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Read about a show on the telly the other day, about what would happen when humans suddenly disappeared. Didn't actually see the show, I haven't watched TV for years - but nonetheless:
Turns out that these guys reckon that if humans were to suddenly exit stage left, all our records would be gone in a matter of decades. All of it, paper and digital. Which made me wonder...
If you were from a future post-apocalyptic New Civilization, and you were to dig up remnants of 21st Century Man, what would still be decipherable?
I should think that simple every-day things like CD's and data DVD's would last for thousands of years, if kept in a relatively stable and sun-free place, like a safe, for instance. How long would a DVD actually last? I also think that eventual data degradation would occur due to cosmic rays whacking the surface, but the data pits in DVDs are gigantic in the scale of cosmic rays, so deterioration due to cosmic rays would happen in the order of millions of years to a DVD.
The plastic itself can't really deteriorate, can it? I haven't heard of decomposible DVD's yet...
So - also, in the program, they came to the conclusion that Modern Man haven't invented anything that'll outlast the inscriptions in the Egyptian pyramids. I think that's a bit of a wild assumption - I'm sure if you were to take a normal, everyday DVD and store it in a relatively safe environment, it'll outlast hyroglyphs with thousands of years.
Or have I got the cat by the tail, here?
How long do you think our data would stay usable in the event of humans suddenly disappearing? And which formats would outlast others?
Obviously, I'm talking everyday data formats here, like CD's, DVD's, paper, etc., building something in Gold and planting it on the surface of the moon is very possible, and will obviously outlast everything else, but outside the scope of this argument.
Some of our skyscrapers should survive as monuments of what we managed to achieve. Or not.
Apparently not! They reckon that steel-core skyscrapers would collapse in only a few centuries in the absence of constant maintenance. I'm not too sure, but I guess corrosion would be the main issue here.
The only modern structure they imagine to last to the scale of 10,000 years is the Hoover Dam. Like I said, I only read a pretty detailed review in the newspaper, but haven't seen the show myself.
But datawise? What media would be preserved to serve as a source of our knowledge and civilization?
Magnetic storage is evanescent - bad idea. CDs and DvDs are no better than their polymers - polycarbonate is destroyed by light in a photo-Fries rearrangement. Their metallic layers air-oxidize and their adhesive fails. Flash RAM and all other digital media require hardware and software for reading.
Acid-free paper with ferrite ink, gamma sterilized then stored dry and away from light, is good for 500 years and more. B&W photographic gelatin on cellulose triacetate or acid-free paper, ditto. Color fades (Polaroid metal-ballasted dyes are best).
If you wish to store forever against the vicissitudes of the universe... dot-matrix, laser, or otherwise emboss foil of Inconel 686 (UNS N06686) or Hastelloy C-2000 (UNS N06200). Under insanely corrosive conditions continuous (e.g., boiling 80% H2SO4 or hot Green Death) their corrosion rates are measured in thousandths of an inch per year.
Apparently not! They reckon that steel-core skyscrapers would collapse in only a few centuries in the absence of constant maintenance. I'm not too sure, but I guess corrosion would be the main issue here.
Hi Boerseun,
The ferro cement ones have a design life of 35 years but are much stronger than the steel ones.
There's one other very important detail about the media problem, while your media might be readable, unless you have a working reader, you have a great data filled drink coaster.
... unless you have a working reader, you have a great data filled drink coaster.
Careful analysis of a DVD should reveal the data-pit structure on the microscopic level. I'm sure future scientists shouldn't have too much work to do to decipher a 20th/21st century DVD - even without any available data protocols. It should take a while, but not too long, I guess.
Modern-day scientists deem themselves able to decode ET signals, and a few of them are dedicated to that task, after all. We'll see if they can do it if they actually receive an unambiguous extraterrestrial signal, however, but I guess the same principle should apply.
Careful analysis of a DVD should reveal the data-pit structure on the microscopic level. I'm sure future scientists shouldn't have too much work to do to decipher a 20th/21st century DVD - even without any available data protocols. It should take a while, but not too long, I guess.
Hi Boerseun,
Several good points, although there have been many different data formats over the years it will probably be encrypted data (or programs) that will probably cause some concerns, and with any luck, the Smithsonian will have examples of pre DVD hardware (or at least the specs).
Two months ago I had to set up an old version of a program that I had previously developed, as a demo. Unfortunately I had forgotten the encrypted master password. I had to go through the original code, strip out the decryption function, and run the password data file through it, before the data would make any sense. On the fly data decryption/encryption built into a program will leave the data difficult to decode, especially if the programmer has been dilligently devious.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Boerseun
Modern-day scientists deem themselves able to decode ET signals, and a few of them are dedicated to that task, after all. We'll see if they can do it if they actually receive an unambiguous extraterrestrial signal, however, but I guess the same principle should apply.
While this may be true in the human sense with older/inferior methods/materials it could cause problems if the alien messaging technology is far in advance of what we know. While a lot of hard and dilligent work was required to crack the Enigma code in WWII, everything was formally in the human perspective, the maths, the hardware and the theory behind the system.
But datawise? What media would be preserved to serve as a source of our knowledge and civilization?
What about vinyl LPs?
They're analog, but could be used for digital encoding if need be.
Properly protected, they should last a long, long time.
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