Steve Dutch
Jul 22, 2017 · 1 min read

We don’t need climatic collapse to destroy science. Simple loss of interest can do it. We went to the moon and quit. Societies can collapse for many reasons. Incidentally, recent research suggests imported rats and not careless deforestation did in Easter Island’s palm forests (http://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2013/12/09/249728994/what-happened-on-easter-island-a-new-even-scarier-scenario) The article makes it clear that’s not necessarily good news.

So we need ultra-robust information storage. Being a geologist, my definition of “robust” is billions of years. It needs to require no power, and be readable without electronics. It needs to be impervious to strong chemical and physical attack. I wrote about this in 2006 (http://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/PSEUDOSC/Robust.HTM) Recently there has been research on using fused silica to achieve some of these objectives (https://phys.org/news/2012-10-storage-technology-fused-silica-glass.html)

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    Steve Dutch

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