Quartz and memory

[Denver]

I was channel surfing and came across Ghost Hunters International, which I stopped at briefly.

The investigator was in a cave, and had gotten all excited about the quartz he had found there. He started to explain that the paranormal events there were likely caused by the emotional or psychic energies being stored in the quartz. He further explained that quartz could do this just like computers store information in quartz.

Forgetting for the moment the paranormal claims, as far as I know quartz is not used in computers for memory storage, but for their piezoelectric properties and their oscillation, used in the clock.

Does anyone know if there are information storage capabilities using quartz in computers?

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

To the best of my knowledge -- based on 50 years of experience in the computer business -- crystals are not, and have never been, used to store long term data.

YMMV

 

[Wides]

I was channel surfing and came across Ghost Hunters International, which I stopped at briefly.

The investigator was in a cave, and had gotten all excited about the quartz he had found there. He started to explain that the paranormal events there were likely caused by the emotional or psychic energies being stored in the quartz. He further explained that quartz could do this just like computers store information in quartz.

Forgetting for the moment the paranormal claims, as far as I know quartz is not used in computers for memory storage, but for their piezoelectric properties and their oscillation, used in the clock.

Does anyone know if there are information storage capabilities using quartz in computers?

That kind of plays off the theme in the new Indiana Jones movie. (don't waste your money) If I'm not mistaken, it has to do with crystals containing information like we do with hard drives, and what not. It's just we're not technologically advanced enough to decipher it.

But you know how people put too much investment into "shiny" things too.

I don't buy it

 

[Giraffe107]

As far as I know- but I'm an engineer not a computer designer- quartz is only used as a clock, not for data storage, exactly as you say. I don't even know how that would work, physically.

 

[Wides]

As far as I know- but I'm an engineer not a computer designer- quartz is only used as a clock, not for data storage, exactly as you say. I don't even know how that would work, physically.

It doesn't work. It's just a form of gree gree, used to sell holistic nick-knacks.

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

As far as I know- but I'm an engineer not a computer designer- quartz is only used as a clock, not for data storage, exactly as you say. I don't even know how that would work, physically.

I was careful in phrasing my reply. I can think of two ways cystal could be used. As a short term of memory to store a transient signal given that the signal would move slower though a crystal than a copper wire (think a very short delay circuit) or by somehow deforming the crystal lattice with a signal and "reading" the deformation.

Disclaimer. My Physics degree is of the same age as my computer experience.

 

[Wides]

I was careful in phrasing my reply. I can think of two ways cystal could be used. As a short term of memory to store a transient signal given that the signal would move slower though a crystal than a copper wire (think a very short delay circuit) or by somehow deforming the crystal lattice with a signal and "reading" the deformation.

Disclaimer. My Physics degree is of the same age as my computer experience.

ok, i can believe that. A google search only brings up jewelry.

 

[drkitten]

I was careful in phrasing my reply. I can think of two ways cystal could be used.

My understanding is that there are some highly experimental crystalline memories being worked on (IBM's Almaden Research Center has a lot of the work.) By "highly experimental" I mean "five bucks says we have flying cars first."

And I don't think they use quartz.

 

[Graybeard6]

Back in '68 I was stationed at the Defense Atomic Support Agency at what was then Sandia Base in Albuquerque. My group taught an intense orientation for military and government civilians on the nuclear weapons program. Because we had an auditorium certified for top secret stuff, we also hosted scientific conferences. My job was to operate all the AV equipment from a control room at the rear. During one conference, with several Nobel prize winners in attendance. an older man came in to the booth and asked if I would show him how everything worked (it was a hobby). While giving him the tour, I happened to mention that I was taking computer classes at night. He encouraged me to keep at it and then said he was working on data storage by stressing individual molecules in a crystal. Didn't say what kind, and I was too "gee whiz" to ask. At the break, I asked my boss "Who's that Dr Townes? He's a nice old guy, but a little weird." Colonel: "You should know that, Sergeant, he's the guy that invented the laser!" I kept checking, but finally decided it was a dead end.

 

[PixyMisa]

This is one interesting use of quartz as a specialised memory device - storing the colour data in PAL TV sets.

But in general, no, quartz is not now and never has been used for regular computer memory.

 

[jimtron]

But, but, it has magical powerz

 

[CaveDave]

Quartz is silicon dioxide.

Silicon is the most common substrate (and active material) in integrated circuits.

CMOS circuits (complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor), used in most digital ICs, uses OXIDE of silicon (dioxide) as an insulator, forming a small capacitor between the metal and the semiconductor, which can hold a tiny charge briefly.

The capacitor effect is used in CMOS memories to store the bits.

Therefore, it could be said that the same compound as quartz is used for memory storage, but this is only microscopic discrete areas of a thin film, not at all the bulk crystal form of quartz.

