00:00:00.167 --> 00:00:01.051
[TEASER] 

00:00:01.051 --> 00:00:02.804
[MUSIC PLAYS UNDER DIALOGUE] 

00:00:02.804 --> 00:00:07.680
DEXTER GREENE: So the original Golden Record is … 
I like to think of it as, sort of, a time capsule  

00:00:07.680 --> 00:00:12.560
of humanity that was designed to represent 
us—who we are as a species, what we love,  

00:00:12.560 --> 00:00:17.160
why we love it, what we do, and, sort of, our 
diversity, why we're all different, why we do  

00:00:17.160 --> 00:00:23.640
different things—to possible extraterrestrials. 
And so the Golden Record was produced in 1977  

00:00:23.640 --> 00:00:30.200
by a relatively small team led by Carl Sagan. 
What we're doing, my team, is we're working  

00:00:30.200 --> 00:00:34.720
on creating an updated Golden Record. And I 
began researching different storage methods,  

00:00:34.720 --> 00:00:40.920
and I began to realize that we hadn't made that 
much headway in storage since then. Of course,  

00:00:40.920 --> 00:00:46.720
we've made progress but nothing really spectacular 
until I found 5D storage. And I noticed that there  

00:00:46.720 --> 00:00:52.720
were only two real places that I could find 
information about this. One was the University  

00:00:52.720 --> 00:00:58.400
of Southampton, and one was Project Silica at 
Microsoft. I reached out to the University of  

00:00:58.400 --> 00:01:05.585
Southampton and Dr. Black, and somehow, kind of, 
to my surprise, Dr. Black actually responded!

00:01:05.585 --> 00:01:09.400
RICHARD BLACK: I was in particularly intrigued by 
the Avenues Golden Record application because I  

00:01:09.400 --> 00:01:15.840
could see it was an application not just where 
Silica was a better media than what people use  

00:01:15.840 --> 00:01:21.760
today but really where Silica was the only media 
that would work because none of the standard  

00:01:21.760 --> 00:01:26.560
media really work over the kind of time scales 
that are involved in space travel, and none of  

00:01:26.560 --> 00:01:31.800
them really work in the harsh environments that 
are involved in space and outer space and space  

00:01:31.800 --> 00:01:38.720
travel. So in some ways for me, it was an easy 
way to communicate just what a transformative  

00:01:38.720 --> 00:01:46.566
digital media technology Silica is, and that's why 
as an application, it really grabbed my interest.

00:01:46.566 --> 00:01:46.581
[TEASER ENDS] 

00:01:46.581 --> 00:01:48.240
GRETCHEN HUIZINGA: You're 
listening to Collaborators,  

00:01:48.240 --> 00:01:53.120
a Microsoft Research Podcast showcasing the 
range of expertise that goes into transforming  

00:01:53.120 --> 00:01:59.840
mind-blowing ideas into world-changing 
technologies. I'm Dr. Gretchen Huizinga.

00:01:59.840 --> 00:02:12.680
[MUSIC FADES] 

00:02:12.680 --> 00:02:17.800
Today I'm talking to Dr. Richard Black, a senior 
principal research manager and the research  

00:02:17.800 --> 00:02:23.280
director of Project Silica at Microsoft 
Research. And with him is Dexter Greene,  

00:02:23.280 --> 00:02:27.960
a rising freshman at the University of 
Michigan and a recent graduate of Avenues:  

00:02:27.960 --> 00:02:34.400
The World School in New York City. Richard and 
Dexter are involved in a unique multidisciplinary,  

00:02:34.400 --> 00:02:40.400
multi-institutional, and multigenerational 
collaboration called Avenues Golden Record,  

00:02:40.400 --> 00:02:44.760
a current effort to communicate with 
extraterrestrial intelligence. We'll  

00:02:44.760 --> 00:02:49.720
get into that in a lot more detail shortly, 
but first, let's meet our collaborators.

00:02:49.720 --> 00:02:54.040
Richard, let's start with you. As I've 
just noted, you're a research manager at  

00:02:54.040 --> 00:02:59.200
the Cambridge UK lab of Microsoft Research 
and the research director of a really cool  

00:02:59.200 --> 00:03:03.680
technology called Silica. In a second, I want 
you to talk about that more specifically,  

00:03:03.680 --> 00:03:09.120
but right now, tell us about yourself. What's your 
background? What are your research interests writ  

00:03:09.120 --> 00:03:14.465
large? And what excites you about the 
broad remit of your work at Cambridge?

00:03:14.465 --> 00:03:18.480
RICHARD BLACK: So my background is a computer 
scientist. I've been at Microsoft Research for  

00:03:18.480 --> 00:03:22.960
24 years, and before that, I had a faculty 
position at a university here in the UK. So  

00:03:22.960 --> 00:03:27.160
I also have an interest in education, and it's 
been a delight to interact with Dexter and the  

00:03:27.160 --> 00:03:33.880
other students at Avenues. My research interests 
really cover all aspects of computer systems,  

00:03:33.880 --> 00:03:39.040
which means operating systems, networking, and 
computer architecture. And the exciting thing for  

00:03:39.040 --> 00:03:44.560
me about being at Microsoft Research is that this 
is really a period of rapid change with the cloud,  

00:03:44.560 --> 00:03:48.760
digital transformation of society. 
It gives really a huge motivation to  

00:03:48.760 --> 00:03:53.480
research better underlying technologies 
for everything that we do. And for me  

00:03:53.480 --> 00:03:58.825
in the last few years, that's been in 
archival storage with Project Silica.

00:03:58.825 --> 00:04:02.520
HUIZINGA: Hmm. Richard, I'm interested 
to know a little bit more about your  

00:04:02.520 --> 00:04:07.480
background. Where did you go to school, 
what led you to this kind of research,  

00:04:07.480 --> 00:04:10.160
and what university were you teaching at?

00:04:10.160 --> 00:04:15.520
BLACK: Yeah, I went to university and did my 
PhD here in Cambridge. I was teaching at the  

00:04:15.520 --> 00:04:21.360
University of Glasgow, which is in Scotland in 
the UK, and teaching again computer systems,  

00:04:21.360 --> 00:04:24.800
so those operating systems, computer 
architecture, and computer networking.

00:04:24.800 --> 00:04:29.000
HUIZINGA: Well, Dexter, you're the first 
student collaborator we’ve featured on  

00:04:29.000 --> 00:04:33.400
this show, which is super fun. Tell 
us about yourself and about Avenues:  

00:04:33.400 --> 00:04:37.385
The World School, where this 
particular collaboration was born.

00:04:37.385 --> 00:04:40.240
DEXTER GREENE: Thanks for having me. I'm 
super excited to be here. And like you said,  

00:04:40.240 --> 00:04:43.280
it's very cool to be the first student 
collaborator that you featured on the  

00:04:43.280 --> 00:04:49.480
show. So I'm 18. I just graduated high school 
a few months ago, and I will be attending the  

00:04:49.480 --> 00:04:53.200
University of Michigan's College of Engineering 
in the fall. If you know me personally,  

00:04:53.200 --> 00:04:57.480
you know that I love robotics. I competed in the 
FIRST Tech Challenge all throughout high school.  

00:04:57.480 --> 00:05:03.640
The FIRST Tech Challenge is a student robotics 
competition. There is the FIRST Tech Challenge,  

00:05:03.640 --> 00:05:08.720
FIRST Robotics Competition, and FIRST LEGO League. 
So it's, like, three different levels of robotics  

00:05:08.720 --> 00:05:14.000
competition, which is run all around the world. 
And every year, there's, like, a championship at  

00:05:14.000 --> 00:05:20.760
the end to declare a winner. And I plan to major 
in either robotics or mechanical engineering. So  

00:05:20.760 --> 00:05:25.040
more about Avenues. Avenues is a K-through-12 
international immersion school, which is very  

00:05:25.040 --> 00:05:30.760
interesting. So younger students might do a day in 
Spanish and a day in English or a day in Mandarin  

00:05:30.760 --> 00:05:36.360
and then a day in English, going through all their 
classes in that language. So I actually attended  

00:05:36.360 --> 00:05:40.480
Avenues since second grade, so when I was younger, 
I would do a full day in Spanish and then I would  

00:05:40.480 --> 00:05:46.640
switch to a full day in English, doing my courses 
like math, history, English, all in my language,  

00:05:46.640 --> 00:05:53.680
Spanish for me. And Avenues is a very interesting 
school and very different in many ways. They like  

00:05:53.680 --> 00:05:59.640
to, sort of, think outside the box. There's a 
lot of very unique classes, unique programs.  

