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Indestructible quartz crystal can store 360TB of data for billions of years (www.techspot.com)
submitted 1 month ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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Researchers at the University of Southampton in the UK successfully stored the entirety of the human genome sequence onto an indestructible 5D optical memory crystal no bigger than a penny. The indestructibility claims are no joke since the discs can withstand temperatures up to 1,000°C, cosmic radiation, and even direct impact forces of 10 tons per cm2.

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[–] [email protected] 76 points 1 month ago (3 children)

The '5D' in the name comes from the fact that, unlike 2D markings on a piece of paper or tape, this method uses two optical dimensions and three spatial coordinates to write throughout the material.

Went to the article seeking answers but got only more questions.

[–] [email protected] 69 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (3 children)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/5D_optical_data_storage

The "5-dimensional" descriptor is only a marketing term, since the device has 3 physical dimensions and no exotic higher dimensional properties. The fractal/holographic nature of its data storage is also purely 3-dimensional. The size, orientation and three-dimensional position of the nanostructures comprise the so-called five dimensions.

☹️

/edit

Further down in the article it is a little clearer...

In this case, the 5 dimensions inside of the discs are the size and orientation in relation to the 3-dimensional position of the nanostructures. The concept of being 5-dimensional means that one disc has several different images depending on the angle that one views it from, and the magnification of the microscope used to view it.

The website even lists a little more...

In order to increase the data capacity of optical storage, there is the potential of storing more than one bit in a single voxel by implementing multiplex technology. The recently developed 5D optical storage technique uses birefringence as an extra degree of freedom – the property of a medium whereby its refractive index varies depending on the polarization and direction of incident light. Birefringence generated by the orientation and size of optical nano-gratings offers two extra dimensions, providing much higher storage capacities.

So, it's supposedly three dimensions of position plus angle and (maybe?) polarity. So, it seems to be more than just a marketing gimmick, but I can't find any information about the resolution of those additional two parameters, so I can't tell if a single voxel stores two bits or two terabits.

[–] [email protected] 48 points 1 month ago

It sounds kinda like the "trick" on the internet for fitting more notes onto a note-sheet for an exam. You're still using the same physical space to store information, but you're introducing a new degree of freedom that allows you to increase storage density.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 month ago (1 children)

It makes me think about how the 2.5d glass screen protectors with bevelled edge eventually became 3d for curved screen phones, then 5d, then 9d, and I've seen some silly 1000d and 9999d because clearly none of these marketing idiots remember what the d numbers even referred to in the first place. They used to explain what each d gave you and now its just a number and higher is better.

1000009962

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

dd glass. Unbreakable for your bra, or for copying blocks of data. Or both.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Seems more like 5 axis than 5 dimensions.
Sounds like a slice through the crystal that can be moved up and down and rotated through 2 angles (eg roll and pitch)

[–] gazter 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

5 axis and 5 dimensions are essentially the same thing, right? A 2D graph has 2 axes, a 3D one has three, 4D graph can be shown with colour representing the 4th axis, etc.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

Yeh, axis was the wrong term. I was thinking degrees of freedom.
However, I misunderstood the concept.

The extra dimensions are basically optical manipulation, like the other comment says with the red and blue lenses.

I thought it was more about the crystals attitude. So in addition to x, y and z, you also have alpha, beta, gamma.
Which would be 3 dimensions/axis with 6 degrees of freedom

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

So, as I understand it, and I don't, 5D is just fancy marketing due to the really weird properties of the crystals used to store the data in. They are just calling properties of the crystal, dimensions.

I found the wiki page on it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5D_optical_data_storage

According to the University of Southampton:

The 5-dimensional discs [have] tiny patterns printed on 3 layers within the discs. Depending on the angle they are viewed from, these patterns can look completely different. This may sound like science fiction, but it's basically a really fancy optical illusion. In this case, the 5 dimensions inside of the discs are the size and orientation in relation to the 3-dimensional position of the nanostructures. The concept of being 5-dimensional means that one disc has several different images depending on the angle that one views it from, and the magnification of the microscope used to view it. Basically, each disc has multiple layers of micro and macro level images.[16]

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 month ago

It's actually cromulent technical terminology to call those extra degrees of freedom "dimensions", it's only in common parlance that "dimension" is restricted specifically to spatial dimension. Having hundreds or even thousands of dimensions is not unknown in data science.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

The extra dimensions are time and inception. I now know less about it than when I started.