The world as we know it might end in 2038. That’s because billions of computer systems, internet providers, mobile phones, and other services have a built-in numerical threshold, meaning some systems may fail when their memory counts reach a certain
number.
This conundrum means that computer systems may be completely wiped out in 24 years – specifically on January 19, 2038 – due to this new type of millennium bug. This is called the ‘Year 2038 Problem’.
The ‘Year 2038 Problem’ has long
been theorised but after Psy’s
Gangnam Style almost broke YouTube earlier this month – experts now believe this issue could be more than just a theory.
Gangnam Style, a music video
featuring a South Korean pop star
jiggling around in a rodeo-style dance, almost broke the social network after viewing was poised to exceed 2,147,483,647 plays on Dec 3.
After this number YouTube was
unable to count higher – a problems that have broken the Google-owned site had the companies vast number of geeks not come up with a quick fix.
The reason behind the near meltdown involves the nuts and bolts of computer memory: i.e. bits and bytes.
In binary – where digits are represented as either 0 or 1 – the
maximum number a 32-bit system
(four bytes) can represent is 4,294,967,295.
Split that in half (to allow both positive and negative values) and your total number of plays is 2,147,483,647. A 16-bit system has two bytes where each byte represents an eight-digit binary number.
When YouTube was set up, the site, as with many other systems, used this 32-bit system meaning its threshold was 2,147,483,647 views per video.
You can do the math yourself
No comments:
Post a Comment