Information could be half the world's mass by 2245, says researcher
Digital content should be considered a fifth state of matter, along with gas, liquid, plasma and solid, suggests one university scholar.
Because of the energy and resources used to create, store and distribute data physically and digitally, data has evolved and should now be considered as mass, according to Melvin Vopson, a senior lecturer at the U.K.'s University of Portsmouth and author of an article, "The information catastrophe," published in the journal AIP Advances.
Vopson also claims digital bits are on a course to overwhelm the planet and will eventually outnumber atoms.