Comments on: Literally

By: Bdog2g2

Bdog2g2 — Fri, 01 May 2009 15:27:02 +0000

There are quite a few factors to take into account here because paper can weight differently based on:
- is it recycled
- what size
- humidity

For the sake of simplicity I assume a brand new sheet of non-recycled (20#) paper weighs approximately 4.54 grams. A short ton (2000lbs) is the equivalent of 907,184.74 grams. It would take 199,820.43 pieces of paper to equal a tone.

So assuming each email is no more than a page in length it would take nearly 199,820 emails to equal a tone.

However, one thing to note is that as you approach that number of emails, you can’t simply use the weight of the paper to determinethe emails. While for a few sheets of printed paper (depending on the amount of printed material and images) the ink will not significantly affect the weight, nearly 200k sheets of paper will have a significant amount of ink that will likely lessen the number of pages to reach a ton.

I won’t do that calculation though becasue it depends on what type of printer, ink, etc and you would have to calculate the amount of waste ink generated by the printing process.

By: Migy

Migy — Fri, 01 May 2009 05:25:35 +0000

Well it seems to me that instead of weighing out just the paper, you should consider the weight equal to a 43¢ letter. Since it is still a form of mail. But that’s just my opinion, for what it’s worth.

By: Calinazaret

Calinazaret — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 23:22:57 +0000

@jay I never even thought about printing out the emails! I was trying to think of it more from an electro-chemical perspective. Does electricity weigh anything? But there’s got to be more to an email than just an electrical signal, right? I’ve “literally” spent a few days thinking about this. I think the answer depends on how you measure the weight of an email, but I suppose measuring the paper works.

By: SilentJay74

SilentJay74 — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 20:50:09 +0000

I SOOOO SUCK AT MATH!

By: SilentJay74

SilentJay74 — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 20:49:51 +0000

ok
Ream of 500 sheets of paper 5lbs. 200000 emails would equal a ton.

By: SilentJay74

SilentJay74 — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 20:42:43 +0000

Wait that can’t be right. DAMNIT!

By: SilentJay74

SilentJay74 — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 20:41:51 +0000

Ok.
Let’s say for arguments sake she printed out here emails and one email is one piece of paper. Standard printer paper weighs .013 oz. So roughly rounded 77 emails equal an ounce. Now if there are 16 ounces in a pound then it would take 1232 pages to equal 1 pound. There are 2000 pounds in a ton so the answer you seek my dear is she would have to have 2,464,000 emails to LITERALLY equal a ton of emails.

By: LJ

LJ — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 20:32:42 +0000

Packets don’t have a weight unless you count the weight of the electrons.

By: Tau_Zero

Tau_Zero — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 20:27:48 +0000

I know I sent this over twitter, but I’ll put it here so others can check it.

It’s kinda complicated the basis on which they assign paper weights. This link help a lot. http://twurl.nl/zeu6d7

Assume most emails fit on a single page, 1 email = 1 page. At 0.227 g/page (from the help of that site), a ton (907.18474 kg) would be 3,996,408.55 emails.