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Data Saved In Quartz Glass Might Last 300 Million Years
Scientific American ^ | 1/6/13 | Timothy Hornyak

Posted on 01/06/2013 9:04:59 PM PST by LibWhacker

Most cultural institutions and research laboratories still rely on magnetic tape to archive their collections. Hitachi recently announced that it has developed a medium that can outlast not only this old-school format but also CDs, DVDs, hard drives and MP3s.

The electronics giant partnered with Kyoto University's Kiyotaka Miura to develop “semiperpetual” slivers of quartz glass that Hitachi says can preserve information for hundreds of millions of years with virtually no degradation.

The prototype is made of a square of quartz two centimeters wide and two millimeters thick. It houses four layers of dots that are created with a femtosecond laser, which produces extremely short pulses of light. The dots represent information in binary form, a standard that should be comprehensible even in the distant future and can be read with a basic optical microscope. Because the layers are embedded, surface erosion would not affect them.

The medium has a storage density slightly better than that of a CD. Additional layers could be added, which would increase the density. But the medium is more remarkable for its durability. It is waterproof and resistant to chemicals and weathering, and it was undamaged when exposed to 1,000-degree heat for two hours in a test. The results of that experiment led Hitachi to conclude that the quartz data could last hundreds of eons.

“If both readers and writers can be produced at a reasonable price, this has the potential to greatly change archival storage systems,” says Ethan Miller, director for the Center for Research in Intelligent Storage at the University of California, Santa Cruz. The medium could be ideal for safekeeping a civilization's most vital information, museum holdings or sacred texts. The question is whether the world as we know it would even last that long. “Pangaea broke up less than several hundred million years ago,” Miller adds. “Many quartz-based rocks from that time are now sand on our beaches—how would this quartz medium fare any differently?”


TOPICS: Computers/Internet; Science
KEYWORDS: 300000000; data; hitech; piezoelectric; quartz; resonant; stringtheory; xplanets; years
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To: Revolting cat!

Dude. 8-track is planned obsolescence. The tape rubs against itself internally and eventually the lubricant wears out and then you got no Montana Slim.

Get it onto a cassette, pronto.


21 posted on 01/06/2013 9:36:58 PM PST by Nervous Tick (Without GOD, men get what they deserve.)
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To: LibWhacker

BOOKbumpBOOK


22 posted on 01/06/2013 9:37:09 PM PST by S.O.S121.500 (That Queer Kenyan muzzy bastard is not my president. ENFORCE the Bill of Rights.)
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To: GladesGuru

>> oops, Muslim

Nah, you had it right the first time.


23 posted on 01/06/2013 9:39:17 PM PST by Nervous Tick (Without GOD, men get what they deserve.)
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To: Nervous Tick

Why?

:)


24 posted on 01/06/2013 9:42:15 PM PST by Jonty30 (What Islam and secularism have in common is that they are both death cults.)
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Comment #25 Removed by Moderator

To: Tzar

More likely L. Ron Hubbard’s The Tech™ will go Diamond first!


26 posted on 01/06/2013 9:43:49 PM PST by null and void (The world is full of Maple Streets.)
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To: Tzar
There is also a company which makes diamonds out of cremated remains.

Egad. 300 million years from now some bug-eyed monster will hold up a glittering object in its tentacle and say "This is BilltheDrill, and this is his porn." It's sort of like immortality.

27 posted on 01/06/2013 9:45:24 PM PST by Billthedrill
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To: blam
I contributed to the making of chips that are about to leave the solar system on the Voyager space craft. I wonder where they'll be 100 million years from now? Will someone find them one day?
Yep.


28 posted on 01/06/2013 9:46:43 PM PST by Bratch
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To: LibWhacker; ShadowAce; SunkenCiv; blam; Marine_Uncle; SierraWasp; NormsRevenge; Grampa Dave; ...
Don't know how long the MDisc will last but it is available today:

Found this:

M-Disc holds your data 'forever,' we go hands-on for a few minutes (video) Hands-on


29 posted on 01/06/2013 9:47:18 PM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach ((The Global Warming Hoax was a Criminal Act....where is Al Gore?))
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Comment #30 Removed by Moderator

Comment #31 Removed by Moderator

To: Tzar

Only until she’s 33...


32 posted on 01/06/2013 10:00:00 PM PST by null and void (The world is full of Maple Streets.)
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

Interesting. Time for me to sign off Ernest. Do have a safe healthy upcoming day.


33 posted on 01/06/2013 10:04:24 PM PST by Marine_Uncle (I'm going John Galt.... But. Honor must be earned.)
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To: GladesGuru

CAIR and other Muslim apologists will be greatly displeased witth data storage on quartz. Muslims burned libraries everywhere they went, whenever they could.

Imagine a Goat F*cker, oops, Muslim trying to burn quartz.

;-)

“If the library contains the quaran, burn it as we already have a copy, if any books are not the Quaran, burn them as they are not the Quaran...” - Quote some SOB mooslimb general...


34 posted on 01/06/2013 10:24:22 PM PST by GraceG
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To: Revolting cat!

I have the pack of matches to center it in the player. ;-)


35 posted on 01/06/2013 10:36:02 PM PST by PA Engineer (Liberate America from the Occupation Media.)
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To: LibWhacker
Hitachi recently announced that it has developed a medium that can outlast not only this old-school format but also CDs, DVDs, hard drives and MP3s.

Move along, folks. Nothing to see here.

Any idiot knows MP3s have nothing to do with CDs, DVDs, hard drives, nor any other means of data storage. MP3s are collections of bits. Data storage is where bits are kept. Period.

36 posted on 01/06/2013 10:45:59 PM PST by cynwoody
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To: blam

ARF! We had the same idea. Wonder where the areas for the best candidates are?

Be funny if you found a common crystal scattered about, and all they said were “DON’T LET YOUR EXCHANGE CLASS SELL YOU ON THE USE OF CELLULOSE BASED SHEETS OF MATERIAL AS AN UNBACKED EXCHANGE MEDIUM!”


37 posted on 01/07/2013 12:12:22 AM PST by Axenolith (Government blows, and that which governs least, blows least...)
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To: GraceG

38 posted on 01/07/2013 12:26:06 AM PST by rawcatslyentist ("Behold, I am against you, O arrogant one," Jeremiah 50:31)
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To: Tzar

i think when the aliens hear the recording of joy behar reading “the vagina monologues” that will be the end of us all. /sarc


39 posted on 01/07/2013 12:53:12 AM PST by Secret Agent Man (I can neither confirm or deny that; even if I could, I couldn't - it's classified.)
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To: Revolting cat!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wO5vfudqWw8

Who wouldn’t want to hear it. Now preserverd forever in ‘The Cloud’


40 posted on 01/07/2013 1:08:53 AM PST by Jim from C-Town
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