by writing Avogadro's number on the board, then placing a dollar sign in front of it. We then computed how much of various commodities this much money could purchase, how many times a "mole of money" could buy and sell Bill Gates, etc. It may have been an abuse of terminology, but it was certainly educational. --Anville 18:45, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)

According to http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=mole it would be correct to talk about a mole of bytes. It says Merriam-Webster defines the word as:

Main Entry: 3mole

Variant: also mol /'mOl/

Function: noun

the base unit in the International System of Units for the amount of pure substance that contains the same number of elementary entities as there are atoms in exactly 12 grams of the isotope carbon 12 <a mole of photons> <a mole of sodium chloride>

Under this definition, "mole" is a measure of the number of objects in a collection (like "dozen" or "gross") not a measure of mass (like "kilogram" or "pound"). A mole of photons is just a collection of 6.02×10²³ photons. It doesn't matter that light is not a "substance". It doesn't matter what masses the photons have. All that matters is that there are 6.02×10²³ elementary objects in the collection. So a mole of bytes would be a collection of 6.02×10²³ bytes.

That same URL also gives the definition from the American Heritage Dictionary. That dictionary gives two very different definitions of the term:

mole5 or mol ( P ) Pronunciation Key (ml) n.

1. The amount of a substance that contains as many atoms, molecules, ions, or other elementary units as the number of atoms in 0.012 kilogram of carbon 12. The number is 6.0225 × 1023, or Avogadro's number. Also called gram molecule.

2. The mass in grams of this amount of a substance, numerically equal to the molecular weight of the substance. Also called gram-molecular weight. See table at measurement.

Definition 1 is a count, and definition 2 is a mass. A mole(def 1) of bytes is meaningful, but a mole(def 2) of bytes is not. Just as it's meaningful to talk about a dozen bytes, but not about a kilogram of bytes. The number of yottabytes in a mole(def 1) of bytes is calculated by dividing Avagadro's number by 2⁸⁰, which is approximately 2.01.

That ignores the part of all four definitions which say that a mole only has meaning with respect to the "amount of a substance." Bytes are not a substance. I've been trying to figure out any way to reword this, but it is just plain wrong to speak of "a mole of bytes." What is right is to say that it is a pleasant numerical coincidence that Avogadro's number express in binary is approximately the "round" number 2⁷⁹. I'm going to see if I can wordsmith this in some way that preserves the amusing coincidence without saying something incorrect. --Dpbsmith (talk) 22:23, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Are a group of photons a substance? No. Yet the first dictionary definition gave <mole of photons> as one example of a proper use of the word "mole". Many universities and scientists use the phrase "mole of photons" (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=%22mole+of+photons%22) even though it's clearly not a substance. The dictionary used "substance" for want of a better word, but the example showed they intended it to mean any collection of "elementary units" that can be counted. There was no intent to limit it.

Are a group of electrons a substance? No. Yet the current mole article gives electrons as an example of something you can have a mole of, as does the NIST site defining SI units http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/current.html). You wouldn't normally call a group of electrons a "substance". We wouldn't say that more "substance" was poured into a capacitor as it charged.

Also note that NIST and the article don't just say "amount of substance". They say "amount of substance of a system". If a collection of information is a system, then the bytes will make up the substance of that system. The substance of this argument is that "substance" needn't be limited to chemicals.

Both NIST and the dictionary use the word "substance" as a convenient word for "a bunch of stuff" (especially since it's most often used in chemistry), but the example shows that they didn't intend to limit it to what we'd normally call "substances". Why bother to impose such a limitation? Google searches on "mole of" in quotes turns up in the first few pages many hits on schools and information sites (e.g. chemistry.about.com) that say "mole" can be applied to anything you can count. Common usage appears to be consistent with both NIST and the dictionary. In this case the system is memory, and the elementary unit of the substance of that system is a byte, so a yottabyte is about 2 moles of bytes.

Brontobyte

Please provide a reference for Brontobyte. See Talk:SI prefix. --Ian Cairns 23:05, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Brontobyte

What is a brontobyte?? (A link to this word was added to this article.) --66.245.99.179 23:12, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)

It's what happens to time-travellers who discover that brontosaurus was not really a herbivore. The article on bronto would have you believe otherwise though. — Trilobite (Talk) 06:57, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Brontobyte is covered in Non-SI unit prefix. — Omegatron 22:51, 22 March 2007 (UTC) What on the face of earth is a Brontobyte anyway?Albertgenii12 (talk) 23:38, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

H2O

I thought that the human body was 70% water. If this is true how can there be more oxygen than hydrogen?

