Could data be stored as light in theory? Data travels through light in fiber optics, but would some sort of optical medium be plausible in 50 years or so? I'd like my Free Space table to display the infinity symbol someday.
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Anonymous2007-09-09 19:53 ID:qF6Wu549
You can store data as light pulses now, really long looped fibre optic with a repeater = light equivalent of a mercury delay line. This wouldn't magically give you infinite storage though. Infinite storage would require some crazy sci-fi "store it in alternate dimensions" technique or something.
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Anonymous2007-09-09 20:01 ID:v0U6c6Cg
SPUNK BUBBLE
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Anonymous2007-09-12 4:31 ID:DVojcJE1
The problem with storage is still space - light's generally in a hurry to be elsewhere. You can effectively reduce the speed of light by pumping it through 'slow glass' effect materials like bose-einstein condensate, but I'm not sure if it's theoretically possible to stall it completely. Even then you have the problem of overlapping, since the atoms/molecules in the condensate will just overheat if they get hit with too much light.
What'd be really nice would be a pocket sized singularity - a baby black hole you could feed light into. Well, not into per se, but tangentially at the edge of the event horizon. The light would just spin around and around forever, and you'd have virtually infinite space by injecting the light at different angles.
Then again, if you could produce miniature black holes you've probably got better things to do than find a new place to store your porn.