some thoughts on archival... (Score 1)

I hope these people take into account the second law of thermodynamics which states (in part): "systems become more disorganised in time" In any system that is in temperatures above zero K, a form of wear and tear is always present. More wear and tear will occur the higher the temperature. Even high hardness solids at human comfortable temperatures slowly loose there form. Molecules are constantly moving (as in fluids like glass) or vibrating (in solids and also crystals). It is possible that with glass platters the pits could eventually level (eliminating its information content). Are there any mathematical models proving the life span of a glass platter for 50,000 years? CDRs should be out of the question because along with molecular movement there is also very slow chemical changes occuring. CDR substrates have different thermal properties from their acrylic media, they could literally warp right off in little flakes. I've had a number of CDRs do this to me (cheap ones, I'll admit). Hows that for a dead sea scrolls scenerio? They should be cutting data on laboratory grade sapphire. They should protect that disc with some super heavy duty heat shealding like a raybestos covered relfective dewar (a thermos bottle). Keep that disc cool and free of thermo wear and tear! Perhaps insead of some kind of ISO cdrom, maybe they should burn images of human readable text on to the disk. It should be as simple as possible for the 50,000s to read it. With just a microscope you don't need to know what: atapi is ISO is ASCII is You just need to know what the language is. Thats going to be hard enough right there. Scott