The questions is: "Is a full USB stick heavier than an empty one?'
We talked about the conservation of matter and energy in another thread. Amazingly enough it applies to traditional USB memory sticks as well. The article explains why a fully loaded stick weights (immeasurably) more than an empty one. Based on the physics of things, the weight of the Internet was also calculated. The answer is surprising.
I read somewhere that the weight of the data contained on the Internet in the U.S. was the same as an M&M candy, and for the whole world about four M&Ms. I assumed this was because electrons do have weight.
The article is interesting too. And it does make sense.
The irony of it all is that a zero weighs more than a one. LOL I never thought about how much weight those free electrons would amass, but I do like the analogy to strawberries. They are healthier than M&Ms too.
It's sorta like my formula for separating mixed bed deionization resins.
Although the uncharged resins weigh exactly the same until charged, each type of resin only accepts either a positive or negative charge. Cations and Anions.
When a mixed bed cylinder was spent I used a solution that only charged one of the resins first, the Cations.
I purposely made the formula for this to an exact viscosity, in order to use the density of the product to cause the Anions to float. This allowed them to be poured off into a different container where they could be charged.
If the user had two such cylinders, they could put each resin in a different cylinder and not have to separate them again.
They would also last longer than they did previously, because mixed bed resins have a tendency to neutralize themselves.
The company who made the cylinders claimed it was impossible to separate the resins once mixed.
The resins will last indefinitely so why throw them away and buy new cylinders each month? Especially at the high price they charged for them!
So I already knew a negative particle weighs more than a positive particle, a zero weighs more than a 1. That's probably because the hole in the middle of the zero, hi hi.
Heck, doughnut companies figured out how to make money by selling that hole!
Cations and Anions ... you are talking ions there. Ions are either net positive or net negative electrically charged atoms/molecules. Since electrons are negative charges, the more negative the charge is (in terms of electron volts) the greater is the number of electrons present. Logically you would think the most negative of two charged particles would represent a zero, but in reality it represents more electrons and not zero electrons. In fact every atom in existence has at least one electron. When it comes to chemistry and physics, there is no such thing as a one or a zero. That's something we made up to understand data a little easier. So, in physics there are positive and negative particles, but in computers there are ones and zeros. I won't get into negative logic here just to preserve sanity.
When it comes to resins, I know nothing. LOL I don't know why you were able to separate them the way you did. But, if you truly were relying on cations and anions to complete the task, then it's a matter of like charges repelling each other. The resins would combine easily if one was a negative ion and the other a positive ion. I think that's why you were told you could not separate them once combined. It would be the equivalent to atom smashing. Or, that's the theory. Since you did manage to separate them, something else was going on to extract the ions from the mixture. I may sound like I know what I'm talking about, but really. I have no clue.
See, that is the delight of knowing just enough chemistry that you ignore what they say don't work.
Both of my products were based on unconventional methods, that they claim could not possibly work.
You have to go all the way back to Kindergarten or First Grade to understand why the teachers lie to you.
I'm sure you remember, in those grades, your teacher would tell you that 2 DOES NOT GO INTO 1.
Then you move up a couple of years in skewl and NOW a teacher tells you, what you learned already you must forget because it is not correct, 2 DOES GO INTO 1, it goes 1/2 times. Aha, we are leaning about Fractions.
Move up a couple of more years and they introduce you to Decimals, 2 goes into 1 0.5 times.
Honestly Yogi, you would never believe some of my experiments as it relates to Reef Aquaria and the materials used therein. I may have mentioned my going half way across Illinois to get several buckets of eggshells to experiment with.
You DON'T want to know what a porch full of egg shells smell like after a couple of days in the hot sun, even when filled with water and rinsed daily. My neighbors moved away from me on the group W bench, hi hi.
I guess it's all a matter of viewpoint. That first grade teacher didn't lie to me. She just didn't tell me the whole story. When you are trying to teach 7 year olds about numbers and division, it's a mistake to go into advanced mechanics. First grade is for learning the first things. All those advanced concepts need time to digest what you learned first.
All those things you made work and were told can't be done make sense. You and the experts were working from two different sets of knowledge. You didn't know what they know and vice versa. Of course you were seen as the dumb one, but then you made them eat crow more than once. I don't believe you violated any rules of physics or any other science. You simply applied the knowledge at hand and came up with a result nobody considered before. It's not that it could not be done, it's that nobody tried it because they didn't know enough. Or, as in your case, didn't know it won't work.
You DON'T want to know what a porch full of egg shells smell like after a couple of days in the hot sun
I do realize a lot of what I was able to make was really just dumb luck that I picked the right things to make it work.
And I was not smart enough to see the possibility of other potential uses for what I came up with.
But on the bright side, it did help others who could see other uses develop products, even if I didn't benefit from them.
After my AZ-NO3 product was making a dent in the marketplace, a rather large company came out with a product they claimed did the same thing. Only in their case, the only thing it did was fool the available test equipment aquarists used.
Because they were a big company and had major distribution, this put a sour taste in everyone's mouth regarding such products. But I hung in there, even though my sales dropped considerably after that. There were enough people who used my product and knew it worked, and in some cases who also tried the other product and knew it didn't work. They mentioned this in the various usenet groups and little by little my sales went back up again.
Then a distributor contacted me about handling my product. I would have to change my bottle type to one they could put labels on, and later had me put the labels on. But that helped me out considerably. They did not stay in the business very long, but managed to sell my products distribution to another larger company and it took off from there.
Thankfully, what few bugs I had to overcome when we went international with the product I was still able to understand enough to fix, but not without the help of a testing lab familiar with the water in oriental areas.
Although their own chemists said my product can't do what I claim it does, but it is obvious it does, but they just don't know how it is possible. That was only up until the time I had them culturing my enzymes for me. That was their aha moment. It was how my enzymes were cultured, most unconventional, but did the trick.
Most of the things aquarists try to use in their reef aquaria leave dissolved organic carbon behind in the aquarium.
Although it appears I'm using the same ingredient, in reality I'm not. Chemically it is the same, with the same CAS Number, but how it is made and from what makes all the difference in the world. But to a chemist, it's all the same thing.
As an aside: When I was trying to get the patent on my growing media, the patent examiner said there is no difference between a lump of coal and a diamond. My attorney told him to go ask his wife if there is a difference. My patent issued the following day, hi hi. We had already proven my product had to undergo a multi-stage process to turn it into what it was, so it was not the same product and also it was not exactly like other patented products of a similar nature.
A process that changes the nature of something both the process and the item the process creates can be patented. That is if the process is not already patented to produce another type of product.
No matter how great is your product, if you don't have a way to distribute it you are dead in the water. You also made a product that didn't require a lot of marketing. Word of mouth was effective enough. I like your attorney's argument regarding the difference between diamonds and coal. It reminds me of the argument I hear about the prevalence of Linux. LOL
If there is one major thing I learned, since I did have other product for which there was competition.
A product with no competition does need a little advertising, then it will take off if the product is good.
But a product with competition, seems like no matter how much advertising you do, it is only going to produce a few sales.
And unless it is so much better than the competition, and at a lower price, you are still dead in the water.
As an aside: Same topic of sales, but a different product.
To date, I have had 350,000 advertisements sent out to only buyers of that particular type of product.
Gross sales from those 350,000 ads, is only 32 items sold from them.
There may have been some indirect sales because of the advertising, but no way to track those.
Way too much competition in that particular market, unless you are a popular name brand.
Being as close to Micro$oft as you are, I'm surprised you didn't hear their new servers are being designed to use the Linux Kernel and they are retiring the NT server kernel. I did get that info 3rd party, so it was not from the horses mouth.
