The reach into the past

New technologies are not exclusively applicable to our future, but also to our past. In fact, not even new technologies are necessary for this, just new applications of technologies that have been widespread for many years.

A piece of paper covered with soot from an oil lamp doesn't sound too interesting. Maybe drawing a kind of simple stylus across it with the intent of attempting a visual analysis of sound is of more interest.

Of course, at the time the idea that the tracks left by the stylus would be of any use other than visual reference probably didn't even enter the mind of Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville.

At that time, the idea of recording and replaying sound was totally alien to people. There were no MP3 players, no CDs, no vinyl records. Even Thomas Edison's wax cylinders were around two decades away, so the ideas that the pieces of paper had even captured the sound, or were able to reproduce it, were probably beyond the imagination of Édouard-Léon.

The thing that strikes me is that we have used technology — not even particularly cutting edge technology — to create a link to an event in the past which previously had not remotely occurred to us. How far can this process go? It was sheer coincidence in this case that the (I don't want to call it a recording, because that was never the intention) experiment took place in such a specialised manner, but given recent (and explosive) advances in nanotechnology and computing power, what other analytic methods will we be able to wield in future to probe greater treasures in artefacts of similar age or even further back into human history?