IPv6: Can you fill all of the Great Lakes with M&M sized /64s?

Owen DeLong and Larry Sheldon are discussing on NANOG, the sheer magnitude of IPv6 addressing. The question? Whether v6 network addressing is so vast, you could fill the Great Lakes with M&Ms representing each /64 before exhausting the address space.

Let's do the math. First, a reality check on the previous addressing scheme: Class C networks topped out at a mere 2,097,152 networks. Quaint and probably wont even fill a quarter of Lake Ontario.

Now, for our M&M calculations, we'll need precision. Each M&M, we'll assume, is a perfectly oblate spheroid:

• Major radius: 6mm
• Minor radius: 3mm
• Volume: Approximately 0.452 cubic centimetres
• Packed volume (accounting for those gaps): 0.665 cubic centimetres

Our canvas: Lake Erie, a hefty 484 cubic kilometres of freshwater real estate.

Crunching the numbers reveals a delightful absurdity:

• Lake Erie volume: 484,000,000,000,000,000 cubic centimetres
• M&Ms required to fill it: 321,860,000,000,000,000

But here's where IPv6 gets truly mind-bending. From just the 2000::/3 address range:

• Available /64 networks: 2,305,843,009,213,693,952
• Potential lake fills: Over seven Lake Eries

And this? This is just a fraction of the total IPv6 address space. To put it mildly: THE IPV6 ADDRESS SPACE IS VERY, VERY, VERY BIG.

Can we please, finally, just roll out some IPv6 services?