00:06:00.480 --> 00:06:05.880
A great example is what they call J-Term or 
June and January Term, which is where students  

00:06:05.880 --> 00:06:10.400
will have one course every day for the entire 
month where they can really dive deep into that  

00:06:10.400 --> 00:06:16.760
subject. And I was actually lucky enough to do 
the Golden Record for a full month in 11th grade,  

00:06:16.760 --> 00:06:21.000
which I'll talk about this more, but that's 
actually when I first made contact with Dr.  

00:06:21.000 --> 00:06:25.600
Black and found this amazing technology, 
which is, I guess why we're all here today.

00:06:25.600 --> 00:06:26.200
HUIZINGA: Right.

00:06:26.200 --> 00:06:29.800
GREENE: So, yeah, there's many 
really cool parts about Avenues.  

00:06:29.800 --> 00:06:33.880
There's travel programs that you can do where 
you can go all around the world. You can go  

00:06:33.880 --> 00:06:39.950
between different campuses. There's online 
classes that you can take. The list goes on …

00:06:39.950 --> 00:06:43.920
HUIZINGA: Well, it's funny that you say “when 
I first made contact with Dr. Black” because it  

00:06:43.920 --> 00:06:49.440
sounds like something that you're working on! 
So let's talk about that for a second. So the  

00:06:49.440 --> 00:06:53.280
project we're talking about today is Avenues 
Golden Record, but it's not the first Golden  

00:06:53.280 --> 00:06:59.680
Record to exist. So for those of our listeners 
who don't know what Golden Record even is, Dexter,  

00:06:59.680 --> 00:07:03.440
give us a little history lesson and 
chronicle the story from the original  

00:07:03.440 --> 00:07:10.300
Golden Record way back in 1977 all the way 
to what you're doing today with the project.

00:07:10.300 --> 00:07:14.360
GREENE: Yeah. So I guess let me start with, 
what is the Golden Record? So the original  

00:07:14.360 --> 00:07:19.280
Golden Record is … I like to think of it as, sort 
of, a time capsule of humanity that was designed  

00:07:19.280 --> 00:07:24.960
to represent us—who we are as a species, what we 
love, why we love it, what we do, and, sort of,  

00:07:24.960 --> 00:07:29.520
our diversity, why we're all different, why we do 
different things—to possible extraterrestrials.  

00:07:30.080 --> 00:07:37.480
And so the Golden Record was produced in 1977 
by a relatively small team led by Carl Sagan[1],  

00:07:37.480 --> 00:07:43.800
an American astronomer who was a professor at, I 
believe, Cornell. And so it's basically a series  

00:07:43.800 --> 00:07:51.840
of meticulously curated content. So that could 
be images, audios, sounds of nature, music,  

00:07:51.840 --> 00:07:55.720
the list goes on. Really anything you can think 
of. That's, sort of, the beauty of it. Anything  

00:07:55.720 --> 00:08:01.480
can go on it. So it's just a compilation 
of what we are, who we are, and why we  

00:08:01.480 --> 00:08:06.440
are—what's important to us. A great example, 
one of my favorite parts of the Golden Record,  

00:08:06.440 --> 00:08:12.160
is one of the first audios on it is a greeting in 
55 languages. It's, sort of, meant to be, like,  

00:08:12.160 --> 00:08:17.480
a welcome … I guess less of a welcome, but more 
like a hello because we're not welcoming anyone  

00:08:17.480 --> 00:08:23.720
to Earth, [LAUGHTER] but it's, like, a hello, 
nice to meet you, in 55 languages to show that  

00:08:23.720 --> 00:08:29.000
we're very diverse, very different. And, yeah, 
you can actually … if you're interested and if  

00:08:29.000 --> 00:08:33.040
you'd like to learn more, you can actually 
go see all the content that's on the Golden  

00:08:33.040 --> 00:08:39.280
Records. NASA has a webpage for that. I definitely 
recommend if you have a chance to check it out.

00:08:39.280 --> 00:08:40.040
HUIZINGA: Yeah.

00:08:40.040 --> 00:08:45.000
GREENE: And I guess moving on to future 
attempts … so what we're doing, my team,  

00:08:45.000 --> 00:08:50.400
is we're working on creating an updated Golden 
Record. So it's been 47 years now since the  

00:08:50.400 --> 00:08:54.920
original Golden Record—kind of a long time. And 
of course a lot's changed. Some for the better,  

00:08:54.920 --> 00:08:59.840
some for the worse. And we think that it's 
about time we update that. Update who we are,  

00:08:59.840 --> 00:09:03.096
what we are, and what we care about, what we love.

00:09:03.096 --> 00:09:03.112
HUIZINGA: Right.

00:09:03.112 --> 00:09:08.520
GREENE: So our team has begun working on that. 
One project that I'm familiar with, other than  

00:09:08.520 --> 00:09:13.920
our own, that's, sort of, a similar attempt 
is known as Humanity's Message to the Stars,  

00:09:13.920 --> 00:09:19.160
which is led by Dr. Jonathan Jiang, who 
is a researcher at NASA's Jet Propulsion  

00:09:19.160 --> 00:09:24.520
Laboratory.[2] Very cool. That's the only 
project that's similar that I'm aware of,  

00:09:24.520 --> 00:09:27.680
but I'm sure there have been 
other attempts in the past.

00:09:27.680 --> 00:09:33.280
HUIZINGA: Yeah … just to make a note right 
now, we're using the term “record,” and the  

00:09:33.280 --> 00:09:40.680
original medium was actually a record, like an 
LP. But excitingly, we'll get to why Dr. Black  

00:09:40.680 --> 00:09:46.760
is on the show today [LAUGHS] and talk 
about the new media. Before we do that,  

00:09:46.760 --> 00:09:52.360
as I was preparing this episode, it began to 
feel like a story of contrasting couplets,  

00:09:52.360 --> 00:09:57.320
like earthlings and aliens, content and 
media, veteran researcher and high school  

00:09:57.320 --> 00:10:01.200
student. … So let's talk about the last 
pairing for a second, the two of you,  

00:10:01.200 --> 00:10:05.560
and how you got together on this project. It's 
a fun story. I like to call this question “how  

00:10:05.560 --> 00:10:11.240
I met your mother.” So how did a high 
school kid from New York come to be a  

00:10:11.240 --> 00:10:17.120
research collaborator with a seasoned scientist 
from Cambridge? Dexter, tell your side of the  

00:10:17.120 --> 00:10:20.780
story. It's cool. And then Richard can 
fill in the blanks from across the pond!

00:10:20.780 --> 00:10:24.120
GREENE: Yeah, so let me actually 
rewind a little bit further than that,  

00:10:24.120 --> 00:10:26.150
about how I got into the project myself, …

00:10:26.150 --> 00:10:26.600
HUIZINGA: Good!

00:10:26.600 --> 00:10:30.760
GREENE: … which, I think, is a pretty fun 
story. So one of my teachers—my design and  

00:10:30.760 --> 00:10:34.360
engineering teacher at the time, Mr. 
Cavalier—gave a presentation at one  

00:10:34.360 --> 00:10:39.160
of our gradewide assemblies. And the first 
slide was something along the lines of “the  

00:10:39.160 --> 00:10:43.120
most challenging project in human history,” 
which immediately caught my eye. I was like,  

00:10:43.120 --> 00:10:48.120
I have to do this! There's no way I'm not doing 
this project! [LAUGHTER] And the slides to come of  

00:10:48.120 --> 00:10:52.920
course made me want to partake in the project even 
more. But that first slide … really, I was sold.  

