4 ms·
Yes, 13.8Gy is the approximate age of the universe and yes the researchers used that number. But it's not like they made this up ("phony", as you put it)! Turn
by lvh 7y ago
Yes, 13.8Gy is the approximate age of the universe and yes the researchers used that number. But it's not like they made this up ("phony", as you put it)!
Turns out the biggest decay factor is nanograting and the biggest contributing physical quantity is temperature. They plotted what decay would look like on an Arrhenius plot. They both computed estimates and measured to confirm: the measurements are quite accurate. The specific claim is that they computed that it would last 13.8Gy at a some reasonably high temperature (462K). They could've picked any other point on the time/temp scale, like "here's how long it would last at room temperature" or "here's how hot you could store it if you only cared about it for a billion years".
They did not, however, simply make up a number with no justification, let alone commit straight-up academic fraud, as you're implying.
The paper is here: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/297892219_Eternal_5.. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/297892219_Eternal_5....
- gnode 7y agoI don't think they meant it was fraud, just that it's sensationalist drivel. It's choosing a way to interpret results for the sake of sounding impressive, rather than improving understanding. Choosing a temperature in order to say "this will last as long as the universe's current age", or finding ways to count extra dimensions is the behaviour of marketeers, not academics.
- lvh 7y agoAnd yet, I pulled those claims out of the paper, which I linked. Are you suggesting Peter G. Kazansky, a research professor with over two decades of experience in optics, does not count as an academic? Or are you saying the paper doesn't make those claims? Or are you saying the paper also isn't a real academic paper and just marketeer noise? (I'm not quoting the other authors, who are of course also distinguished scholars :-))
- sombremesa 7y agoThe complaint here appears specifically to be a lamentation that academics are behaving this way, so in attempting to prove their priors you're only strengthening the argument. Your tone seems to be adversarial, so I'm guessing that's not your goal...
- lvh 7y ago"The paper isn't a real academic paper and itself also marketeer noise" is one of the options I've outlined as a debate position. But let's be clear: we started by calling research "phony" over something that would've been trivially clarified by reading a short paper. In order to even get to that point, I have to acknowledge that maybe you get to call research "phony" without seriously implying fraud. I have a hard time taking that as a serious, bona-fide argument.
- airesearcher 7y agoThere are actual papers. Press releases and popularizations are not the same thing. If you look you can find the actual papers.
- tudelo 7y agoWhile his tone seems a bit adversarial, at least he is providing relevant information to the topic instead of a generic rant. I greatly prefer the former.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- daveFNbuck 7y agoThe temperature at which it will last the universe's current age is 462K. This is 189 Celcius, or 372 Fahrenheit. They didn't choose an unreasonably low temperature to say it'll last the universe's age. They picked a temperature to say it'll last the universe's age even if you crank up the heat to an absurd degree. They could have given a much larger timespan if they stuck to room temperature.
- daenz 7y ago"Room temperature" is a pretty meaningful rough measurement for storage of anything.
- gnode 7y agoBut the temperature was 462K (about 189C), far beyond room temperature, or what we'd expect to store data at. This is just the temperature at which the expected lifetime is the age of the universe, which has no bearing on the technology itself.
- ConceptJunkie 7y agoIt's obvious, isn't it? They are trying to take global warming into effect.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- sp332 7y ago13.8 Gy is the age of the universe so far, in the past. Completely irrelevant to how long the discs will last starting from now.
- lvh 7y agoWhat would be a good number of years to use? "Literally as old as the Universe is now" seems like as close a number as you can use to put timespans that big into _some_ sort of perspective.
- sp332 7y agoHow about an actual estimate? If it's 100 billion years that would be an even cooler number to throw around. 7 times the age of the universe! A more useful number would be MTBF or a decay rate.
- lvh 7y agoBut the point is that decay rate is almost entirely a function of temperature, so you have to pick... something. Unless you feel like log/log years/thermodynamic Beta is a better way to communicate decay than “it lasts as long as the universe has been around”. (Which they do! In the paper! Just not in the summary because nobody has a feel for what log/log beta/time is.)
- airesearcher 7y agoOne of these is now orbiting the Sun for 30 million years in Elon Musk’s Tesla - see www.archmission.org
- hilbert42 7y ago"They did not, however, simply make up a number with no justification..." Right, the concept of storing data in crystalline like structures is not new and there's good technical reasons to believe the technology is a goer. (See my more general comment hereunder giving reasons.) BTW, this is a truly exciting development, let's hope the practical implementation doesn't stall.