Effects of pressure changes in crystallization

[bothnicum]

What are the possible effects of pressure changes of the surrounding gas during crystallization. Can such changes be detected on the resulting crystal.

 

[bothnicum]

To be more specific: Are there any evidence that an audible signal could modulate the process of crystallization in such a way that the signal could be read by analyzing the structure of thus formed crystal?

 

[PerennialII]

Got to say a pretty interesting question ... I feel it's pretty difficult to give an answer of much use, since pressure can effect crystallization simply as a boundary condition (or as internal stress), and as well it is possible the surrounding gas can react with the crystallization itself (and some traces of them are left to the resulting structure, to some extent). I'm having problems getting a 'quantitative' grip on this (since the only answer at least I can give on the basis of this information is - "in principle, yes"), could you elaborate the problem setup a tad more?

 

[bothnicum]

I am conducting a mental exercise on the possibility of finding mechanism that could store audible signals in a natural way without human technology. We could call it audio archaeology.

We need some progressive change process that is somehow affected by the surrounding sound waves. Let's take an analogy. The yearly growth rings in a tree are affected by the surrounding climate. The climate "waves" can be read by a dendrologist. Unfortunately the frequency is too low to be heard.

The process must be faster. Fire could be a candidate. If the changes of air pressure affects the burning process, the sound waves could be readable from the ashes. However fire is not smooth. The recording gets blurred.

But how about crystallization. To my understanding it progressing in steady speed in one place at a time and the result is stable and easily readable.

I appreciate your help in bringing light to this mental puzzle that bothers me a lot.

 

[Bystander]

If you're planning on listening to the Dead Sea Scrolls as they are dictated to scribes, or read out loud for entertainment, forget it. Likewise for listening to the world's great artists as they supervise the casting of bronze sculptures.

 

[bothnicum]

Bystander wrote:

forget it

May I kindly ask whether you consider that there is a principal fault in my phrasing or just that the effects are beyond the limits of known methods and tools.

 

[PerennialII]

I am conducting a mental exercise on the possibility of finding mechanism that could store audible signals in a natural way without human technology. We could call it audio archaeology.
We need some progressive change process that is somehow affected by the surrounding sound waves. Let's take an analogy. The yearly growth rings in a tree are affected by the surrounding climate. The climate "waves" can be read by a dendrologist. Unfortunately the frequency is too low to be heard.
The process must be faster. Fire could be a candidate. If the changes of air pressure affects the burning process, the sound waves could be readable from the ashes. However fire is not smooth. The recording gets blurred.
But how about crystallization. To my understanding it progressing in steady speed in one place at a time and the result is stable and easily readable.
I appreciate your help in bringing light to this mental puzzle that bothers me a lot.

An interesting and fashinating thought ... especially as a mental puzzle, practicality is a different matter don't necessarily need to bother ourselves with. Crystallization and crystal growth could store audible signals, the first problems or issues coming to mind are the required pressures (which are somewhat high I'd say, since essentially would have to induce a stress state in the solidifying material) and then the capacity of storing information, the sort of resolution one could come up with for example after viewing the results (as solidified crystals) or the resulting crystal growth (like would the information about the signal be for example stored in a single crystal, it's size for one - how pressure affects grain growth if everything else is constant is somewhat straightforward [writing geometry here is likely asking a bit too much, but one could for example simulate resulting geometrical effects in crystal growth]) (and whether the signals would be traceable from multiple other parameters of the diffusion, thermal, mechanical, kinetic,...). I'm left wondering for the 'best' material to capture information in this respect, since it would be easiest to store the information near liquid state, and then make sure it's readable and not drowned by what goes on after during solidification (essentially affecting the nucleation in the necessary magnitude).

 

[bothnicum]

Audio archeology on the web

I wonder if there has been any progress in the field of audio archeology. One potential "recording" process candidate could be the hardening of spider silk right after extrusion. Could it be imaginable that the properties of silk threads would store the changes in the surrounding environment?

For possible properties please see for example:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6T7J-443JWK5-8&_user=10&_coverDate=10/22/2001&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_origin=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1608729778&_rerunOrigin=google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=33796757055176d74de5d83412be37cb&searchtype=a"