00:10:52.920 --> 00:10:59.680
It was a done deal! So I applied to the project. I 
got in. And then we began working and researching,  

00:10:59.680 --> 00:11:03.840
and I'll talk about this more later, as well, 
but we, sort of, split up into two teams at  

00:11:03.840 --> 00:11:10.760
the beginning: content and media. Media being 
the form, or medium, that we send it on. And so  

00:11:10.760 --> 00:11:15.600
that was the team that I was on. And I began 
researching different storage methods and,  

00:11:15.600 --> 00:11:21.760
sort of, advancements in storage methods since 
the original Golden Record in 1977. And I began  

00:11:21.760 --> 00:11:28.800
to realize that we hadn't made that much headway 
in storage since then. Of course we've made  

00:11:28.800 --> 00:11:34.840
progress but nothing really spectacular until I 
found 5D storage. And I was immediately, just,  

00:11:34.840 --> 00:11:41.320
amazed by the longevity, durability, capacity—so 
many things. I mean, there's just so many reasons  

00:11:41.320 --> 00:11:46.440
to be amazed. But … so I began researching and 
I noticed that there were only two real places  

00:11:46.440 --> 00:11:52.200
that I could find information about this. One 
was the University of Southampton, I believe,  

00:11:52.200 --> 00:11:58.240
and one was Project Silica at Microsoft. And so 
I actually reached out to both. I reached out  

00:11:58.240 --> 00:12:05.200
to the University of Southampton and Dr. Black, 
and somehow, [LAUGHS] kind of, to my surprise,  

00:12:05.200 --> 00:12:10.880
Dr. Black actually responded! And I was, kind 
of, stunned when he responded because I was like,  

00:12:10.880 --> 00:12:15.200
there's no way this researcher at Microsoft 
is going to respond to this high school  

00:12:15.200 --> 00:12:20.840
student that he's never met in the middle 
of nowhere. So when Dr. Black did respond,  

00:12:20.840 --> 00:12:26.200
I was just amazed and so excited. And, yeah, 
it went from there. We began communicating  

00:12:26.200 --> 00:12:32.700
back and forth. And then, I believe, we met once 
over the following summer, and now we're here!

00:12:32.700 --> 00:12:38.920
HUIZINGA: OK, there's so many parallels right 
now between this communication contact and what  

00:12:38.920 --> 00:12:43.640
you're doing with potential extraterrestrial 
intelligence. It's like, I contacted him,  

00:12:43.640 --> 00:12:49.440
he contacted me back, and then we started 
having a conversation. … Yeah, so, Richard,  

00:12:49.440 --> 00:12:55.480
you were the guy who received the cold email from 
this high school student. What was your reaction,  

00:12:55.480 --> 00:13:02.060
and how did you get interested in pursuing a 
relationship in terms of the science of this?

00:13:02.060 --> 00:13:09.080
BLACK: Yeah, so let me say I was really intrigued 
by the Avenues Golden Record application. I do get  

00:13:09.080 --> 00:13:15.920
quite a lot of cold emails, [LAUGHTER] and I try 
to reply to most of them. I do have a few canned  

00:13:15.920 --> 00:13:21.400
answers because I don't have time to interact 
with everybody who reaches out to me. But I  

00:13:21.400 --> 00:13:25.680
was in particularly intrigued by the Avenues 
Golden Record application because I could see  

00:13:25.680 --> 00:13:32.320
it was an application not just where Silica 
was a better media than what people use today  

00:13:32.320 --> 00:13:37.480
but really where Silica was the only media 
that would work because none of the standard  

00:13:37.480 --> 00:13:42.280
media really work over the kind of time scales 
that are involved in space travel, and none of  

00:13:42.280 --> 00:13:47.520
them really work in the harsh environments that 
are involved in space and outer space and space  

00:13:47.520 --> 00:13:55.040
travel. So in some ways for me, it was an easy 
way to communicate just what a transformative  

00:13:55.040 --> 00:14:00.920
digital media technology Silica is, and that's why 
as an application it really grabbed my interest.

00:14:00.920 --> 00:14:06.280
HUIZINGA: So did you have any idea 
when the initial exchange happened  

00:14:06.280 --> 00:14:08.720
that this would turn into a full-blown project?

00:14:08.720 --> 00:14:15.160
BLACK: I didn't know how much time Dexter and 
his fellow students would have to invest in it.  

00:14:15.160 --> 00:14:20.320
So for me, at the beginning, I was just quite 
happy to answer a few questions that they have,  

00:14:20.320 --> 00:14:27.480
to point them in the right direction, to fill 
in a few blanks, and things like that. And it  

00:14:27.480 --> 00:14:31.280
was only much later, I think, after perhaps 
we'd had our first meeting, that I realized  

00:14:31.280 --> 00:14:36.200
that Dexter and his team were actually serious, 
[LAUGHTER] and they had some time, and they were  

00:14:36.200 --> 00:14:42.680
going to actually invest in this and think it 
through. And so I was happy to work with them  

00:14:42.680 --> 00:14:48.720
and to continue to answer questions that they had 
and to work towards actually, you know, writing a  

00:14:48.720 --> 00:14:54.060
couple of Silica platters with the output that 
they were creating and providing it for them.

00:14:54.060 --> 00:15:00.600
HUIZINGA: Well, let's dig in there. Richard, let's 
talk about digital data and the storage mediums  

00:15:00.600 --> 00:15:05.840
that love it. I want to break this into two parts 
because I'm interested in it from two angles. And  

00:15:05.840 --> 00:15:11.280
the first one is purely technical. I'll take a 
second to note that we did an episode on Project  

00:15:11.280 --> 00:15:16.520
Silica way back in 2019. I say way back, like … 
but in technical years right now, [LAUGHS] that  

00:15:16.520 --> 00:15:22.560
seems like a long time! And on that episode, 
your colleague Ant Rowstron talked with me  

00:15:22.560 --> 00:15:27.440
and Mark Russinovich, the CTO of Microsoft's 
Azure. So we'll put a link in the show notes  

00:15:27.440 --> 00:15:32.320
for that super-fun, interesting show. But right 
now, Richard, would you give our listeners an  

00:15:32.320 --> 00:15:37.280
overview of the current science of data on 
glass? What is Silica? How is it different  

00:15:37.280 --> 00:15:42.680
from other storage media? And what's changed in 
the five years since I talked to Ant and Mark?

00:15:42.680 --> 00:15:48.360
BLACK: Sure. So Silica is an archival 
storage technology that stores data  

00:15:48.360 --> 00:15:55.880
inside fused silica glass. And it does that using 
ultrashort laser pulses that make a permanent,  

00:15:55.880 --> 00:15:59.360
detectable, and yet transparent modification  

00:15:59.360 --> 00:16:04.640
to the glass crystal, so the data ends up 
as durable as the piece of glass itself.

00:16:04.640 --> 00:16:05.300
HUIZINGA: Wow.

00:16:05.300 --> 00:16:10.400
BLACK: And being transparent means that we can 
get hundreds of layers of data inside a block  

00:16:10.400 --> 00:16:15.920
of glass that's only two millimeters thin, 
making for really incredibly high densities.  

00:16:15.920 --> 00:16:21.040
And since this new physics was discovered at the 
University of Southampton in the UK, we've been  

00:16:21.040 --> 00:16:27.840
working to tame that, and we've improved density, 
energy over a hundred-fold in the time period  

00:16:27.840 --> 00:16:33.040
that we've been working on it, and the speed 
over ten thousand-fold. And we continue to,  

00:16:33.040 --> 00:16:38.920
in our research, to make Silica better and faster. 
And, yes, you're right, five years might seem like  

00:16:38.920 --> 00:16:45.840
quite a long time. A comparison that you might 
think of here is the history of the hard drive. In  

00:16:45.840 --> 00:16:50.040
the history of the hard drive, there was a point 
in history at which humans discovered the physical  

00:16:50.040 --> 00:16:55.320
effect of magnetism. And it took us actually quite 
a long time as a species to go from magnetism to  

00:16:55.320 --> 00:17:00.040
hard drives. In this case, this new physical 
effect that was discovered at Southampton,  

00:17:00.040 --> 00:17:04.240
this new physical effect, you can think of it a 
bit like discovering magnetism, and taking it all  

00:17:04.240 --> 00:17:09.760
the way from there to actually a real operating 
storage system actually takes quite a lot of  

00:17:09.760 --> 00:17:15.040
research and effort and development, and that's 
the path that we've been on doing that, taming and  

00:17:15.040 --> 00:17:19.860
improving densities and speeds and energies 
and so on during the years of the project.

00:17:19.860 --> 00:17:24.440
HUIZINGA: Well, talk a little bit more 
about the reading and writing of this  

00:17:24.440 --> 00:17:29.960
medium. What's involved technically on how 
you get the data on and how you retrieve it?

