A study describes how the Beijing Institute of Technology researchers used the mechanics of bubble formation to encode brief messages in ice.
The extremely low temperatures in the icy Arctic and Antarctic areas often limit devices that require a lot of energy, making communication difficult. Scientists from China, Korea, and the Czech Republic have discovered a new method for writing and preserving messages: making patterns of air bubbles trapped in ice sheets.
A study, published in Cell Reports Physical Science, describes how the Beijing Institute of Technology researchers used the mechanics of bubble formation to encode brief messages in ice.
Their method is based on controlling the size, shape, and placement of air bubbles that occur when water freezes naturally. This unconventional technique uses ice-trapped air bubbles to create different bubble forms that can be used to encode messages in binary or Morse code, per the New York Times.
The concept of bubble messages was inspired by the air bubbles that naturally develop in glaciers. The researchers looked into the dispersion of bubbles in ice to find a simple method of communicating and storing information for extended periods of time.
Leave a Reply