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AURA PHOTOGRAPHS USED TO RESTORE DAMAGED COMPACT DISCS
MELBOURNE - Australian scientists have discovered a remarkable new
technique that can fully restore recordings on damaged compact discs to
their original condition.
The technique involves taking photographs of the aura of a damaged CD.
But where the damaged sections of CD lie, instead of seeing the damage,
the aura in the photograph reproduces the pits and bumps as they were in
their original, undamaged condition.
These photographs can be used to press new copies of the CD, in which the
entire recorded material is restored to its original condition, without
error.
"We're not talking about one bit in a billion, or one bit in a billion
billion error," said a spokesman for the Melbourne-based Centre of
Expertise in Paranormal Phenomena (CEPP), where the discovery was made.
"We're talking about zero error. And it doesn't matter if the original CD
has light scratches, deep scratches, or entire chunks missing altogether.
The missing recorded information is recovered, in full, and without error!"
The discovery has major implications for people who have spent years and
large sums of money building up their compact disc collections. "For even
if CD's eventually do wear out, you'll always be able to get fully restored
copies, and when these wear out, fully restored copies of copies, and so on.
In effect, the CD will truly last forever."
But the area where this technique is expected to have the greatest impact
is the computer industry. "If a company uses optical discs for its main
data storage, then the data can always be restored, even after a major
disaster in which the discs are physically damaged!"
The technique is based on a phenomena known as the missing leaf phenomena,
which had been discovered in the early 70's, but only now has it been
applied to compact discs. In the missing leaf phenomena, the aura of a
leaf that has had a piece cut out of it becomes whole again after several
hours.
"All objects have a halo surrounding them, which is known as an aura.
Living objects emit a vibrant aura. Inanimate objects such as statues or
coins emit a still aura. Inanimate objects which used to be living
objects, such as a leaf, emit an aura which is somewhere in between."
The aura can be captured on film using a technique known as Kirlian
photography. In Kirlian photography, the object in question is placed on
a film plate, and a high frequency electric field is applied to the object.
When developed, the aura can clearly be seen in the photograph.
"If a piece is cut from the leaf, the new aura of the leaf will show the
new outline of the leaf. Or at least, that's what happens initially.
After a number of hours, the aura suddenly changes back to the way it was
before the piece was cut away. The leaf appears whole again, almost as if
the missing piece was never removed in the first place. The only
difference is that the new section of aura isn't as bright as the rest of
the aura.
"Although we knew about this phenomena since the 70's, we only started
taking aural photographs of CD's in the past two years, mainly out of
curiosity. We found that compact discs emit a bright aura around the
outside of the disc and around the hole in the middle, and a less bright,
though still vivid, aura around the entire surface of the disc.
"Close examination of the Kirlian photographs revealed that the aura
faithfully reproduced all the pits and bumps of the original compact discs.
In fact, it was possible to press new CD's from the photographs. The new
ones sounded every bit as good as the originals, and comparison of the
digital bitstreams found them to be identical.
"We then asked the next logical question: Would the missing leaf phenomena
work for CD's? So we bought two copies of some brand new CD's and
deliberately scratched one of each copy and took aura photographs of the
damaged CD's.
"As with the leaf, aura photographs taken immediately after the damage
showed the damage, with the aura of the damaged sections missing or damaged.
But aura photographs taken a few hours later showed faint outlines of the
missing sections of CD, with all the original pits and bumps clearly
evident.
"After some very basic image processing (to compensate for the dimness of
the newly restored sections on the aura photograph), new CD's were pressed,
and these were found to be exact replicas of the original CD's without
error.
"Different amounts of damage were tried, and even for CD's in which a
section as large as a 5-cent coin was missing, the missing sections had
been fully restored in the aural photographs, and in the new CD's made
from them."
The Centre of Expertise in Paranormal Phenomena is one of the many centres
of expertise founded in the mid- to late-80's to foster fundamental research
within Australia and allow Australia to take advantage of new scientific
breakthroughs.
CEPP is applying for worldwide patents for their revolutionary technique,
and are pursuing licensing agreements with major CD manufactures, both
within Australia and around the world.