00:17:29.960 --> 00:17:34.440
BLACK: Yeah, and so interestingly the writing of 
the data and the reading of the data are actually  

00:17:34.440 --> 00:17:40.520
completely different. So writing the data is done 
with an ultrashort laser pulse. It's actually a  

00:17:40.520 --> 00:17:45.800
femtosecond-length pulse, and a femtosecond is 
one-thousandth of one-millionth of one-millionth  

00:17:45.800 --> 00:17:52.080
of a second. And if you take even quite a small 
amount of energy and you compress it in time into  

00:17:52.080 --> 00:17:58.520
a pulse that short and then you use a lens 
to focus it in space into just a tiny point,  

00:17:58.520 --> 00:18:04.560
then the intensity of the light at that point 
during that pulse is just so mind-bogglingly  

00:18:04.560 --> 00:18:11.400
high that you actually get something called a 
plasma-induced nano-explosion. [LAUGHTER] And  

00:18:12.200 --> 00:18:16.680
I'm not an appropriate physicist of the right 
sort by background, but I can tell you that  

00:18:16.680 --> 00:18:22.520
what that does is it really transforms the glass 
crystal at that point but in a way in which it’s,  

00:18:22.520 --> 00:18:26.960
just, it’s so short—the time pulse is so 
short—it doesn't really get to damage the  

00:18:26.960 --> 00:18:32.320
crystal around that point. And that's what 
enables the data to be incredibly durable  

00:18:32.320 --> 00:18:38.340
because you've made this permanent, detectable, 
and yet transparent change to the glass crystal.

00:18:38.340 --> 00:18:41.500
HUIZINGA: So that's writing. What about reading?

00:18:41.500 --> 00:18:43.360
BLACK: Reading you do with a microscope!

00:18:43.360 --> 00:18:44.440
HUIZINGA: Oh, my gosh.

00:18:44.440 --> 00:18:49.200
BLACK: So it's a much more straightforward 
process. A reader is basically a  

00:18:49.200 --> 00:18:53.960
computer-controlled, high-speed, high-quality 
microscope. And you focus the microscope at  

00:18:53.960 --> 00:18:58.960
an appropriate depth inside the glass, and 
then you just photograph it. And you get to,  

00:18:58.960 --> 00:19:02.640
if it's an appropriate sort of microscope, 
you get to see the changes that you've made  

00:19:02.640 --> 00:19:07.640
to the glass crystal. And then we process those 
images, in fact, using machine learning neural  

00:19:07.640 --> 00:19:13.240
networks to turn it back into the data that 
we'd originally put into the glass platter.  

00:19:13.240 --> 00:19:18.000
So reading and writing quite different. And on 
the reading, we're just using regular light,  

00:19:18.000 --> 00:19:22.460
so the reading process can't possibly damage 
the data that's been stored inside the glass.

00:19:22.460 --> 00:19:26.913
HUIZINGA: I imagine you wouldn't want to get 
your eye in the path of a femtosecond laser …

00:19:26.913 --> 00:19:32.160
BLACK: Yes, femtosecond lasers are not for 
use at home! That's quite true. In fact,  

00:19:32.160 --> 00:19:36.440
your joke comment about the eye is 
… eye surgery is also actually done  

00:19:36.440 --> 00:19:40.053
with femtosecond lasers. That's 
one of the other applications.

00:19:40.053 --> 00:19:40.273
HUIZINGA: Oh, OK! So maybe you would!

00:19:40.273 --> 00:19:43.480
BLACK: But, yes, no, this is 
definitely something that,  

00:19:44.080 --> 00:19:48.640
for many reasons, Silica is something 
that's related to cloud technology,  

00:19:48.640 --> 00:19:52.652
the writing process. And I think we'll get 
back to that perhaps later in our discussion.

00:19:52.652 --> 00:19:52.673
HUIZINGA: Yeah, yeah.

00:19:52.673 --> 00:19:55.200
BLACK: But, yeah, definitely 
not something for the home.

00:19:55.200 --> 00:19:57.600
HUIZINGA: How powerful is the 
microscope that you have to  

00:19:57.600 --> 00:20:02.200
use to read this incredibly small written data?

00:20:02.200 --> 00:20:04.880
BLACK: It's fairly straightforward 
from a power point of view,  

00:20:04.880 --> 00:20:08.600
but it has been engineered to 
be high-speed, high-quality,  

00:20:08.600 --> 00:20:13.600
and under complete computer control that enables 
us to move rapidly around the piece of glass  

00:20:13.600 --> 00:20:18.280
to wherever the data is of interest and then 
image at high speed to get the data back out.

00:20:18.280 --> 00:20:20.640
HUIZINGA: Yeah. Well, so as you describe it,  

00:20:20.640 --> 00:20:28.800
these amazingly tiny laser pulses store 
zettabytes of data. Talk for one second,  

00:20:28.800 --> 00:20:34.960
still technically, about how you find and extract 
the data. You know, I've used this analogy before,  

00:20:34.960 --> 00:20:41.040
but at the end of the movie Indiana Jones, the Ark 
of the Covenant is stored in an army warehouse.  

00:20:41.040 --> 00:20:45.840
And the camera pulls back and there's just box 
after box after crate after crate. … It's like,  

00:20:45.840 --> 00:20:52.040
you'll never find it. Once you've written and 
stored the data, how do you go about finding it?

00:20:52.040 --> 00:20:57.840
BLACK: So like all storage media, whether it be 
hard drive, tape, flash that might be in your  

00:20:57.840 --> 00:21:03.000
phone in your pocket, there are standard indexing 
methods. You know, there's an addressing system,  

00:21:03.000 --> 00:21:06.840
you know, blocks and sectors and tracks. 
And, you know, we use all of these, kind of,  

00:21:06.840 --> 00:21:10.480
standard terminology in terms of the way we 
lay the data out on the glass, and then each  

00:21:10.480 --> 00:21:14.560
piece of glass is uniquely identified, and the 
glass is stored in the library. And actually,  

00:21:14.560 --> 00:21:20.480
we've done some quite interesting work and novel 
work on the robotics that we use for handling and  

00:21:20.480 --> 00:21:24.400
moving the pieces of glass in Silica. It's 
interesting Dexter is talking about being  

00:21:24.400 --> 00:21:30.200
interested in robotics. We've done a whole bunch 
of new interesting robotics in Silica because we  

00:21:30.200 --> 00:21:35.880
wanted the shelving or the library system that we 
keep the glass on to last as long as the glass.  

00:21:35.880 --> 00:21:41.280
And so we wanted it to be completely passive. 
And we wanted all of the, kind of, the active  

00:21:41.280 --> 00:21:46.840
components to be in the robotics. So we have these 
new robots that we call shuttles that can, kind  

00:21:46.840 --> 00:21:53.280
of, climb around the library and retrieve the bits 
of glass that are needed and take them to a reader  

00:21:53.280 --> 00:21:59.000
whenever reading is needed, and that enables us 
really to scale out a library to enormous scale  

00:21:59.000 --> 00:22:04.040
over many decades or centuries and to just keep 
growing a passive, completely passive, library.

00:22:04.040 --> 00:22:11.200
HUIZINGA: Yeah, I saw a video of the retrieval and 
it reminded me of those old-fashioned ladders in  

00:22:11.200 --> 00:22:16.120
libraries where you scoot along and you're 
on the wall of books and this is, sort of,  

00:22:16.120 --> 00:22:22.040
like the wall of glass. … So, Richard, 
part two. Let's talk about Silica from  

00:22:22.040 --> 00:22:27.040
a practical point of view because 
apparently not all data is equal,  

00:22:27.040 --> 00:22:31.240
and Silica isn't for everyone's data all the 
time. So who are you making this for generally  

00:22:31.240 --> 00:22:36.840
speaking and why? And did you have aliens 
on your bingo card when you first started?!

00:22:36.840 --> 00:22:39.960
BLACK: So, no, I didn't have aliens [LAUGHTER] on 
the bingo card when I first started, definitely  

00:22:39.960 --> 00:22:45.920
not. But as I mentioned, yeah, Project Silica is 
really about archival data. So that's data that  

00:22:45.920 --> 00:22:52.440
needs to be kept for many years—or longer—where 
it's going to be accessed infrequently,  

00:22:52.440 --> 00:22:58.560
and when you do need to access it, you don't need 
it back instantaneously. And there's actually a  

00:22:58.560 --> 00:23:04.600
huge and increasing amount of data that fits 
those criteria and growing really very rapidly.  

00:23:04.600 --> 00:23:09.840
Of course it's not the kind of data that you keep 
in your pocket, but there is a huge amount of it.  

