Welcome to the Fifth Dimension, Where Data is Stored on Crystals

Colin Druce-McFadden
DVICE
July 9, 2013

Superman
Serious business.

It sounds like a bunch of sci-fi hullabaloo, but data storage has just crossed into the fifth dimension. That’s right: the dimension sometimes referred to by physicists as the fabric of spacetime can now be harnessed to store you cat videos. And they’ve done it with frikkin’ lasers and quartz.

Basically, science just created Superman’s data crystals and they’re gonna last forever. And we don’t mean “forever” as in “ugh, my progress bar is taking forever,” but the real end of time kind of forever. Bare minimum, these things will hold up for a million years. As group supervisor Peter Kazansky states: “it is thrilling to think that we have created the first document which will likely survive the human race. This technology can secure the last evidence of civilization: all we’ve learnt will not be forgotten.”

Read More