Information has reached a size, speed and value so extensive that makes it difficult to measure no less to imagine.

It is difficult and even impossible to estimate the real size of the exchanged information through the Internet. As knowledge increases so is the exchange of information. As a rule, anything stored gets transformed into layers. The huge information storage has turned-up into a double-layer reservoir. One superficial and easy to access the other so remote in depth that accessing it is very difficult and complicated. It is like someone pulling fishing net thrown over the surface of the ocean with an easy rich yield. The real wealth remains in the depth and requires other and more adequate techniques of fishing.

Most of the digital information falls in the deep section of this cyber ocean. Normal or present search engines are not adequate to access and retrieve this wealth.  Today, it is customary to talk about a surface net and a deep net. According to estimates, the contents of the Congress library are estimated to be around 3,000 terabytes, while the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) contains 9 billion text pages, 7 million maps, 20 million photos, millions of data bases, 365,000 photo tapes, 110,000 video tapes. The British Archives include 11 million documents open on line to browsers.

The size of data in the deep net amounts to 550 billion documents representing around 91,000 terabytes, while the size of the surface net does not exceed 167 terabytes, (One terabyte is equal to 1,000,000,000,000). According to these estimates the surface net grows at the average of 7 million pages daily. So what does this exactly mean?

In reality we do not possess appropriate tools that allow us to figure out the meaning of these imaginary numbers especially that we are used to imagine material or 3-D sizes but we were never used to imagine the size of huge volumes of untouchable and unseen abstract data.  We can say, for example, that we have archives that can fill rooms or a warehouse of a certain size measured in cubic meters. It is a material scale we are able to understand. But what about digital data bases?

The new bold way to figure out the volume of all available and stored data is to define it in terms of space distances and the outcome will be that stored data will fill up to 10 times the distance between the Earth and planet Pluto and that means 45 billion kilometers of floating data. Could you imagine that? Is it a manageable resource?

We must realize also that the material size of information is decreasing which means more information is stored in the same place comparing the size of a printed book with its electronic form illustrates the difference. One copy of the Holly Koran at the early stages of Islam when it was written on parchments needed 8 camels to transport it while today this Holy book that is composed of hundreds of thousands of characters can be stored on a tiny section of one compact disc.

Speed of communicating data is another factor in the brave new world of electronic data.  I need usually about two weeks to write a long research article. In the first century after Hegira the great Islamic military Commander Khaled Ibn El Walid needed two weeks to cross the distance of 965 km between Al Hira and Baghdad, before beating the Byzantins in the battle of Al Yarmouq. This was a historic record speed. Nowadays, in a course of two weeks the  “Miazaki” Japanese train can turn around the globe 5 times, and the space ships can cross the distance between Earth and moon fifteen times both ways. Finally, the space ship “Pioneer – 10” can cross 20 million kms away from the solar system, deep into the infinite space in its eternal journey estimated to last two billion years.  But in less than a second, we can transfer all the contents of this magazine from one computer to another.

The best way to comprehend speed of data is to assume that we are integrated with information. Digits travel away from us and return back in no time at all. We and “they” are becoming omnipresent to each other. Lately it was announced that a new search engine called “Wolfram Alpha” can browse information with a capability of scanning 10 trillion terabytes of references and mathematical equations within seconds. 

The third interesting development in the realm of information is the phenomenal rise in the value of information. For example, “You Tube” established in February 2005 exhibited 100 million videos till mid 2006 and was sold to “Google” for around 2 billion U.S.$ in October 2006. Who can predict what will be the price of “Face Book” that has attracted millions of participants within a very short period of time?

Should we or shouldn’t consider ourselves wealthy by the information we possess and which was never available to any of our predecessors regardless of how important he was? A teenager posses more info than Socrates but a university top graduate doesn’t have a byte of Socrates’ wisdom. If information is power wisdom is supreme.

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