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Different author, but sounds somewhat similar to 'The Light of Other Days' by Arthur C Clarke and Stephen Baxter. Although iirc correctly it starts with being

Different author, but sounds somewhat similar to 'The Light of Other Days' by Arthur C Clarke and Stephen Baxter. Although iirc correctly it starts with being able to see other locations in space but at the same time, and the historical viewing is a second development. Fantastic book, even if it's not the same one you were thinking of.

nonrandomstring 4y ago
Pretty sure both those authors wrote similar concepts, with the same creepy conclusions of taking the technology to a limit. It came up in an acoustics class once. I said that sound never really dies. It just bounces around until it becomes thermal energy, thus warming the room a little as a prelude to joking about professors talking hot air. A student asked whether, one could recover sound from reverberations that had fallen below RT60? Could you listen back in time to conversations that had happened hours ago? Obviously entropy can't be put back in the box with the technology we have now, but it makes you wonder. Two things have since made me revise the question. One is recovery of sound from video images. The other was an archaeological recovery of sounds from a ceramic vase spun on potters wheel many centuries ago. Sorry but the references for both escape me atm.
- progman32 4y ago
  The pottery record thing was tested on mythbusters and hailed from an episode of csi.
  - nonrandomstring 4y ago
    Fake? Got a link so I can dig in a bit. Thanks. EDIT: found this thread https://groups.google.com/g/sci.archaeology.moderated/c/5JecJ-EWmNk https://groups.google.com/g/sci.archaeology.moderated/c/5Jec... Damnit, seemed so plausible.
abruzzi 4y ago
Clark also used it as a throwaway line in Childhood's End. IIRC, humans were given a device that would allow them to see the past--most religions didn't survive seeing the true origins of their faith.

nonrandomstring 4y ago

Pretty sure both those authors wrote similar concepts, with the same creepy conclusions of taking the technology to a limit. It came up in an acoustics class once. I said that sound never really dies. It just bounces around until it becomes thermal energy, thus warming the room a little as a prelude to joking about professors talking hot air. A student asked whether, one could recover sound from reverberations that had fallen below RT60? Could you listen back in time to conversations that had happened hours ago? Obviously entropy can't be put back in the box with the technology we have now, but it makes you wonder. Two things have since made me revise the question. One is recovery of sound from video images. The other was an archaeological recovery of sounds from a ceramic vase spun on potters wheel many centuries ago. Sorry but the references for both escape me atm.

progman32 4y ago
The pottery record thing was tested on mythbusters and hailed from an episode of csi.
- nonrandomstring 4y ago
  Fake? Got a link so I can dig in a bit. Thanks. EDIT: found this thread https://groups.google.com/g/sci.archaeology.moderated/c/5JecJ-EWmNk https://groups.google.com/g/sci.archaeology.moderated/c/5Jec... Damnit, seemed so plausible.

abruzzi 4y ago

Clark also used it as a throwaway line in Childhood's End. IIRC, humans were given a device that would allow them to see the past--most religions didn't survive seeing the true origins of their faith.