"Water has a memory and carries within it our thoughts and prayers. As you yourself are water, no matter where you are, your prayers will be carried to the rest of the world." Masaru Emoto, The Secret Life of Water
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Digital image stored in single molecule
10:15 01 December 02
NewScientist.com news service
An image composed of over 1000 of bits of information can be stored in the atoms of a single molecule, US researchers have shown.
Bing Fung and colleagues at the University of Oklahoma found that the 19 hydrogen atoms in a lone liquid crystal molecule can store at least 1024 bits of information. The data are stored in the complex interaction of the protons' magnetic moments.
Fung hopes the technique, dubbed "molecular photography", could one day be used to pack massive amounts of digital information into a tiny space but admits that the process is currently experimental. "It's a very, very first step towards using nuclear spins for molecular information processing," he told New Scientist:
In their experiments, the researchers used a molecule to store a black and white image, 32 pixels square. The image was encoded in binary 1s and 0s that can easily be processed by a computer.
Single atom memory device stores data http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99992775 10 September 2002
"Punch card" could store one terabit of data http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99992389 11 June 2002
Nano-stamps make smaller, cheaper chips http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99992435 20 June 2002
For more related stories search the print edition Archive <http://archive.newscientist.com/
Weblinks
Chemistry, University of Oklahoma <http://cheminfo.chem.ou.edu/
Journal of Chemical Physics <http://ojps.aip.org/jcpo
The researchers fired an electromagnetic pulse containing 1024 different radio frequencies close to 400 megahertz at the molecule. Each frequency either had amplitude, representing a "1", or did not, representing or a "0". This imprinted the information on the molecule.
The researchers were able to read the information back by firing a second pulse with slightly shifted frequencies at the molecule and measuring the consequent changes with a nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) instrument.
Fung says it may be possible to store more information using the nuclei of this type of molecule but admits that the nature of the spin interactions is not well understood. "We know how they interact in simple cases, but the interaction in this molecule are extremely complicated," he says. (Journal reference: Journal of Chemical Physics (vol, 117 p 6903)) http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99993129
See Also
15.02 - Liberating Ozone from Water
15.04 - Dissociating Water with Fire
15.06 - Power of Dissociated Water
15.08 - Dissociating Water with X-Rays - Radiolysis
15.09 - Dissociating Water with Ultrasonic Vibration - Puharich
15.10 - Dissociating Water with Alternating Current - Puharich
15.11 - Dissociating Water with Vacuum
15.12 - Dissociating Water with Acoustic Cavitation
15.13 - Dissociating Water Acoustically - Liberation of Quantum Constituents
15.18 - Keelys Process for Liberating Ether from Water
15.21 - Water Dissociation Demonstration
15.22 - Water is Sensitive to Thought
15.23 - Water is Predominantly Diamagnetic
15.24 - Water is Sensitive to Biometeorological Effects
8.8 - Water Wave Model
9.26 - Orbital Phases
Dissociating Water with Microwave
Figure 15.00a - Fujiwara Water Before Prayer
Figure 15.00b - Fujiwara Water After Prayer
Figure 8.10 - Each Phase of a Wave as Discrete Steps
Figure 8.11 - Four Fundamental Phases of a Wave
Figure 8.2 - Compression Wave Phase Illustration
Figure 9.10 - Phases of a Wave as series of Expansions and Contractions
Figure 9.14 - Wave Flow and Phase as function of Particle Rotation
Figure 9.5 - Phases of a Wave as series of Expansions and Contractions
Part 15 - Dissociating Water
SVP Cosmology Part 15 - Dissociating Water Acoustically
water
Water Gas
Water Hammer
Water Radiolysis
What Has Keely Discovered