1979 called, and they want their "Intel Magnetics 7110" one megabit bubble memory chips back. At the time, it seemed that bubble memory would supplant disk, tape, and even core memory (RAM to you). Maybe memristors will happen.
I have an even better idea: manipulating growth rings of trees for message storage. If you want to store a 0, you cover the tree with a tarp for a year to stunt its growth. If you want to store a 1, you leave it uncovered. Bandwidth is 1bit/year.
This isn't going to be durable. Not because of climate change, but because of surface energy.
Making a boundary between different substances requires energy, and forces will act to minimize those boundaries. This expresses as surface tension in liquids, where a drop will pull in its borders to minimize its boundary. It also happens with solids; if you pack a ball of snow and leave it for a few days, depending on the temperature it will slowly fuse into ice.
Over time, the ice around these information-containing bubbles will slowly move to minimize the surface area of the bubble boundaries, ending up as spheres. It won't be quick, but over decades (again, depending on the temperature) it will happen.
So, no, it won't be practical. (I'm sure you're surprised.)
(The effect of surface energy is my favorite fact from "Introduction to Solid State Chemistry" at MIT. Professor Witt was excellent; he imparted an enormous amount of information clearly and engagingly.)
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[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 46.3 ms ] threadIf so, they’re very talented at it
lol I have some bad news
Making a boundary between different substances requires energy, and forces will act to minimize those boundaries. This expresses as surface tension in liquids, where a drop will pull in its borders to minimize its boundary. It also happens with solids; if you pack a ball of snow and leave it for a few days, depending on the temperature it will slowly fuse into ice.
Over time, the ice around these information-containing bubbles will slowly move to minimize the surface area of the bubble boundaries, ending up as spheres. It won't be quick, but over decades (again, depending on the temperature) it will happen.
So, no, it won't be practical. (I'm sure you're surprised.)
(The effect of surface energy is my favorite fact from "Introduction to Solid State Chemistry" at MIT. Professor Witt was excellent; he imparted an enormous amount of information clearly and engagingly.)
* https://news.mit.edu/2002/witt
* https://wikis.mit.edu/confluence/display/dmsehistory/3.091