The human body is made up of 65% oxygen by molecular weight, not by number of atoms. Water is mostly hydrogen, although most of its weight comes from oxygen since oxygen is much heavier. — oo64eva (Alex) ^{(U | T | C)} @ June 28, 2005 06:14 (UTC)

Not all the oxygen in the body is from water, nor is all the hydrogen. Hydrogen is a component of virtually every molecule in the body, and oxygen is only slightly less prevalent. There are certainly more hydrogen atoms in the body, but because they are only 1/16th the weight of an oxygen atom, there would have to be 16 times as many hydrogen atoms as oxygen in order to have an equal weight, which there isn't. ---ray- 22:14, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

The number of bytes

This article shows a yottabyte as a nice, even number. But for smaller measurements, it doesn't work out that way. A kilobyte is 1,024 bytes, a megabyte is 1,048,576 bytes, a gigabyte is 1,073,741,824 bytes, and following that system, a yottabyte should be 1,208,925,819,614,629,174,706,176 bytes. I don't know if that's used for such big, theoretical numbers, though, so I didn't change anything. On a side note, what's the accepted way on Wikipedia to write large numbers? Is it 1,048,576 or 1 048 576? I personally prefer the first, but I'm not going to argue with the SI standard, or whoever determines that. --Twilight Realm 03:28, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

Well, kilobyte actually means either 1000 or 1024, depending on context. I'm not sure if the powers of two corruption extends up into these very large prefixes. There's no official IEC equivalent, but it would probably be "yotbibyte" or something.

In the Wikipedia we use commas instead of the SI standard spaces. See Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers) — Omegatron 14:01, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

Actually, a kilobyte is only 1024 bytes, but a kilogram, for example, is 1000 grams. The byte originated with (and so far as I know is used exclusively in relation to) computers, which are based on the binary number system, so it is always used in powers of 2. (The byte itself is 2³ bits) This would be true no matter how far you take it, so a yottabyte would be 2⁸⁰ bytes, but a yottagram, for example, would be 10²⁴ grams. (The moon's mass is about 74 Yg.) This difference is programmed into Google's Calculator. Note the difference between a "1 yottagram in grams" search and a "1 yottabyte in bytes" search. ---ray- 22:14, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

The table in the manual of style indicates that according to IEC 60027, a yottabyte is either 10²⁴ or 2⁸⁰, but a yobibyte is always 2⁸⁰. -Walter Siegmund (talk) 22:31, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

A kilobyte is 1000 bytes. A Kibibyte is 1024 bytes (IEC standard). Wynler 15:15, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

100 bytes per atom?

I seriously doubt the entire state of an atom can be described in just 100 bytes. That number strikes me as beingr several orders of magnitude too low... of course with the uncertainty principle the state of an atom can never be fully described so the point is moot. Still it is an oddball arbitrary constant that makes the metaphor a little weird. Maybe it would be worthwhile to find a data structure that can be well-described. Asteron [[User_talk:Asteron|&#12494;&#12524;&#12484;&#12449;]] 03:56, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, you could describe the possibilities of state with quantum mechanics, but even then, 100 bytes would not be enough for this.

Yatta

Any actul reason for the link to Yatta at the bottom of the page? That's just totally unrelated, right? 68.40.186.248 05:50, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing this out. I deleted it. BTW, do you want to join the project? Anyone can edit, but there are advantages to creating an account if you want to contribute regularly. To join, create an account and then introduce yourself to the community at the new user log. Best wishes, Walter Siegmund (talk) 16:46, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Human complexity

Why is the bit about how many yottabytes it would take to store a human relevant whatsoever? It seems like a bit of useless trivia. Nothing wrong with trivia, but there is absolutely no logical connection whatsoever between yottabytes and human complexity. MOF 09:01, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

The Yottabyte is such an astoundingly large number, that for most people, its shear size is hard to grasp. By using the molecular scale, this analogy is an attempt to frame the size of the yottabyte in a more practical sense. — oo64eva (Alex) ^{(U | T | C)} @ 05:33, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Sorry about that, I didn't mean to click the save page button. I went ahead and reverted it back. 8.10.128.50 21:59, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

It also adds a bit of flavor to an otherwise bland article. Flame0001 21:02, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

It adds a bit of useless and dubious trivia to an otherwise accurate article, you mean. — Omegatron 21:10, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Nothing wrong with a little trivia. AllStarZ 23:19, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Can whatever-it-was be put back please? Jackiespeel 17:43, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

i'm for it remaining and as that make five votes for it remaining against two for removing it i'm putting it back.J.L.Main 10:18, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Is this possable

Is there any super computers in a world that have atleast a yottabyte? I think that that would be a good thing to add to this article if there is. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Ncusa367 (talk • contribs) 19:17, 10 December 2006 (UTC).