00:23:09.840 --> 00:23:15.040
A lot of archival records that in the past 
might have been generated and kept on paper,  

00:23:15.040 --> 00:23:19.880
they're now, in the modern world, they're all born 
digital. And we want to look for a low-cost- and  

00:23:19.880 --> 00:23:24.720
low-environment-footprint way of really keeping 
it in that digital format for the length of time  

00:23:24.720 --> 00:23:29.320
that it needs to be kept. And so Silica is 
really for data that's kept in the cloud,  

00:23:29.320 --> 00:23:34.160
not the pocket or the home or the business. 
Today most organizations already use the cloud  

00:23:34.160 --> 00:23:39.440
for their digital data to get advantages of 
cost, sustainability, efficiency, reliability,  

00:23:39.440 --> 00:23:44.160
availability, geographic redundancy, and so 
on. And Silica is definitely designed for that  

00:23:44.160 --> 00:23:50.280
use case. So archival data in the cloud, data 
that needs to be kept for a long time period,  

00:23:50.280 --> 00:23:53.380
and there’s huge quantities of 
it and it's pouring in every day.

00:23:53.380 --> 00:23:57.920
HUIZINGA: So concrete example. 
Financial data, medical data,  

00:23:57.920 --> 00:24:02.200
I mean, what kinds of verticals or 
sectors would find this most useful?

00:24:02.200 --> 00:24:09.120
BLACK: Yeah, so the financial industry, there's 
a lot of regulatory requirements to keep data.  

00:24:09.120 --> 00:24:14.280
Obviously in the healthcare situation, there's 
a lot of general record keeping, any archives,  

00:24:14.280 --> 00:24:21.720
museums, and so on that exist today. We see 
a lot of growth in things like the extractive  

00:24:21.720 --> 00:24:26.120
industries, any kind of mining. You want 
to keep really good records of what it was  

00:24:26.120 --> 00:24:30.920
that you did to, you know, did underground or 
did to the earth. The media and entertainment  

00:24:30.920 --> 00:24:34.960
industry is one where they create a lot of 
content that needs to be kept for long time  

00:24:34.960 --> 00:24:40.480
periods. We see scientific research studies 
where they measure and accumulate a large  

00:24:40.480 --> 00:24:44.680
quantity of data that they want to keep 
for future analysis, possibly, you know,  

00:24:44.680 --> 00:24:49.600
use it later in training ML models or just 
for future analysis. Sometimes that data  

00:24:49.600 --> 00:24:55.960
can't be reproduced. You know, it represents a 
measurement of the earth at some point and then,  

00:24:55.960 --> 00:25:00.240
you know, things have changed and it wouldn't 
be possible to go back and recapture that data.

00:25:00.240 --> 00:25:00.810
HUIZINGA: Right.

00:25:00.810 --> 00:25:05.640
BLACK: We see stuff in government and local 
government. One example is we see some local  

00:25:05.640 --> 00:25:10.640
governments who want, essentially, to create 
a digital twin of their city. And so when new  

00:25:10.640 --> 00:25:16.160
buildings are being built, they want to keep the 
blueprints, the photographs of the construction  

00:25:16.160 --> 00:25:21.600
site, all of the data about what was built from 
floor plans and everything else that would help  

00:25:21.600 --> 00:25:26.000
not only emergency services but just help the 
city in general to understand what's in its  

00:25:26.000 --> 00:25:31.200
environment, and they want all of that to be 
kept while that building exists in their city.  

00:25:31.200 --> 00:25:37.800
So there's lots and lots and lots of growing data 
that needs to be kept—sometimes for legal reasons,  

00:25:37.800 --> 00:25:43.520
sometimes for practical reasons—lots of it a 
really fast-growing tier within the data universe.

00:25:43.520 --> 00:25:47.520
HUIZINGA: Yeah. Dexter, let's go 
back to you. On the Avenues website,  

00:25:47.520 --> 00:25:51.560
it says the purpose of the Golden Record is to, 
as you mentioned before, “represent humanity  

00:25:51.560 --> 00:25:57.120
and Earth to potential extraterrestrial beings, 
encapsulating our existence through a collection  

00:25:57.120 --> 00:26:02.360
of visuals and sounds.” That's pretty similar to 
the first Golden Record's mission. But yours is  

00:26:02.360 --> 00:26:07.400
also different in many ways. So talk about 
what's new with this version, not just the  

00:26:07.400 --> 00:26:12.220
medium but how you're going about putting things 
together, both conceptually and technically.

00:26:12.220 --> 00:26:17.040
GREENE: Yeah. So that's a great question. I 
can take it in a million different directions.  

00:26:17.040 --> 00:26:22.120
I'll start by just saying of course the new 
technology that Dr. Black is working on is, like,  

00:26:22.120 --> 00:26:27.040
the biggest change, at least in my view, because 
I like this kind of stuff. [LAUGHTER] But that's  

00:26:27.040 --> 00:26:33.920
like really the huge thing—durability, longevity, 
and capacity, capacity being one of the main  

00:26:33.920 --> 00:26:41.000
aspects. We could just fit so much more content 
than was possible 50 years ago. But there's a  

00:26:41.000 --> 00:26:46.680
lot more. So on the original Golden Record, they 
only had weeks to work on the project before it  

00:26:46.680 --> 00:26:53.560
had to be ready to go, to put on the Voyager 1 and 
2 spacecrafts. So they had a huge time constraint,  

00:26:53.560 --> 00:26:59.840
which of course we don't have now. We've got as 
much time as we need. And then … I'll talk about  

00:26:59.840 --> 00:27:05.400
how we've been working on the project. So we 
split up into two main teams, content and form.  

00:27:05.400 --> 00:27:12.760
Form being media, which I, like I said earlier, is 
the team that I work on. And our content team has  

00:27:12.760 --> 00:27:19.280
been going through loads of websites and online 
databases, which is another huge difference. When  

00:27:19.280 --> 00:27:23.600
they created the original Golden Record 50 years 
ago, they actually had to look through books and,  

00:27:23.600 --> 00:27:28.360
like, photocopy each image they wanted. Of course 
now we don't have to do that. We just find them  

00:27:28.360 --> 00:27:34.880
online and drag and drop them into a folder. 
So there's that aspect, which makes it so much  

00:27:34.880 --> 00:27:42.960
easier to compile so much content and good-quality 
content that is ethically sourced. So we can find  

00:27:42.960 --> 00:27:49.520
big databases that are OK with giving us their 
data. Diversity is another big aspect that we've  

00:27:49.520 --> 00:27:55.400
been thinking about. The original Golden Record 
team didn't have a lot of time to really focus on  

00:27:55.400 --> 00:27:59.920
diversity and capturing everything, the whole 
image of what we are, which is something that  

00:27:59.920 --> 00:28:04.920
we've really been working on. We're trying to 
get a lot of different perspectives and cover  

00:28:04.920 --> 00:28:11.040
really everything there is to cover, which is why 
we actually have an online submission platform on  

00:28:11.040 --> 00:28:16.480
our website where any random person can take an 
image of their cat that they like [LAUGHTER] or  

00:28:16.480 --> 00:28:21.600
an image of their house or whatever it may be 
and they can submit that and it will make its  

00:28:21.600 --> 00:28:29.720
way into the content and actually be part of the 
Golden Record that we hopefully send to space.

00:28:29.720 --> 00:28:34.880
HUIZINGA: Right. So, you know, originally, like 
you say, there's a sense of curation that has to  

00:28:34.880 --> 00:28:41.120
happen. I know that originally, they chose 
not to include war or conflict or anything  

00:28:41.120 --> 00:28:47.600
that might potentially scare or frighten any 
intelligence that found it, saying, hey, we're not  

00:28:47.600 --> 00:28:53.120
those people. But I know you've had a little bit 
different thinking about that. Tell us about it.

00:28:53.120 --> 00:28:57.680
GREENE: Yeah, so that's something that we've 
talked about a lot, whether or not we should  

00:28:57.680 --> 00:29:02.440
include good and bad. It's funny. I actually 
wrote some of my college essays about that,  

00:29:02.440 --> 00:29:05.560
so I have a lot to say about it. 
I'll just give you my point of view,  

00:29:05.560 --> 00:29:12.400
and I think most of my team shares the same point 
of view. We should really capture who we are with  

00:29:12.400 --> 00:29:17.880
the fullest picture that we can without leaving 
anything out. One of the main reasons that I feel  

00:29:17.880 --> 00:29:24.400
that way is what might be good to us could be 
bad to extraterrestrials. So I just don't think  

00:29:24.400 --> 00:29:30.400
it's worth it to exclude something if we don't 
even know how it's perceived to someone else.

