Re: Question - Lifespan of digital media

"Beacon of Truth and Light (maybe)" wrote:
>
> I have a question for physicists/material scientists: As we know, digital
> media eventually
> degrade until they're unreadable. Even the best won't last more than a
> hundred years in conventional storage conditions.
>
> But what if we took the most inert and resilient media - say a gold plated
> glass-master DVD - and stored it on a satellite in a vacuum. Would this last
> indefinitely? After all, the temperature would be negligible, so even the
> most gradual of processes (such as the glass 'melting' and rolling into a
> ball) would take millions of years.

You would get degradation from cosmic rays. Cooling to space ambient
given different linear coefficients of thermal expansion of glass and
gold would cause defects.

Make your glass (fused silica; silicon wafer; CVD diamond), nickel, or
gold masters. Space them with UHMW polyethylene films under dry
argon. Stick them in an inch-thick sealed cylinder of Hastelloy C2000
(UNS N06200, W Nr. 2.4675). Thread/tap (Spiralock female) two 1/2"
thick cylinders and screw them together along their entire lengths,
ending with permanent anaerobic thread seal added. Stick that in an
inch-thick sealed cylinder of UHMW polyethylene, and store deep in a
limestone cave or deep mine in Lead or Sudbury. That will pretty much
resist anything short of temblors and vulcanism, forever.

Halocarbon polymers can eventually emit HX.

--
Uncle Al
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/
(Toxic URL! Unsafe for children and most mammals)
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/qz.pdf
.

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