Eliran R., a tech-savvy student of ours, who studies engineering at CNSE the Nano college posted this article about the 5D “Eternal” data storage breakthrough at the University of Southampton in England. This new technique allows 360TB of data to be securely stored on a chip, which not only has a tremendous solid state storage capacity but also has properties that would enable it to withstand the test of time, 13.8 billion years into the future. Hence the title: Eternal.
The euphoria surrounding this breakthrough had scientists, researchers and journalists speaking glowingly of this new chip. Here’s a piece from the press release on the University of Southampton’s website:
The storage allows unprecedented properties including 360 TB/disc data capacity, thermal stability up to 1,000°C and virtually unlimited lifetime at room temperature (13.8 billion years at 190°C ) opening a new era of eternal data archiving. As a very stable and safe form of portable memory, the technology could be highly useful for organisations with big archives, such as national archives, museums and libraries, to preserve their information and records… Now, major documents from human history such as Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), Newton’s Opticks, Magna Carta and Kings James Bible, have been saved as digital copies that could survive the human race…. As Professor Peter Kazansky of the ORC says: “…This technology can secure the last evidence of our civilisation: all we’ve learnt will not be forgotten.”
Those last few lines got my attention. This Eternal 5D data chip will be able to share this information into the far distant future, even surviving the human race. Wait a second, I have a Klotz Kasha! What’s a Klotz-Kasha? Not to be confused with a klutzy person, a Klotz-Kasha is a Yiddish term in Yeshiva for a simplistic, obvious, elephant-in-the-room kind of question that sophisticated types may miss, but others less knowledgeable may see right away.
Even if this Eternal 5D chip were indeed to survive with all its “human history” data intact long after the human race is extinct — who says that whatever survives us will have the equipment and programs to read the info on it???
Even nowadays, in this short span of technological explosion, people with old family videos have trouble playing it back because the equipment has gone obsolete. Imagine the hieroglyphics without a Rosetta Stone? Or try opening a file or document if your computer doesn’t have that program?
I know this from first-hand experience this week. Yesterday my trusty laptop computer breathed its last digital breath and went the way of all laptops. I can’t complain because it lasted 6 years, we worked it hard and schlepped it around, it performed well. It was a great machine and had a long life as far as such machines go.
And thankfully, thankfully, all the date was saved. Everything’s intact. This was very important of course, no one likes to lose data. The laptop died on Thursday and our school newsletter is due out on Friday. The laptop had all the filed and the template. But the only way we could open those files is by using a computer that had that program.
Ah, my daughter Chani pointed out to me: You need to have the program to be able to open those files.
Indeed, this is so very true. And its true beyond computers. It’s true for us as Jews as well, or for any culture or heritage seeking to connect with their past and engage with it in the present or those concerned about preserving it into the future.. You need to have the program. Otherwise you can’t open that chip. All the 360 TB’s of data (or more) will say nothing and mean nothing to you.
Judaism only opens up for us – we can only read it and know it and make the most of it – if we keep with the program!
P.S. As to the 5D Eternal Chip and how they can be so certain that post-Humans will be able to have the programs and equipment to open it up and utilize it — you’ll have to contact the folks in Southampton for an answer to that.