00:29:30.400 --> 00:29:36.160
HUIZINGA: Mm-hmm. So back to the space 
limitations, are you having to make choices  

00:29:36.160 --> 00:29:40.000
for limiting your data, or are you just 
sort of saying, let's put everything on?

00:29:40.000 --> 00:29:44.880
GREENE: So on the original Golden Record, 
of course they really meticulously curated  

00:29:44.880 --> 00:29:47.920
everything that went on the record 
because there wasn't that much space.

00:29:47.920 --> 00:29:48.592
HUIZINGA: Yeah ...

00:29:48.592 --> 00:29:51.240
GREENE: So they had to be very careful 
with what they thought was worth it or  

00:29:51.240 --> 00:29:56.160
not. Now that we have so much space, it 
seems worth it just to include everything  

00:29:56.160 --> 00:30:02.360
that we can include because maybe they see 
something that we don't see from an image.

00:30:02.360 --> 00:30:02.840
HUIZINGA: Right.

00:30:02.840 --> 00:30:09.040
GREENE: The one thing that we … at the very 
beginning, during my J-term in 11th grade,  

00:30:09.040 --> 00:30:12.360
we were actually lucky enough to have Jon 
Lomberg[3], one of the members of the original  

00:30:12.360 --> 00:30:18.360
team, come in to talk to us a bit. And he gave us 
a, sort of, a lesson about how to choose images,  

00:30:18.360 --> 00:30:22.280
and he was actually the one that chose a lot 
of the images for the original record. So it  

00:30:22.280 --> 00:30:27.200
was really insightful. One thing we talked a 
lot about was, like, shadows. A shadow could be  

00:30:27.200 --> 00:30:34.160
very confusing and, sort of, mess up how they 
perceive the image, but it also might just be  

00:30:34.160 --> 00:30:38.520
worth including because, why not? We can include 
it, and maybe they get something … they learn  

00:30:38.520 --> 00:30:44.340
about shadows from it even though it's confusing. 
So that's, sort of, how we have thought about it.

00:30:44.340 --> 00:30:48.640
HUIZINGA: Well, that's an interesting segue, 
because, Richard, at this point, I usually ask  

00:30:48.640 --> 00:30:53.440
what could possibly go wrong if you got everything 
right. And there are some things that you think,  

00:30:53.440 --> 00:30:58.240
OK, we don't know. Even on Earth, we have 
different opinions about different things.  

00:30:58.240 --> 00:31:04.080
And who knows what any other intelligence 
might think or see or interpret? But,  

00:31:04.080 --> 00:31:07.280
I want to steer away from that question 
because when we talked earlier, Richard,  

00:31:07.280 --> 00:31:12.600
I was intrigued by something you said, and I 
want you to talk about it here. I'll, kind of,  

00:31:12.600 --> 00:31:17.000
paraphrase, but you basically said, even if 
there's no intelligent life outside our planet,  

00:31:17.000 --> 00:31:21.920
this is a worthwhile exercise for 
us as humans. Why'd you say that?

00:31:21.920 --> 00:31:27.200
BLACK: Well, I had two answers to that, one, kind 
of, one selfish and one altruistic! [LAUGHTER] I  

00:31:27.200 --> 00:31:32.320
talk to a lot of archival data users, and 
those who are serious about keeping their  

00:31:32.320 --> 00:31:35.880
data for many hundreds of years, they 
think about the problem in, kind of,  

00:31:35.880 --> 00:31:41.040
three buckets. So one is the keeping of the bits 
themselves. And of course that's what we are  

00:31:41.040 --> 00:31:46.320
working on in Project Silica and what Silica 
is really excellent at. One is the metadata,  

00:31:46.320 --> 00:31:52.360
or index, that records what is stored, where 
it's stored, and so on. And that's really the  

00:31:52.360 --> 00:31:58.520
provenance or the remit of the archivist 
as curator. And then the third is really  

00:31:58.520 --> 00:32:04.360
ensuring that there's an understanding of how 
to read the media that persists to those future  

00:32:04.360 --> 00:32:10.400
generations who’ll want to read it. And this 
is sometimes called the Rosetta Stone problem,  

00:32:10.400 --> 00:32:15.880
and that isn't the core expertise of me or 
my team. But the Golden Record, kind of,  

00:32:15.880 --> 00:32:22.080
proves that it can be solved. You know, obviously, 
humanity isn't going to give up on microscopes,  

00:32:22.080 --> 00:32:27.080
but if we can explain to extraterrestrials how 
they would go about reading a Silica platter,  

00:32:27.080 --> 00:32:32.418
then it should be pretty obvious that we can 
explain to our human descendants how to do so.

00:32:32.418 --> 00:32:32.433
HUIZINGA: Hmmm.

00:32:32.433 --> 00:32:38.840
BLACK: The altruistic reason is that I think 
encouraging humanity to reflect on itself—where  

00:32:38.840 --> 00:32:44.680
we are, the challenges ahead for us as a species 
here on planet Earth—you know, this is a good time  

00:32:44.680 --> 00:32:50.720
to think those thoughts. And any time capsule—and 
the Golden Record, you can, kind of, view it a bit  

00:32:50.720 --> 00:32:56.340
like a time capsule—it's a good time to step 
back and think those philosophical thoughts.

00:32:56.340 --> 00:33:01.280
HUIZINGA: Dexter, do you have any 
thoughts? I know that Dr. Black has,  

00:33:01.280 --> 00:33:05.460
kind of, taken the lead on that, but I wonder 
if you've given any thought to that yourself.

00:33:05.460 --> 00:33:09.880
GREENE: Yeah, we've given a lot of thought 
to that: even if the record doesn't reach  

00:33:09.880 --> 00:33:14.640
extraterrestrials, is it worth it? Why are 
we doing this? And we feel the exact same  

00:33:14.640 --> 00:33:20.280
as Dr. Black. It's so worth it just for us to 
reflect on where we are and how we can improve  

00:33:20.280 --> 00:33:24.880
what we've done in the past and what we can do in 
the future. It's a … like Dr. Black said, it's a  

00:33:24.880 --> 00:33:30.000
great exercise for us to do. And it's exciting. 
One of the beautiful parts about this project is  

00:33:30.000 --> 00:33:34.080
that there's no, like, right or wrong answer. 
Everyone has a different perspective on it.

00:33:34.080 --> 00:33:34.912
HUIZINGA: Yeah …

00:33:34.912 --> 00:33:37.480
GREENE: And I think this is a 
great way to think about that.

00:33:37.480 --> 00:33:42.880
HUIZINGA: Yeah. So, Dexter, I always ask my 
collaborators where their project is on the  

00:33:42.880 --> 00:33:47.960
spectrum from lab to life. But this research is 
a bit different from some of the other projects  

00:33:47.960 --> 00:33:55.400
we featured. What is the, sort of, remit of your 
timeline? Is there one for completing the record  

00:33:55.400 --> 00:34:01.720
in any way? Who, if anyone, are you accountable 
to? And what are your options for getting it up  

00:34:01.720 --> 00:34:06.800
into space once it's ready to go? Because there 
is no Voyager just imminently leaving right now,  

00:34:06.800 --> 00:34:11.380
as I understand it. So talk a little bit 
about the scope from lab to life on this.

00:34:11.380 --> 00:34:15.720
GREENE: Yeah. So, like you said, we don't 
really have an exact timeline. This is,  

00:34:15.720 --> 00:34:20.320
sort of, one of those projects where we could 
compile content forever. [LAUGHTER] There's  

00:34:20.320 --> 00:34:24.920
always more content to get. There's always 
more perspectives to include. So I could do  

00:34:24.920 --> 00:34:31.400
this forever. But I think the goal is to try 
and get all the content and get everything  

00:34:31.400 --> 00:34:36.640
ready within the next couple years. As for 
who we're accountable to, we're, sort of,  

00:34:36.640 --> 00:34:42.800
just accountable to ourselves. The way we've 
been working on this is not really like a club,  

00:34:42.800 --> 00:34:46.760
I wouldn't say, more just like a passion 
project that a few students and a few teachers  

00:34:46.760 --> 00:34:52.640
have taken a liking to, I guess. So we're just 
accountable to ourselves. We of course, like,  

00:34:52.640 --> 00:34:58.040
we have meetings every week, and my teacher was 
the one that, like, organized the meetings. So  

00:34:58.040 --> 00:35:02.260
I was, sort of, accountable to my teacher 
but really just doing it for ourselves.

