Oddbean new post about login | logout Mother of God https://image.nostr.build/dfd00633ddbb714dc2dca38c4c137718a8e4c05e1007a098c63929f861ec05d3.jpg
Dont forget watches that depend on quartz consistent frequency to keep precise time. Crystal radios, tesla coils, etc. So many thing.
For timekeeping I feel like between atomic clocks and RF clocks we can over overcome quartz fairly easily, we use it abundantly because it’s cheap
I dont think purity is super important for any of those things. I assume the chemical compound would be a high or low pH adjuster.
Still in those watches those quartz is used. Wear it myself ⌚
Do radio watches need quartz? I’m not sure where it would be needed
Yep. Same with atomic clock. AFAIK, the atomic side is set to tune the quartz side of the clock, not to completely replace the system.
My geologist friend told me about this. Security there is apparently no joke. The size and purity of the quartz there is really that rare.
talk about a single point of failure
That would be an massive bounty for someone to find a way to purify it. I wouldn’t count out motivated human ingenuity.
Wow, well chat GPT pretty quickly seemed to spill the beans on iron oxide being particularly dangerous https://chat.openai.com/c/f9277022-28c9-4c49-be4d-1c09a7d68512
Iron oxide is just rust. It's not very reactive so I have my doubts but I'm not very knowledgeable on the topic.
True, but there are some other basic oxides that react to form metal glass like lead glass, and there is some research on iron oxide bonding to the surface of silica. Swinging in the dark here but interesting little exploration nonetheless https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0927775709006591
The nostrich urge to resolve that article by determining: 1. What's the dang powder 2. Whether this is for real 3. How exactly we'd cope with our current hardware stock and a moderate slowdown in application of Moore's Law 4. Whether 3 might be a good thing, given silicon tech in the iPhone to GPT Era causes more problems than it solves 5. How bitcoin might emerge unscathed with mesh networks and dumb phones leading the way to a simpler life
