Modern technology is great, but many current records will not endure down the ages, fears John Tate.
As I write this column, spring is very much in the air. On my allotment I am gathering the last of the sprouts, parsnips, leeks and kale and am preparing my ground for the coming year’s fruit and vegetables.
Food has been grown on my plot for several hundred years. In the late 18th century the land was part of a model farm owned by King George III. After his death part of it was turned into allotments, which are still in use today.
Ancient technology
Technology has, of course, been around to support vegetable growing for thousands of years, and I have read with interest the recent media coverage about a 2,100 year-old Greek device called the Antikythera.
Found around a century ago in an ancient shipwreck, it has been the subject of extensive research on what it was actually built to do.
It is claimed by some to be the first known computer in the world. Consisting of bronze gears, the machine could calculate the cycles of the moon and other planets. This information has been used down the ages to determine when to plant and grow foodstuffs.
The mechanism is remarkable for its level of miniaturisation and the complexity of its parts. It has at least 30 gears and it appears that the device has indicators for all five of the planets known to the Ancient Greeks.
The gear teeth were in the form of equilateral triangles with an average circular pitch of 1.6 mm, an average wheel thickness of 1.4 mm and an average air gap between gears of 1.2 mm. Considering that some of the gears had over 150 teeth this was a hugelyskilled piece of manufacturing.
One of the interesting things about this device is that the technology behind it appears to have got ‘lost’ and did not reappear until early in the 17th century – when astronomical clocks with gearing of the complexity of the Antikythera mechanism began to appear.
How could it be that the knowledge built up – presumably over centuries – was lost to the world? Written material was commonplace by the time the machine was made and keen interest in astronomy continued in future centuries.
Step forward to the 21st century and I wonder what we might be losing right now that was learned in earlier years?
Well, one thing is the written word. Once upon a time we wrote letters, and kept records in ledgers and diaries. Today these are fast being replaced by email, instant messaging and computer databases. Little of this information is likely to be kept one human generation from now, never mind in hundreds of years.
So what do we stand to lose? Big data is a hugely popular IT topic and much analysis using such data relies on historic information. But how much data are we in danger of ‘deleting’ in the coming decades?
At a ‘small data’ level, I am keeping a spreadsheet of what I plant in the allotment.
The nice weather in March encouraged me to sow many of my seeds, but I am worrying about whether they are going to germinate too early and get hit by a late frost. Last year I hadn’t sown any until mid-April.
Retaining written records
Fortunately, I have some family gardening records from the past. One of these is a ledger started by my great-grandfather and updated by my late father.
So I know that by the middle of March 1975 my father had sown several varieties of seedlings, including some early tomatoes in January. This does seem very early but according to my father’s notes these were doing well by mid-April.
Needless to say, this information is very useful and, in addition, having these old records has brought me much pleasure.
At a time when vast amounts of personal information are being held on computer systems, I am afraid that a great number of our contemporary electronic records are going to disappear for good.
So I am going to keep an eye on those emerging technologies which help us archive at least some of our own personal information.
There are a number of websites dealing with this subject. If you are interested, one worth looking at to get started is familyarchives.com.
John Tate is a business consultant, IT adviser to CFG and a visiting lecturer at Cass Business School.