Construct A Box That Lasts A Million Years

[Vortigon]

Imagine you wanted to send a message to your future relatives, a few paragraphs of information.

 

Thing is, these relatives won't exist for 1 million years!

 

How would you construct a container and place information in it that would exist intact for 1 million years?

 

Rules are;

 

-Has to stay on Earth

-Must be self contained (no helpers looking after it)

-Money is no Option

-Must use available technology

-Message can be of any type of material or construction/form etc

 

 

1. What materials/technology would you construct the box out of?

 

2. What materials/technology would you construct the message out of?

 

 

:-)

[CaptainPanic]

Find a geologically stable site (somewhere without earthquakes or volcanos), and write your message on a plate of a noble metal. My thought is that if fossils can survive, then a message can survive.

 

Alternatively, if you have to store it on a geologically less stable site:

Massively strong steel box, covered with a thick layer of a noble metal? Basically a safe which is entirely coated with platinum?

 

Final idea: make many, many, many copies of the message.

 

I think a bigger problem might be that the box should be opened... and most important: how are you going to make sure it's found at all? I have no solution for that.

[SH3RL0CK]

Why not carve the words, in extremely large letters, on the earth itself? If mountain ranges last millions of years, and we can find impact craters from asteroids from millions of years ago, then why wouldn't similarly sized letters last as long?

 

Of course this should be done at a location geologically quiet. We would probably need to use nuclear weapons to create such massive letters and words.

[CaptainPanic]

Why not carve the words, in extremely large letters, on the earth itself? If mountain ranges last millions of years, and we can find impact craters from asteroids from millions of years ago, then why wouldn't similarly sized letters last as long?

 

Of course this should be done at a location geologically quiet. We would probably need to use nuclear weapons to create such massive letters and words.

Better still: write it on the moon. That's a geologically stable piece of rock... and it's a lot more visible from the surface of the earth.

It's costly, but certainly possible with modern (nuclear) technology. It's like an old matrix printer - for every dot you need a nuclear explosion. Size the explosions such that you achieve the right resolution.

[SH3RL0CK]

I agree this is the best location despite it being against the rules (Rule # 1, has to stay on the earth). In addition to being geologically stable, the moon will not have weathering, erosion, corrosion, etc. It would also be very easy to find being visible from anywhere on earth.

 

This message would last even several billions of years from now; essentially until the death of the solar system.

[SCB]

Make a platinum-plated titanium box with robotic legs that would hibernate for 1 million years and then seek out your relatives

[Sisyphus]

The moon is entirely geologically stabile and there would be almost zero normal weathering, but it's also totally unprotected from meteors of all sizes. It's also against the stated rules, but I guess if wrote a message big enough to be read on Earth with the naked eye, that might be a loophole (depending on the reasons for the rules), inasmuch as the recipients don't need to leave Earth or possess any particular technology.

[arnolp04]

Carve it in a cave and seal the entrance - or create a website and leave the message there? In a million years time (possibly) there'll be no bugs in software packages that need fixes, and your digital message will be easy to retrieve.

[Severian]

I would reconfigure the universe and encode my message in the digits of [math]\pi[/math].

[iNow]

I would just use cardboard... just a regular old box... and put it on a ship that travels near the speed of light away from the earth and back... This way, due to dilation effects, it will exist for "one million years" earth time, but only a short while from its own reference frame.

 

Basically, I'd spend my efforts building a faster ship instead of a better box.

[Vortigon]

Ha some great ideas there, many are breaking the rules though

 

I think the closest one sticking to the rules would be CaptainPanic

 

I'll head off now to make it, I plan on placing my savings account details in the box with 1 penny deposit. Should net my relatives alot of money in a million years

[iNow]

Ha some great ideas there, many are breaking the rules though

 

Doh! Sorry Vortigon. I completely missed that part.

