The Durable Medium

How does one store data in the best and most durable medium? At the Encyclopedia Foundation, that is a crucial question. Oh, we know many ways of storing data, and many ways that are good and durable, but which is the best?

Our parameters are stated in our mission statement, to preserve the knowledge of mankind for ten thousand years. True, the Encyclopedia Foundation in the late Dr. Isaac Asimov’s “Foundation Trilogy” were only shooting for 1,000 years, but even the Second Foundation was thinking longer! So we are, too!

If it were just a matter of 1,000 years, almost anyone could do it, with perhaps a bit more effort than they’d care to make. But ten thousand, that has never been done, and the intricacies involved are enormous.

Consider that an average book lasts about 75 years. This is due to the cheap paper we use, which does make books more affordable, but they last a shorter time. Books from centuries ago were made out of a kind of linen, and the paper is not only still readable now, but will continue to be for some centuries. But it won’t last forever.

Now if you had a book, made out of special paper, and preserved it in a nitrogen environment, it might last a thousand or so years. But ten thousand, probably not. If nothing else, it would be hard to keep the chamber sealed so long. (The reason it is good to store books in a place with no oxygen is because book paper slowly combusts over time. That’s why it turns yellow, then brown. It is combusting slow motion. No oxygen, no combustion.)

An obvious solution is plastic. Hard, cheap, durable…wait, durable? Well, we think so. But plastic has not been around very long, so its properties, and how long it lasts, can only be theorized. In fact, the Encyclopedia Foundation on Terminus is said to have been constructed with many things out of plastic, and Dr. Asimov had Golan Trevize comment on “old plastic, pink with age”. Asimov was guessing, we don’t know what plastic will look like in 500 years, as we have not had plastic around for 500 years.

Therefore, it might not be wise to use plastic. We can not be sure it would last 1,000 years, let alone 10,000. There are very old pieces of wood and papyrus, but these are more preserved due to the environment they were fortunate enough to be in.

Clay or stone? Stone, perhaps. But it’s heavy and bulky. Metal? Now we are getting somewhere. Not iron, or anything prone to rust or decay, but a nickel, perhaps. Rhodium, but that’s more costly.

There are organizations that deal with long term issues. Such as the Long Now Foundation. They are working with a group to have a Rosetta Disc that has all the languages of Earth on it. Or at least a lot of those languages. The disc is no more than two inches in diameter, and is micro-engraved. It’s quite beautiful. But perhaps a bit impractical. Don’t misunderstand, with the proper lenses you can read it, but will such lenses always be available?

For long term storage, one must take into account the shifting of technologies. If in the far distant future of Asimov’s Encyclopedia Foundation, computers are almost unheard of, what other technologies might a future society here lack? Lenses? Special computers? Electron microscopes?

Frankly, it is possible to put 100,000 pages of print on a disc two inches square. But how practical would that be? Cool? Yes. Practical? No. It reminds one of the story about how you could – in theory – represent all the information of mankind by one single line on a bar.

How? Take a bar of an exact – and I mean EXACT – length. Now, assign three numbers to each letter of the alphabet and a three number code for spaces, commas, etc. Now translate every book, every encyclopedia, every text book and article mankind has ever wrote into one very, very , VERY long number. Now imagine a decimal point to the left of it.

What divided by what will give you that number? (You will need a computer for that.) Now that is a fraction. So place the one line on the bar so that it divides two sections of it into exactly – EXACTLY – that fraction. Later, if someone wishes to know the knowledge of all mankind, they can take that bar, determine the two numbers to divide by the place of the line, do the math (!) and re-translate that immensely long number into all the books ever wrote!

Cool? Yes. Practical? No.

Likewise, 100,000 pages on a disc is impractical for our purposes. Though we advocate that for general storage, as we do have computers that you could place that disc in and have it read. We picture larger pieces of metal, perhaps even the size of a small page, in which the print is micro, but such that a rudimentary magnifying lens would let you read. True, there might “only” be ten thousand pages on it, but that’s not too shabby, and one can have as many of those discs as one needs.

They will still be small, and thus can be safe guarded against being stressed or broke. And if only one lens is required – as opposed to a series of lenses – then such lenses could be stored in a fashion as to prevent them from being stressed or made useless. Then one could have the knowledge of mankind on a series of metal plates that were still accessible to the common man, regardless as to the technological level of the society the man found himself in.

As to which books…well, that is an issue that I imagine those in the Encyclopedia Foundation of Asimov’s universe had to ponder on, as they were leaving Trantor and could not take the whole Imperial Library with them. It is an issue that we are confronting, too.