Partilce Physics to the Rescue

Classic audio recordings preserved on a warped and damaged records could yet be rescued for future generations using an optical analysis technique originally developed to keep track of subatomic particles.

Many rare vinyl recordings exist in libraries around the world. In the British Library's National Sound Archive there are more than a million old vinyl records. But even running a needle across some of these old records can damage them severely.

So researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, US, adapted a sensitive instrument used to build a colossal particle accelerator as a highly sensitive optical recording method.

"This enabled us to develop a non-contact way to measure delicate records without the need for much operator intervention," says Vitaliy Fadeyev who developed the technique with colleague Carl Haber. "It also has the potential to digitally reassemble broken discs."

[ NewScientist ]