Information capacity of a bacterium

… and from the same page as the last post, biologist Henry Linschitz suggested that a three-dimensional representation of a bacterium would require 10^13 (10,000,000,000,000) bits.

Based on my (possibly problematic) math, that’s 1.13686837721616 terabytes.  If it was a cube made of 2×2 Lego bricks, one for each bit, it would measure approximately 551 x 551 x 678′ (168,046 x 168,046 x 206,826 mm) – about 7 stories high.

Original paper titled “Number of Bits Represented by A Single Bacterium” from Essays on the Use of Information Theory in Biology, pg 252.

Image via: Brickset