[RndTbl] Re: Roundtable digest, Vol 1 #195 - 6 msgs

Michael Doob mdoob at cmstex2.maths.umanitoba.ca
Fri May 30 12:54:14 CDT 2003


A gigabyte of punch cards?

I just happen to have a box of cards on my desk (some guys just
*never* get around to cleaning up). I took a batch and
really squished them tight: this gave me 60 cards per centimeter.
That means 60*100*80 =  2^8*3*5^4 = 480000 bytes/meter (I never
use FORTRAN anymore :-)). So our gigabyte
of data stands

1024*1024*1024/480000 = 2^(22)/(3*5^4) meters = 2^(19)/(3*5^7) km ~ 2.24 km

tall, at least without gravity to compress everything. Now who is
the lucky guy who has to retrieve the top one off the stack?

Cheers,
Michael

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Michael Doob                    Telephone: (204) 474-9796
Department of Mathematics       Fax: (204) 474-7606
University of Manitoba          email: Michael_Doob at umanitoba.ca
Winnipeg, MB, Canada R3T 2N2
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