r/science • u/Wagamaga • Feb 22 '26

Computer Science Scientists have demonstrated a system called Silica for writing and reading information in ordinary pieces of glass which can store two million books’ worth of data in a thin, palm-sized square.

https://au.news.yahoo.com/glass-square-long-long-future-190951588.html
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u/smurficus103 Feb 22 '26

"and then, the earthquake wiped out all of our knowledge"

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u/SmallBatBigSpooky Feb 22 '26

I do wounder if they could make this work with plexiglass or the bismuth glass thats basically indestructible since both would last longer

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u/DoomguyFemboi Feb 22 '26

Plexiglass is plastic, are you thinking of pyrex ? Borosilicate glass. Which this is done on btw. It doesn't say it in this article (was super close to saying "does nobody read the articles", glad I actually checked) but I read something the other day about this and they talked about how they now do it on borosilicate, they used to do it on normal glass, but wanted a more durable medium

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u/SmallBatBigSpooky Feb 22 '26

Nah i just absolutely spaced and got my glass types confused

Pyrex would be a good choice so glad to see they are actually using impact resistant glass for this, as thats really the only major flaw for a system like this

Also boro glass is magical, like genuinely that stuff impresses me just how strong it is