00:35:02.260 --> 00:35:03.120
HUIZINGA: Mm-hmm.

00:35:03.120 --> 00:35:09.240
GREENE: As for getting it up into space, we 
have been talking a bit with the team led by  

00:35:09.240 --> 00:35:11.760
Dr. Jiang. So ideally, in the future,  

00:35:11.760 --> 00:35:16.960
we would collaborate more with them and 
[LAUGHS] go find our ticket to space on a  

00:35:16.960 --> 00:35:22.360
NASA spaceship! But there are of course other 
options that we've been looking at. There's  

00:35:22.360 --> 00:35:26.460
a bunch of space agencies all around the world. 
So we're not just looking at the United States.

00:35:26.460 --> 00:35:29.786
HUIZINGA: Well, there's also private 
space exploration companies …

00:35:29.786 --> 00:35:33.320
GREENE: Yeah, and there's also private 
space like SpaceX and etc. So we've  

00:35:33.320 --> 00:35:37.180
thought about all of that, and we've been 
reaching out to other space agencies.

00:35:37.180 --> 00:35:44.000
HUIZINGA: I love that “ticket to outer space” 
metaphor but true because there are constraints  

00:35:44.000 --> 00:35:50.640
on what people can put on, although 
glass of this size would be pretty light.

00:35:50.640 --> 00:35:54.280
GREENE: I feel the same way. You do 
have to get, like, approved. Like,  

00:35:54.280 --> 00:35:57.080
for the original Golden Record, they 
had to get everything approved to make  

00:35:57.080 --> 00:36:00.520
it to space. But I would think that it 
would be pretty reasonable—given the  

00:36:00.520 --> 00:36:07.680
technology is just a piece of glass, 
essentially, and it's quite small,  

00:36:07.680 --> 00:36:12.320
the smallest it could be, really—I would think 
that there wouldn't be too much trouble with that.

00:36:12.320 --> 00:36:16.200
HUIZINGA: So, so … but that does lead to a 
question, kind of, about then extracting,  

00:36:16.200 --> 00:36:21.640
and you've addressed this before by kind 
of saying, if the intelligence that it  

00:36:21.640 --> 00:36:26.200
gets to is sophisticated enough, 
they'll probably have a microscope,  

00:36:26.200 --> 00:36:30.180
but I'm assuming you won't include a 
microscope? You just send the glass?

00:36:30.180 --> 00:36:32.840
GREENE: Yeah. So on the original record,  

00:36:32.840 --> 00:36:38.110
they actually included a … I'm not sure what 
it's called, but the device that you need to …

00:36:38.110 --> 00:36:38.828
HUIZINGA: A phonograph?

00:36:38.828 --> 00:36:43.440
GREENE: … play a rec … yeah, a phonograph, yes. 
[LAUGHTER] So they include—sorry! [LAUGHS]—they  

00:36:43.440 --> 00:36:48.320
included a phonograph [cartridge and stylus] 
on the original Voyagers. And we've thought  

00:36:48.320 --> 00:36:52.760
about that. It would probably be too difficult 
to include an actual microscope, but something  

00:36:52.760 --> 00:36:57.920
that I've been working on is instructions 
on not exactly how to make the microscope  

00:36:57.920 --> 00:37:01.280
that you would need but just to explain, 
“You're going to need a microscope,  

00:37:01.280 --> 00:37:05.000
and you're going to need to play around with 
it.” One of the assumptions that we've made is  

00:37:05.000 --> 00:37:11.400
that they will be curious and advanced. 
I mean, to actually retrieve the data,  

00:37:11.400 --> 00:37:15.070
they would need to catch a spaceship 
out of the sky as it flies past them …

00:37:15.070 --> 00:37:15.760
HUIZINGA: Right!

00:37:15.760 --> 00:37:20.480
GREENE: … which we can't do at the moment. So 
we're assuming that they're more advanced than us,  

00:37:20.480 --> 00:37:23.920
curious, and would put a lot of 
time into it. Time and effort.

00:37:23.920 --> 00:37:27.120
HUIZINGA: I always find it interesting that 
we always assume they're smarter than us  

00:37:27.120 --> 00:37:30.280
or more advanced than us. Maybe they're 
not. Maybe it's The Gods Must Be Crazy,  

00:37:30.280 --> 00:37:38.000
and they find a computer and they start banging it 
on a rock. Who knows? Richard, setting aside any  

00:37:38.000 --> 00:37:42.360
assumptions that this Golden Record on glass makes 
it into space and assuming that they could catch  

00:37:42.360 --> 00:37:48.840
it and figure it out, Silica's main mission is 
much more terrestrial in nature. And part of that,  

00:37:48.840 --> 00:37:53.280
as I understand it, is informing the next 
generation of cloud infrastructure. So  

00:37:53.280 --> 00:37:58.640
if you could, talk for a minute about the 
vision for the future of digital storage,  

00:37:58.640 --> 00:38:04.120
particularly in terms of sustainability, and 
what role Silica may play in helping huge  

00:38:04.120 --> 00:38:09.700
datacenters on this planet be more efficient 
and maybe even environmentally friendly.

00:38:09.700 --> 00:38:14.960
BLACK: Yes, absolutely. So Microsoft is 
passionate about improving the sustainability  

00:38:14.960 --> 00:38:23.160
of our operations, including data storage. So 
today archival data uses tape or hard drives,  

00:38:23.160 --> 00:38:28.120
but those have a lifetime of only a few years, 
and they need to be continually replaced over  

00:38:28.120 --> 00:38:32.000
the lifetime of the data. And that contributes to 
the costs both in manufacturing and it contributes  

00:38:32.000 --> 00:38:37.360
to e-waste. And of course, those media also 
can consume electricity during their lifetime,  

00:38:37.360 --> 00:38:41.960
either keeping them spinning or in the careful 
air-conditioning that's required to preserve  

00:38:41.960 --> 00:38:49.320
tape. So the transformative advantage of Silica is 
really in the durability of the data permanently  

00:38:49.320 --> 00:38:56.800
stored in the glass. And this allows us to move 
from costs—whatever way you think about cost,  

00:38:56.800 --> 00:39:03.520
either money or energy or a sustainability 
cost—move from costs that are based on the  

00:39:03.520 --> 00:39:10.600
lifetime of the data to costs that are based on 
the operations that are done to the data. Because  

00:39:10.600 --> 00:39:16.880
the glass doesn't really need any cost while it's 
just sitting there, while it's doing nothing. And  

00:39:16.880 --> 00:39:23.880
that's a standout change in the way we can think 
about keeping archival data because it moves from,  

00:39:23.880 --> 00:39:29.240
you know, a continual, as it were, monthly cost 
associated with keeping the thing over and over  

00:39:29.240 --> 00:39:33.840
and over to, yeah, you have to pay to write. If 
you need to read the data, you have to pay the  

00:39:33.840 --> 00:39:37.680
cost to read the data. But in the meantime, 
there's no cost to just keeping it around in  

00:39:37.680 --> 00:39:45.200
case you need it. And that's a big change. And so 
actually, analysis suggests that Silica should be  

00:39:45.200 --> 00:39:51.760
about a factor of 10 better for sustainability 
over archival time periods for archival data.

00:39:51.760 --> 00:39:56.680
HUIZINGA: And I would imagine “space” is a 
good proof of concept for how durable and  

00:39:56.680 --> 00:40:01.753
how long you expect it to be able 
to last and be retrieved. Well …

00:40:01.753 --> 00:40:06.520
BLACK: Absolutely. You know, Dexter mentioned 
the original Golden Record had to get a, kind of,  

00:40:06.520 --> 00:40:11.960
approval to be considered space-worthy. 
In fact, the windows on spacecraft that  

00:40:11.960 --> 00:40:17.400
we use today are made of fused silica 
glass. So the fused silica glass is  

00:40:17.400 --> 00:40:22.440
already considered space-worthy! You know, 
that's a problem that's already solved. And,  

00:40:22.440 --> 00:40:26.600
you know, it is known to be very robust 
and to survive the rigors of outer space.

