14 ms·

Rediscovering the Lost Art of Fluxgate Magnetometer Cores (2021)

jdkee 4y ago
Much like the re-invention of "fogbank" for nuclear weapons. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1928233 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1928233
- tablespoon 4y ago
  I wonder when humanity will reach the point that it spends most of its innovative energy re-discovering technologies and techniques that had already been invented and subsequently lost?
  - runnerup 4y ago
    Maybe one day we could require full replicable procedures with "YouTube" videos for patent approvals. So that at least Patented technologies wouldn't be quite as "lost".
    - tablespoon 4y ago
      > Maybe one day we could require full replicable procedures with "YouTube" videos for patent approvals. So that at least Patented technologies wouldn't be quite as "lost". That remind me: when Lockheed shutdown the production line for the F-22, they made a series of DVDs to document all the the steps of the assembly procedure. Just hope they had them pressed in something besides a dye-based DVD-R.
      - atoav 4y ago
        Best media for video archival is still photochemical film (the national archive tends to laser particularily important media onto 3 black and white reels, one for each color-channel). Film, if stored correctly can easiliy survive more than a century. The aparatus needed to actually see the image is easy. Try opening a real video made for the real player.
rapjr9 4y ago
Preserving knowledge has always been a challenge because people die. Books, stories, and songs were early attempts at a solution. The Internet Archive is another attempt. It seems likely it is impossible to preserve all useful knowledge forever so we're just going to have to keep reinventing the wheel. As you get older you too will see knowledge disappear as the old leave the world. It's already apparent that a lot of kids are repeating common cliche phrases without actually knowing what they mean. Some current knowledge is not widely known and could easily be destroyed (how to make state of the art integrated circuits for example). Documentation is often insufficient. In 50-100 years no one may know how to make a cellphone (and perhaps won't care.) Some technologies may become magic, we'll use them but we won't know how they work and when the devices are gone the magic will be gone. There is already some concern that when the USA gets around to rebuilding infrastructure we won't know how to rebuild some things. There were a lot of custom construction techniques in the old days. Advanced proprietary chemistry seems ripe for this kind of degradation, in the same way that custom sensors are. There are other things that NASA has lost the capability of doing as engineers retire. To some extent this is a hard limit on the ability of civilization on Earth to advance. There is only so much knowledge that can be kept current at any one time. A reduction in world population would likely mean a reduction in the perpetuation of knowledge. On the other hand, if everyone on Earth was educated and trained that would likely cause a knowledge explosion.

Much like the re-invention of "fogbank" for nuclear weapons. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1928233 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1928233

tablespoon 4y ago
I wonder when humanity will reach the point that it spends most of its innovative energy re-discovering technologies and techniques that had already been invented and subsequently lost?
- runnerup 4y ago
  Maybe one day we could require full replicable procedures with "YouTube" videos for patent approvals. So that at least Patented technologies wouldn't be quite as "lost".
  - tablespoon 4y ago
    > Maybe one day we could require full replicable procedures with "YouTube" videos for patent approvals. So that at least Patented technologies wouldn't be quite as "lost". That remind me: when Lockheed shutdown the production line for the F-22, they made a series of DVDs to document all the the steps of the assembly procedure. Just hope they had them pressed in something besides a dye-based DVD-R.
    - atoav 4y ago
      Best media for video archival is still photochemical film (the national archive tends to laser particularily important media onto 3 black and white reels, one for each color-channel). Film, if stored correctly can easiliy survive more than a century. The aparatus needed to actually see the image is easy. Try opening a real video made for the real player.

rapjr9 4y ago

Preserving knowledge has always been a challenge because people die. Books, stories, and songs were early attempts at a solution. The Internet Archive is another attempt. It seems likely it is impossible to preserve all useful knowledge forever so we're just going to have to keep reinventing the wheel. As you get older you too will see knowledge disappear as the old leave the world. It's already apparent that a lot of kids are repeating common cliche phrases without actually knowing what they mean. Some current knowledge is not widely known and could easily be destroyed (how to make state of the art integrated circuits for example). Documentation is often insufficient. In 50-100 years no one may know how to make a cellphone (and perhaps won't care.) Some technologies may become magic, we'll use them but we won't know how they work and when the devices are gone the magic will be gone. There is already some concern that when the USA gets around to rebuilding infrastructure we won't know how to rebuild some things. There were a lot of custom construction techniques in the old days. Advanced proprietary chemistry seems ripe for this kind of degradation, in the same way that custom sensors are. There are other things that NASA has lost the capability of doing as engineers retire. To some extent this is a hard limit on the ability of civilization on Earth to advance. There is only so much knowledge that can be kept current at any one time. A reduction in world population would likely mean a reduction in the perpetuation of knowledge. On the other hand, if everyone on Earth was educated and trained that would likely cause a knowledge explosion.