Linked by weildish on Tue 9th Dec 2008 16:49 UTC
In an almost indiscernible and confusing article filled with various scientific terms that most cringe to hear, it was described how in October of 2008 scientists successfully stored and retrieved data on the nucleus of an atom-- and all for two short lived seconds. With this new type of storage, a traditional bit can now be both zero and one at the same time, but in order to understand just how this is possible, translate the article linked above to plain English. Data integrity returns after two seconds at 90% and storage is obviously impermanent, so there are many kinks to work out before atomic storage actually serves a purpose, but give these scientists a couple of decades, and it's theoretical that we'll one day have nuclear drives the size of USB drives today (or MicroSD cards, or why not even specs of dust?) that can hold hundreds of terabytes-- even pentabytes-- of information.
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RE: Indiscernable, no. Confusing, not really.
by Laurence on Wed 10th Dec 2008 15:51
in reply to "Indiscernable, no. Confusing, not really."
Member since:2007-03-26
Confusing? Only if you don't know basic quantum mechanics.
I think the editor has judged this piece unfairly.
I think the editor has judged this piece unfairly.
Agreed.
And it's a pity the article was summarised in such a way as I suspect it's put a number of OSNews readers off going to the source (going by some of the comments critisizing the test figures despite them just being early test figures rather than theoretical limits)
RE: Indiscernable, no. Confusing, not really.
by Soulbender on Wed 10th Dec 2008 17:27
in reply to "Indiscernable, no. Confusing, not really."
Member since:2005-08-18
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2006-08-23
I found that perfectly clear and rather interesting.
"Indiscernable" means that one cannot discern it: it cannot be clearly seen. The page was as visible as any other. Thus the article or page cannot be "indiscernable".
Its point was clearly there to be discerned, too. Transfer of spin state from electrons, where it is very volatile, to nuclei, where it is (relatively) stable. In terms of quantum events, 2sec is an *extremely* long time. It's a very long time in terms of, say, dynamic RAM refresh, too.
Confusing? Only if you don't know basic quantum mechanics.
I think the editor has judged this piece unfairly.