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Author here. The problem is, on a long enough time scale, you don't just need your data to be intact - you need it to be interpretable and relevant, too. How wo
by ddevault 7y ago
Author here. The problem is, on a long enough time scale, you don't just need your data to be intact - you need it to be interpretable and relevant, too. How would you communicate with someone 10,000 years in the future? I did address this in my article: the answer is, you need a real life chain of human beings between you and there which is maintianing the data to ensure it is understandable and useful.
- sigmaprimus 7y agoYes I did read it all, like I said the title is a quite click baity. As far sharing data with people(or other lifeforms) 10k years from now,that is an entirely different problem than "How to store data forever". I'm not saying I have the answer to your title or the other problem, both good questions that I wish I did have answers to. I believe that the voyager team created a golden record as they faced a simmilar communication/interpretation issue. Another "out there" idea that might solve the problem would be attaching a transmitter to a comet with a regular and frequent orbit, possibly Halley's comet which returns every 75 years, it is a short enough duration that the technology should still be available to receive the data. The comet idea would work well in preventing future generations from corrupting the data. Eg history is written by the victors of war. Other than those ideas, short of creating a religion I cant see too many ways to store data forever and keep it useful and uncorrupted. Which is kind of too bad and "too good to be true too!" as per my original comment! ;)