5 ms·

This is global doomsday level thinking. Reminds me of Y2K. And using clay? This seems very sentimental. Are there not more long-lasting mediums? Especially wit

• woliveirajr 10y ago
  > Ceramic is impervious to water, chemicals, and radiation; it’s emboldened by fire. Tablets of Sumerian cuneiform are still around today that date from earlier than 3000 B.C.E. Ceramic is very stable during time. All modern media that you might think (LP? tapes? Optical disks?) require some special instrument to recover the information, other than simply looking at it (perhaps using some microscope). Paper degrades. Plastic degrades, in general. Metals rust. But stones and ceramics tend to be very durable, including against microorganisms and chemicals. They just don't withstand mechanical forces, like a hammer. But anyone willing to use a hammer would use any other thing to destroy other medias, too.
  • marcosdumay 10y ago
    Ceramic is too general a term. Clay in particular reacts very badly to fire and moderately badly to water (what matters for long time storage). Very few Sumerian tablets are still around, and most of them partially destructed. There are many better kinds of ceramic available, even glass would be a better choice.
    • woliveirajr 10y ago
      Yes, I wasn't taking "clay" by its literal term from the news, but thinking that being a ceramicist he would know how to make ceramics that last longer.
  • jaddood 10y ago
    What happens to all this information if an earthquake happens, and that's probably even more of a concern when digging deeper. Don't you think?