Crystals for storage

by Socorro
(SD)

Hello all!

I came across this story and thought it was pretty cool:

GO TO - Supermans-memory-crystals-may-become-reality

I think it's interesting considering the stories I have read how Atlantians supposedly used crystals in their computers. Nothing new under the sun, huh? :)

Aug 16, 2011
Rating

Crystalline memory
by: Twi

Contradictory to what the Telegraph article suggests - the research group down in Sotton Uni arranged the molecular structure of glass rather than crystals to achieve the memory storage. Glass has a different molecular structure (actually being more akin to a liquid) so would never achieve the same memory storage capacity a crystal of equivalent size would have, should the same technique be applied. (That's not to say they won't try it in the very near future though.)

Interestingly, I had thought for a long time that crystals would make excellent storage devices. As a mini-Twi (child) growing up on the Celtic fringes, I encountered many crystals where I 'felt' there was something stored inside. Often I would also leave an 'imprint' within the crystal so others could find the message in the future. This in turn inspired me to write quite a few stories.

I thought at the time this all was a perfectly natural thing that many others around me could do. Mentioning it to most people (such as family) though just resorted in said individuals humming the Superman tune, or something similar, in the belief I had gotten the idea from the old Superman movies (hence why I found irony in the article title). So from then on I decided to keep it to myself.

Only when I began my physics undergraduate degree at University ten years ago did the concept arise again.
I actually discussed with some lecturers about the idea of using crystals for memory storage, and one of them said another group was 'researching it'.

Discussing the idea with my fellow students revealed a number of them had similar concepts and strains of thought.
Needless to say, I have encountered various research publications on the subject, so the media article in this instance is just repeating old - and slightly distorted - news (from the perspective of the scientific communities that is).

50GB of storage on a bit of glass the size of a mobile phone screen is nothing to get hyped over... Now, a quartz crystal can potentially store a LOT more. A crystal about 2 inches long could easily hold all the digital information of the world.

Twi

Crystals for storage

Comments for Crystals for storage

Comments for
Crystals for storage