00:40:26.600 --> 00:40:33.400
HUIZINGA: Yeah, and the large datacenter! Well, 
Dexter, you're embarking on the next journey in  

00:40:33.400 --> 00:40:37.200
your life, heading off to university this 
fall. What are you going to be studying,  

00:40:37.200 --> 00:40:41.560
and how are you going to keep 
going with Avenues' Golden Record  

00:40:41.560 --> 00:40:45.420
once you're at college because you don't 
have any teachers or groups or whatever?

00:40:45.420 --> 00:40:49.560
GREENE: Yeah, that's a great question. So, 
like I said, I plan to major in robotics  

00:40:49.560 --> 00:40:53.920
engineering. That's still, I guess, like, 
TBD. I might do mechanical engineering,  

00:40:53.920 --> 00:40:59.280
but I'm definitely leaning more towards robotics. 
And as for the project, I definitely want to  

00:40:59.280 --> 00:41:04.520
continue work on the project. That's something 
I've made very clear to my team. Like you said,  

00:41:04.520 --> 00:41:08.960
like, I won't have a teacher there with me, but 
one of the teachers that works on the project was  

00:41:08.960 --> 00:41:13.680
my physics teacher last year, and I've developed 
a very good relationship with him. I can say for  

00:41:13.680 --> 00:41:18.560
sure that I'll continue to stay in touch with him, 
the rest of the team, and this project, which I'm  

00:41:18.560 --> 00:41:24.600
super excited to be working on. And I think we're 
really … we, sort of, got past the big first hump,  

00:41:24.600 --> 00:41:30.140
which was like the, I guess, the hardest part, and 
I feel like it will be smooth sailing from here!

00:41:30.140 --> 00:41:35.000
HUIZINGA: Do you think any self-imposed 
deadlines will help you close off the  

00:41:35.000 --> 00:41:40.040
process? Because I mean, I could see this going 
… well, I should ask another question. Are there  

00:41:40.040 --> 00:41:45.340
other students at Avenues, or any place else, that 
are involved in this that haven't graduated yet?

00:41:45.340 --> 00:41:49.640
GREENE: Yes, there are a few of us. Last 
year when we were working on the project,  

00:41:49.640 --> 00:41:54.040
there were only a handful of us. So it was me 
and my best friend, Arthur Wilson, who also  

00:41:54.040 --> 00:41:58.640
graduated. There were three other students. One 
was a ninth grader, and two were 10th graders.  

00:41:58.640 --> 00:42:03.400
So they're all still working on the project. And 
there's one student from another campus that's  

00:42:03.400 --> 00:42:07.600
still working very closely on the project. And 
we've actually been working on expanding our team  

00:42:07.600 --> 00:42:13.880
within our community. So at the end of last year, 
we were working on finding other students that we  

00:42:13.880 --> 00:42:18.960
thought would be a great fit for the project 
and trying to rope them into it! [LAUGHTER] So  

00:42:18.960 --> 00:42:23.960
we definitely want to continue to work on the 
project. And to answer your question from before  

00:42:23.960 --> 00:42:29.640
about the deadlines, we like to set, sort of, 
smaller internal deadlines. That's something that  

00:42:29.640 --> 00:42:35.360
we've gotten very used to. As for a long-term 
deadline, we haven't set one yet. It could be  

00:42:35.360 --> 00:42:41.244
helpful to set a long-term deadline because if 
we don't, we could just do the project forever.

00:42:41.244 --> 00:42:41.272
HUIZINGA: [LAUGHS] Right …

00:42:41.272 --> 00:42:45.000
GREENE: We might never end because 
there's always more to add. But yeah,  

00:42:45.000 --> 00:42:50.280
we do set smaller internal deadlines, so like 
get x amount of content done by this time,  

00:42:50.280 --> 00:42:56.302
reach out to x number of space agencies, 
reach out to x number of whatever.

00:42:56.302 --> 00:42:59.120
HUIZINGA: Mm-hmm. Yeah, it feels 
like there should be some kind of,  

00:42:59.120 --> 00:43:02.867
you know, “enough is enough” for this round.

00:43:02.867 --> 00:43:02.880
GREENE: Yeah.

00:43:02.880 --> 00:43:08.312
HUIZINGA: Otherwise, you're the artist who 
never puts enough paint on the canvas and …

00:43:08.312 --> 00:43:13.880
GREENE: I also really like what you said just 
now with, like, “this round” and “next round.”  

00:43:13.880 --> 00:43:18.160
That's a very good way to look at it. Like 
Dr. Black said, he produced two platters for  

00:43:18.160 --> 00:43:24.000
us already towards the end of my last school 
year. And I think that was a very good, like,  

00:43:24.000 --> 00:43:29.560
first round and a good way to continue doing the 
project where we work on the project and we get  

00:43:29.560 --> 00:43:35.960
a lot of content done and then we can say, let's 
let this be a great first draft or a great second  

00:43:35.960 --> 00:43:40.920
draft for now, and we have that draft ready to go, 
but we can continue to work on it if we want to.

00:43:40.920 --> 00:43:45.880
HUIZINGA: Well, you know the famous 
computer science tagline “Shipping is  

00:43:45.880 --> 00:43:50.680
a feature.” [LAUGHS] So there's 
some element of “let's get it  

00:43:50.680 --> 00:43:56.480
out there” and then we can do the next 
iteration of upgrades and launch then.

00:43:56.480 --> 00:43:57.040
GREENE: Exactly.

00:43:57.040 --> 00:44:02.480
HUIZINGA: Well, Richard, while most people don't 
put scientists and rock stars in the same bucket,  

00:44:02.480 --> 00:44:06.200
Dexter isn't the first young 
person to admit being a little  

00:44:06.200 --> 00:44:10.520
intimidated—and even starstruck—by an 
accomplished and well-known researcher,  

00:44:10.520 --> 00:44:16.600
but some students aren't bold enough to cold 
email someone like you and ask for words of  

00:44:16.600 --> 00:44:22.120
wisdom. So now that we've got you on the show, 
as we close, perhaps you could voluntarily  

00:44:22.120 --> 00:44:27.200
share some encouraging words or direction 
to the next generation of students who are  

00:44:27.200 --> 00:44:32.100
interested in making the next generation of 
technologies. So I'll let you have the last word.

00:44:32.100 --> 00:44:37.600
BLACK: Oh, I have a couple of small things to 
say. First of all, researchers are just people,  

00:44:37.600 --> 00:44:43.440
too. [LAUGHTER] And, you know, they like others 
to talk to them occasionally. And usually,  

00:44:43.440 --> 00:44:47.960
they like opportunities to be passionate about 
their research and to communicate the exciting  

00:44:47.960 --> 00:44:53.440
things that they're doing. So don't be put 
off; it's quite reasonable to talk. You know,  

00:44:53.440 --> 00:44:59.280
I'm really excited by, you know, the, kind of, 
the passion and imagination that I see in some  

00:44:59.280 --> 00:45:04.920
of the young people around today, and Dexter and 
his colleagues are an example of that. You know,  

00:45:04.920 --> 00:45:10.160
advice to them would be, you know, work on a 
technology that excites you and in particular  

00:45:10.160 --> 00:45:14.480
something that, if you were successful, it 
would have a big impact on our world and,  

00:45:14.480 --> 00:45:22.905
you know, that should give you a kind of 
motivation and a path to having impact.

00:45:22.905 --> 00:45:25.280
HUIZINGA: Hmm. What you just said 
reminded me of a Saturday Night  

00:45:25.280 --> 00:45:31.280
Live skit with Christopher Walken—it's 
the “More Cowbell” skit—but he says,  

00:45:31.280 --> 00:45:34.760
we're just like other people; we 
put our pants on one leg at a time,  

00:45:34.760 --> 00:45:39.780
but once our pants are on, we make gold 
records! I think that's funny right there!

00:45:39.780 --> 00:45:40.120
[MUSIC]

00:45:40.120 --> 00:45:43.680
Richard and Dexter, thank you so 
much for coming on and sharing  

00:45:43.680 --> 00:45:46.560
this project with us today on 
Collaborators. Really had fun!

00:45:46.560 --> 00:45:48.380
GREENE: Yeah, thank you so much for having us.

00:45:48.380 --> 00:45:56.920
BLACK: Thank you.

00:45:56.920 --> 00:45:57.680
[MUSIC FADES]