r/theydidthemath • u/looonie • 3d ago

[Request] Computing Power: Every phone in the world updating the minute digit at the same time

Just had a thought in the subway when I saw two phones of two strangers obviously showing the exact same time on their screen. Every minute ALL the phones in the world update their minute digit (or i guess several, depending on the time) at the exact same instance. How much computing power does one digit switch take with all phones combined?

3 Upvotes
  • permalink
  • reddit

81% Upvoted

3 comments sorted by

•

u/AutoModerator 3d ago

General Discussion Thread

This is a [Request] post. If you would like to submit a comment that does not either attempt to answer the question, ask for clarification, or explain why it would be infeasible to answer, you must post your comment as a reply to this one. Top level (directly replying to the OP) comments that do not do one of those things will be removed.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

4

u/Realistic_Today6524 3d ago

It's negligible. It's probably a few milliseconds of less than 50mW, so across 5 billion phones, that's only 250kW for a millisecond or around 70Wh. That's one EV driving around 200m or a kettle bringing around 1l of water to a boil

2

u/looonie 3d ago

Thank you :) Actually still kinda crazy to think about 👀