---

I think I have heard of research into using lattice dislocations or implanted impurities (using intersecting laser beams) to store bits, but it was way speculative and far in the future.

...emotional or psychic energies being stored in the quartz

[Bold mine]

There you have the red flag of the very definition of woo-words.

HTH

Dave

 

[Mojo]

The investigator was in a cave, and had gotten all excited about the quartz he had found there. He started to explain that the paranormal events there were likely caused by the emotional or psychic energies being stored in the quartz. He further explained that quartz could do this just like computers store information in quartz.

Forgetting for the moment the paranormal claims, as far as I know quartz is not used in computers for memory storage, but for their piezoelectric properties and their oscillation, used in the clock.

Does anyone know if there are information storage capabilities using quartz in computers?

But, but, it has magical powerz

Quartz is silicon dioxide.

Silicon is the most common substrate (and active material) in integrated circuits.

See also Dana Ullman's claim that small chips of silica from glass vessels enable the water used in homoeopathic remedies to "remember" what used to be dissolved in it:

I'm glad that you already knew this...and that you knew about the "silica hypothesis" that suggests that the silicate fragments that fall off the walls of the glass (6ppm) in the making of a homeopathic medicine. How can you say with a straight face that this would not or could not influence water structure? Is it just a coincidence that silica has a tendency to store and to broadcast information?

Dana used to post here as "JamesGully":

The newest and most intriguing way to explain how homeopathic medicines may work derives from some sophisticated modern technology. Scientists at several universities and hospitals in France and Belgium have discovered that the vigorous shaking of the water in glass bottles causes extremely small amounts of silica fragments or “chips” to fall into the water (Demangeat, Gries, Poitevin, 2004). Perhaps these “silica chips” may help to store the information in the water, with each medicine that is initially placed in the water creating its own pharmacological effect.

 

[not daSkeptic]

I addressed this very incident earlier in the official GHI forums.

 

[Correa Neto]

Its most likely an OT digression, but may be usefull to address the reliability of the show...

Most caves (at least most of the big ones) are located in limestone and marls, rocks composed mainly by carbonates (calcite and dolomite). Gypsum and quartz are (very) minor compounds and usually as speleothems (mineral growths inside the cave). Quartz will usually be one of the cryptocrystalline types.

There are four prime candidates for hosting caves with lots of quartz at their walls: sandstone, quartzite, granites and gneisses. The last two cases probably will actually be voids between talus boulders composed of granite and/or gneisses.

To sum up, if the caves are not located in those rocktypes, the whole claim, at the very core is rotten.

 

[technoextreme]

To the best of my knowledge -- based on 50 years of experience in the computer business -- crystals are not, and have never been, used to store long term data.

YMMV

Unless you are a member of Stargate Command

 

[casebro]

I think the earliest mention of "power" in crystals was the Di-Lithium crystals used to power the Star Ship Enterprise in 1968.

Similar "Power Crystals" used in the Star Gate series.

So I'm thinking that the OP is based on confusing science fiction with science fact.

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

Unless you are a member of Stargate Command

I'm too old. They forced me to retire!

 

[Denver]

Quartz is silicon dioxide.

Silicon is the most common substrate (and active material) in integrated circuits.

CMOS circuits (complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor), used in most digital ICs, uses OXIDE of silicon (dioxide) as an insulator, forming a small capacitor between the metal and the semiconductor, which can hold a tiny charge briefly.

The capacitor effect is used in CMOS memories to store the bits.

Therefore, it could be said that the same compound as quartz is used for memory storage, but this is only microscopic discrete areas of a thin film, not at all the bulk crystal form of quartz.

I'm not sure it is the same compound. From what I can google, quartz contains silicon dioxide, which itself is not used in integrated circuits. Elemental pure silicon is.

But yeah, that was as close as I could come to figuring out how they got from quartz to memory storage. I expect that extrapolating this is how the explanation is continued to other kinds of crystals.

I think I have heard of research into using lattice dislocations or implanted impurities (using intersecting laser beams) to store bits, but it was way speculative and far in the future.

[Bold mine]

There you have the red flag of the very definition of woo-words.

HTH

Dave

 

[ktesibios]

I was careful in phrasing my reply. I can think of two ways cystal could be used. As a short term of memory to store a transient signal given that the signal would move slower though a crystal than a copper wire (think a very short delay circuit) or by somehow deforming the crystal lattice with a signal and "reading" the deformation.

Disclaimer. My Physics degree is of the same age as my computer experience.

Delay lines were used as memory elements in the early days of electronic computing. One method involved acoustic waves propagating through mercury-filled tubes, with quartz piezoelectric transducers used as the input and output sensors. Another made the delay lines themselves out of quartz.

Delay_line_memory^WP