There's not. Useight 22:56, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

It will be possible after, probably 50 years, when satellites have computers strong enough to transmitt stuff from Jupiter.Albertgenii12 (talk) 23:39, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Everything in the universe

I removed the statement "It has been theorized that everything in the entire universe could be stored in one yottabyte of data."

For one thing, who is it that theorizes this? The user who put this in here? A scientist? A school teacher? Also, this statement has no meaning. A Yottabyte is a unit of binary storage, not matter. Assuming that the user meant that the entire universe could be described with one yottabyte of data, that user would have to be more specific. If one wants to digitally render a 3D environment of the entire universe, it would take a lot more than 1 yottabyte... a hell of a lot more. If one wanted a 1 kb description of every single atom in the universe then again, this would take up orders of magnitude more than a yottabyte. If however someone wanted a small description of every body in the universe larger than 4 grams, then perhaps a yottabyte would be adequate. It all depends. — oo64eva (Alex) ^{(U | T | C)} @ 06:00, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Oops! I forgot to remove that when I removed a link to a personal website that had that "theory" on it. Thanks for catching it. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me Please review me!} 06:01, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Ten year prediction

First reference predicts 1 Zettabyte of data by 2010. The second reference claims to predict 1 Yottabyte of data by 2010. Since the second reference is incomplete, conflicts with the first and looks like an error, I removed it. — Shinhan < talk > 11:43, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Some re-added this. I agree with your original assessment and have re-removed the second statement. 137.148.142.199 (talk) 18:38, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

And I have re-added it again, but I put the quotation in the reference. Two sources making different projections isn't a valid a reason to remove sourced content, just because the two projections happen to disagree. Both are valid. If anything, the text in the article could be rephrased to say that the projection by 2010 ranges between a zettabyte and a yottabyte, depending on the study. ~Amatulić (talk) 20:24, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm removing the claim. To reach a zettabyte by 2010 is feasible, a yottabyte is not, as it is way too much. Think about it, if all 1.5 billion Internet users had a 1 Terrabyte drive with all the disk space used up then that is only 1.5 zettabytes, WAY OFF the scale of a yottabyte. It may happen in 20 years however.--70.65.245.94 (talk) 01:52, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

'Practical' application of the yottabyte

This article says "[a yottabyte] holds enough memory to record a [=one] humans entire life conversation" but the article on exabyte says that "Mark Liberman calculated the storage requirements for all human speech [i.e. "all words ever spoken by human beings"] at 42 zettabytes, if digitized as 16 kHz 16-bit audio" and that "a project at the UC Berkeley School of Information" calculated it at 5 exabytes, probably (says Liberman) "thinking of text". As the claim in this article is unsourced, I'm removing it altogether until someone finds a more credible and sourced estimate.84.53.74.196 08:41, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Merge request, plus criticism

I'm of the opinion that practically all of the descriptions of the separate measurement units ought to be folded under one or a few articles describing the measurement system as a whole. As in "Le Système International d'Unités"/"International System of Units", and perhaps an article on "Metric Prefixes" in addition. The separate concepts should perhaps be kept as redirections to the relevant article, or WikiMedia's search functionality should be augmented to with some sort of extra-topic tagging functionality to redirect searches for such terms into their proper location in the relevant page. Anyway, it seems to me pretty weird and unencyclopaedic to list terms such as this one as a separate article.

Secondly, even if nothing of the above sort is ever undertaken, I think it's plainly wrong to say that the binary suffixes have simply been "suggested". After all, following the links even now present in this very article, it's easy to see that IEEE -- one of the foremost standardisers in the world, in charge of standards like FireWire and Ethernet -- has formally, by ballot, accepted such suffixes as recognized nomenclature. Granted, IEEE does not have a UN mandate like ISO/IEC/ITU and the lot do. But nevertheless, it should be recognized as much in the computer science and electrical engineering field as, say ITU-T -- in actual fact the latter body's standardisation efforts tend to lead to technical practice that is theoretical, as opposed to its widely practical counterpart in IETF and IEEE practice.

Decoy (talk) 22:37, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

There is already such an article: Binary prefix.

I don't see "suggested" on the page, but please do feel free to replace it with whatever is appropriate. Be bold :) shreevatsa (talk) 00:02, 16 August 2008 (UTC)