There was a great page I stumbled upon some years ago that described just how big 256 bits (2^256) is by using work instead of time.
But I can't find it, because I can barely remember any of the details.
If I remember correctly, it had something to do with moving dirt across the the country, or moving water out of the ocean, or something. Speed wasn't important.
Anyone stumble on this page before? It's an alternate approach to Bruce Schneier's thermodynamics analysis.
From AI:
If you consider moving a single grain of sand as one operation, 2^256 would represent moving 2^256 grains of sand which is equivalent to moving approx 10^77 tons of sand, assuming each grain weighs around 0.00001 grams.
To put this in perspective, the total mass of all the sand on Earth is estimated to be around 3 * 10^19 tons. Therefore, 2^256 operations would require moving roughly 10^58 times the total mass of Earth's sand supply.
It's a job for Wall-E.
@UncleIroh This is a good explanation, and the page might even have used sand as the work factor. This isn't what I'm looking for, but it gives me some search term ideas that might help me find it, if it's still online.