Ok so how can a computer hard drive last 10,000 years or more

I am still waiting to see how you are going to keep data on a computer for 10,000 years when the computer as been subjected to temperatures over 1500 degrees.

I guess you are attempting to make a bad analogy with this premise.

There was no mention of 1500 degree temperatures, you might be assuming that there was a nuclear blast, because the computer was found in a fallout shelter, this was never said nor implied? The fallout shelter, is made to withstand a nuclear blast, therefor it can also withstand the basic rigors of time, as a typical home would not. However, the data did survive, was retrieved but as you might imagine 50,000 terabytes of data did take some time to read.

You said the hard drive platters were melted which would require a temp of about 1500 degrees in a sealed bomb shelter. Kind of hard to melt the drives and not heat the rest of the space.

They need not melt out of existence, just be warped slightly, time alone is enough to render these drives useless. However all that is important here, is to understand that those primary hard drives were not the source of the computer information. You assumed a nuclear blast because a fallout shelter was present, this is not the situation, while this is logical, it is not part of the riddle, as is every attempt at an answer thus far.

I never assumed a nuclear blast. You posted this -


Heat is required to melt hard drive platters. I merely assumed the heat required to meet your claim.

Ok I accept that, and perhaps I should not have included melted hard drives in the first place. I did so only to take data retrieval from these primary hard drives, out of the equation. So the primary hard drives have not survived time, and can not be accessed, yet all of the data has survived by some means, the question is by what means, did the computer data survive?

Your attempt at an analogy is ridiculous because you don't understand computers and you don't understand evolution.

Let's put it this another way....(that I am sure you won't understand because you don't get concepts outside your blind world view.)

All the information from the computer was transferred to 10 other computers that also have died but each of those 10 computers transferred their information to 10 computers before they died and then those 100 computers transferred the information to 10 computers each before they died and those 1000 transferred to 10 each and so on and so on until there were 1,000,000,000 computers all with information on them. However as we know with computer sometimes there are glitches and the information doesn't copy correctly.

Now could you find out what the likely original information was by comparing the information that is currently on the 1,000,000,000 computers? The answer is yes. A simple computer program could do it. You simply compare the information from each, find the errors, and do a statistical analysis of those errors which would give you the likely original.

Thank you for that educated attempt but failed answer. While it might be plausible, you must assume that all of the information is contained in the fallout shelter, and that no networking was used. This fallout shelter, was top secret, and was self sufficient and not linked to any point in the outside world, after being built.

Thus the billions and billions of lines of binary computer code was retrieved from somewhere in the fallout shelter proper.

It should be noted, that there is a possibility that you have raised, that our descendants from millions of years in the future, might well be able to intercept this from the galactic cloud of information, at some point, as cyberspace may become timeless.

But please get back to the bomb shelter and finish the equation....

The equation has been finished. Your attempt at an analogy is ridiculous and shows a failure on your part to understand, time, chemistry, computers or evolution.

The equation is always finished, to those who do not know the next calculation. I am tempted to give you the answer, as you no longer can compete in the cutting edge arena of computer science.

I will give you a hint, which is that the envelope is in plain view on the desk, which Holmes explains is where no one would look for a hidden letter in the first place. Thus the answer, is in plain view, always. So please accept that there were billions and billions of lines of binary computer information in the shelter, that was read and understood......

Would you enjoy an easy riddle?

I think not.

I hope you are not engineering an unclear theory.

Waiting for you to show us how we can retrieve the data from the machine..

You may have a theory as to the answer, however once I make the answer clear, all theories will be vacated.

Next clue, the multiple billions of lines of binary code were stored on multiple hard drives. This much should be evident. The riddle is how this could be true after 10,000 years.

Be curious....

It's not a very useful clue. Many computers use already several hard drives.

The problem remains as how they keep the data after 10 000 years.

Remember that radioactive decay is impossible to predict at an atom level.

10,000 years, while a significant amount of time, to us, is actually far from the demonstrated amount of time that this hard drive, has already been demonstrated to store data. Reality, is not stranger than you know, reality is stranger than you can know.

I'm used to Sci-Fi, tells us your little story..

God destroying Sodom, was a form of religious Sci-Fi, at least until Hiroshima.

Data surviving 10,000 years has already happened.

Things stored NOT on the computer are by definition NOT on the computer.
You seem confused about your riddle.

They were stored on the computer then, though whether the hard drives were on the computer proper, or were connected to the computer by standard cable is of little consequence to the riddle, as the drives were accessed by the computer when it was workable, and were in the shelter with the computer. The riddle, is how then did these drives survive, when everything else is degraded by the rigors of time.

You know that the answer is rational, or you could not continue questioning.