[cetus]

u could just have a diamond box with black diamond to carve the message on

diamonds are forever

[cameron marical]

Id encode it in a geneticly superior life form itself, so it would pass it down through all generations. those have lasted obviously for more than a million years, im thinking that there could be a million more in store for it, depending upon states of the universe.{expansion}

[CharonY]

Beside the obvious problem of anything supposedly genetically superior, you still have mutations. I propose to create a religion devoted to chant the message I intend to give at any given opportunity. To ensure survival and spread of this religion I am going to add free cookies.

[CaptainPanic]

Tell it to an elephant. Elephants never forget.

 

(I'm really sorry for this post)

[Mr Skeptic]

Depending on the amount of information, some options will be more viable than others. For example, a glass(or quartz)/gold CD should last essentially forever, and encode a significant amount of information into a small space. For less information, text on gold foil would be better. Placed in a decay-proof box (a coating of platinum or gold, with stronger metal inside) underground, it should last essentially forever.

 

Alternately, we can now genetically modify living things. A message could be encoded into one, but will be subject to mutation and selection pressures. The message could be encoded into the non-coding DNA of your descendants, that way selection pressures have little effect, there should be less mutations due to slow generation time, and when your relatives get together they can compare their versions of the message and work out the original.

 

Simply throwing it out on the net may be sufficient. However, this may violate one of the rules, as there will have to be people taking care of it, but perhaps not since they are not specifically taking care of your message.

[obsteve]

This site any help?

 

http://www.ocrwm.doe.gov/factsheets/doeymp0115.shtml

 

The bigger problem will be not that the substance of the box may disintegrate over a million years, but that the meaning of the message will be totally obscure to your grunting hooting future relatives

[infinitebrain]

Why not place it into binary code in a computer chip!

You could put it on the ISS orbiting earth.

It also could not break the rule it has to be on earth because it is still in or close to earth's atmosphere!

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

The ISS's orbit will gradually decay, resulting in it eventually reentering Earth's atmosphere and burning up. It certainly wouldn't last a million years.

[insane_alien]

the ISS wouldn't even last 20 years without regular boosts.

 

however, if you bumped it up into a higher orbit, somewhere nearer GEO then it could last. but i think erosion from it being sandblasted by high energy particles and dust would be a problem.

[infinitebrain]

They could have where when ISS starts to decay they travel the chip from computer chip to a satelite close to it, Then they build another ISS, they put the chip back, and the cycle continues.

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Merged post follows:

Consecutive posts merged

Another thing by the way What if their are other variables?

What if you don't have future relatives?

What if the languages change?

How would they know you're they're relative?

What would you even say to them?

What if someone destroyed it would you be prepared with more?

This takes a lot of thought.

[cameron marical]

Another thing by the way What if their are other variables?

What if you don't have future relatives?

then you can not pass the message down to future relatives, but the thread was specifically for future relatives being there, not an if. Obviously it would be impossible otherwise.

 

What if the languages change?

Pictography

 

How would they know you're they're relative?

 

Last name if your a male, if your a female, I guess you would have to rely on something along the lines of telling your kid to tell his kid to tell his kid etc...

What would you even say to them?

 

Thats not the question.

What if someone destroyed it would you be prepared with more?

 

Multiple copies.

 

 

 

You could do what I said, and tell your kid to whisper to his kid the message to whisper his kid the message , etc...and make it really important so they dont forget. for an average of 10,000.? times.

[iNow]

Do you guys have any idea just how long a million years is? Humans haven't even been around that long. We first popped up circa 200,000 years ago... That's a good 800,000 years less than a million... and represents our entire existence as a species. The entire existence of humans on planet earth is but a mere [math]1/4[/math]^th of the time frame being described... and includes when we were in trees and didn't even have tools yet.

 

Christianity began a mere 2,000 years ago... That's only 0.2% of the time frame being described here, and we can barely tell what the people who wrote the bible were thinking just that short time ago.

 

Seriously... A million years is a REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY long time.

[cameron marical]

Of course it is, and to tell you the truth, Im not sure whether or not well be around in a million years or not, but I am not focusing over the amount of time it is, I am focusing on how to do what the OP asked. Since his question didnt express any doubt that we will be alive in a million years, I did not express any either.

 

Though your right, It is quite a long time. Expressing a message for that long would be quite hard.