Timeline for Can Crystals be used to store data?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
7 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Jun 25, 2015 at 17:02 | comment | added | JDługosz | @slebetman true: commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/… interestingly enough. | |
| Jun 25, 2015 at 11:04 | comment | added | Luaan | @slebetman And now you gave me the idea of a sugar-crystal archive that was accidentally destroyed by explorers in a flood :D Or salt, more likely, to make it more alien-friendly... | |
| Jun 25, 2015 at 2:31 | comment | added | slebetman | @SJuan76: You're thinking too much of very hard crystals like diamond (though, even diamonds melt at high enough temperatures). Not all crystals are as immune to laser heat as diamonds. Take sugar for example, which is a perfectly good example of a perfect crystal: you can alter sugar after creation using acids, lasers, a hot needle etc. | |
| Jun 25, 2015 at 0:03 | comment | added | JDługosz | I elaborated in a new Answer. Many ways exist and are used now or seen in biology; just store in 3D instead of on a 2D surface. "Too much a stretch" is how cdrw media or magneto-optical media works, or how nitinal memory metal does its trick... | |
| Jun 24, 2015 at 23:54 | comment | added | SJuan76 | @JDługosz I do not claim that being read-only is a goal of using crystal storage, but a limitation of the method I describe. You can only alter the structure of the crystal as it is being grown; after that to change its structure you would need to selectively "swap" atoms (extracting atoms from the crystal and introducing others in its position) without altering the rest of the crystal which is too much of a stretch. Of course, there could be other techniques to use crystals for data storage that do not have such limitation; I just do not happen to know any of them. | |
| Jun 24, 2015 at 23:40 | comment | added | JDługosz | A 3-d storage media need not be read-only and impressed when built, though that is a good choice for super-archival use cases as being hardest to change on its own over time. A block of material can have reversable state changes to tiny storage sites within, e.g. altering the arrangement of atoms in a unit cell. Look at how CD-RW media works: phase change of the material. | |
| Jun 24, 2015 at 23:23 | history | answered | SJuan76 | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
