Not to say that this isn't really cool stuff (it is), but ...
"It is thrilling to think that we have created the first document [that] will likely survive the human race," said Professor Peter Kazansky of the Optoelectronics Research Center. "This technology can secure the last evidence of civilization: all we've learnt will not be forgotten."
Baloney. This is a bunch of happy talk. The problem of preserving information "for the ages" goes far, FAR beyond merely recording data on highly durable media that we, here, today understand how to use and access. People in the future have got to know (and physically & practically be able to do) those things, too. If they don't, even an infinitely durable medium would be utterly useless (except as paper-weights - or museum-piece gewgaws).
It's a matter of being able to access and "decode" the preserved data. Something as relatively simple and crude as hierroglyphics were an utter bafflement to every expert until the Rosetta stone provided a "bridge" to breaking the "code." And hieroglyphics had the advantage of obviously being some kind of "information representation/storage system." But a "mere" piece of glass or "memory crystal?" Not so much ...
And even if they are recognized as being containers for information, the description provided for this particular "information representation/storage system" sounds very complicated (being "5-dimensional" and so forth). "Backwards engineering" a "crystal reader" having nothing but some of these "memory crystals" to go on (without knowing the technical specifications) could be a bitch that would make hieroglyphics look like Sunday-paper cryptogram puzzles.
Anybody remember 5.25" floppy disks? Or magentic tape drives? Or punch-cards? How many people use those things today [or even have access to the equipment needed to read them]? Well, the same fate awaits our CDs/DVDs, solid-state drives, and USB flash drives. It very probably awaits these "memory crystals," too. Way back in the '80s or early '90s, Stanley Schmidt (editor of
Analog Science Fiction magazine) wrote a great editorial about this very issue (the preservation of information in formats that will be usefully & practically readable far into the future). Ironically - and directly to the point - that editorial is, so far as I know, only available in paper hardcopy ... or microfiche.
It appears that there may be a fundamental (and perhaps inescapable) tradeoff. Information that is easily "accessible" across long periods of time (such as simple "writing" in the form of cave paintings, hieroglyphics, paper books, etc.) may not be durable over even longer periods of time - whereas information that is durable over even longer periods of time may not be easily (or at all) "accessible" in some distant future ...
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