Wipeout

• Autores: Sarah Everts
• Localización: New scientist, ISSN 0262-4079, Nº. 2931, 2013, págs. 44-47
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • Everts discusses the degradation of magnetic tape. For the late 20th century, think magnetic tape. Whether recordings of people speaking near-extinct languages, video documentation of earthquakes inaction, footage of Nobel laureates in their labs or defining moments in sport and culture, a goodly portion of recent human memory is encoded on thin strips of black ribbon. Trouble is, these memories are often shorter-lived than the people who made them. Magnetic tape begins to degrade chemically in anything from a few years to a few decades, depending on its precise composition. It has taken a while to realize the scale of the problem, not least because the cultural importance of video is often overlooked.