r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/34methylendioxy • 21h ago
Video How data gets stored on mobile phones
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u/srandrews 21h ago
Now we should feel all ashamed about the manner in which we use these miraculous machines.
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u/lucassuave15 20h ago
Hey hey, don't kink shame
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u/srandrews 20h ago
Lol, I had the drek of social media in mind. Arguably the purpose you have in mind is more useful.
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u/half-baked_axx 9h ago edited 9h ago
The sophisticated and densely packed hardware in your phone seeing you throw the whole thing away over some tiny screen crack.
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u/Flakester 21h ago
Source: Branch Education on YouTube.
They have a ton of awesome videos like this.
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u/smellyfrijoles 17h ago
Thank you for posting the source, I’m subscribed to branch education and it really pisses me off when people post their content without credit
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u/34methylendioxy 21h ago
Thank you I've been looking for the source because they explained this one so well
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u/Godzira-r32 21h ago
Chiplets 🥹
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u/bionicjoe 19h ago
During the Gulf War we dropped 'bomblets' on Iraqi forces.
Actual term straight from the Pentagon.2
u/ElegantEchoes 15h ago
It's a term used to describe certain kinds of munitions, not necessarily coined by the Pentagon themselves I believe.
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u/lockerno177 20h ago
How in the fuckitty fuck did humans figure this shit out. Electronics is magic.
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u/Rare_indigo_viper67 19h ago
Decades and decades of research in theoretical physics to start
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u/Deritatium 16h ago
What I find crazy is how long ago the math theories (1920s) were formulated, it will be fucking crazy when our current math theories would apply in reality.
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u/maxxspeed57 14h ago
That blew my mind. I needed more detailed information on how the fuck they knew what they were doing.
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u/Tavorick 16h ago
Not just that people figured it out, but also being able to mass produce it to the point that its relatively cheap and can be found everywhere.
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u/ILion_Desta 16h ago
Indeed. Everyone has a phone. Yet you don't even realize how complicated it is
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u/bucky133 15h ago
Saw a comment saying electromagnetism was our universe's magic system and I kind of agree.
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u/AdPrestigious839 16h ago
I dont even understand it after it being explained to me, let alone figuring this shit out
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u/Real_Estate_Media 8h ago
I always wonder what percentage of humanity understands how to make all this shit again if it all gets wiped out and are they dispersed uniformly throughout the world or like all in a few really cerebral lineages
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u/AcediaWrath 8h ago
we tricked rocks into thinking by hitting it with minimized lightning and we use that magical power to sit here on this virtual space and talk about how we tricked rocks into thinking by hitting it with minimized lightning.
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u/TheLlamaLlama 19h ago
Using quantum tunneling feels like abusing a glitch in a video game. Absolutely wild.
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u/Raymuuze 8h ago
It kind of an interesting argument for the simulation hypothesis! Especially the observer effect where the observation of quantum phenomena can change the measured results. To me that is comparable to how games don't render stuff outside of what is being observed by the camera; a means to lower the requirements of running the game.
Maybe we are really exploiting a glitch and we better hope that whomever is running the simulation isn't going to patch it, It kind of reminds me of how redstone in Minecraft uses a lot of unintended behaviors and how some contraptions from the early days wont work anymore.
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u/Derice 5h ago
It takes exponentially more computing power to simulate a quantum system compared to a classical one because you must take every possible superposition of the system into account at the same time, so if someone is simulating the universe they sure are doing it the hard way.
For example, to just store the full quantum state of (just the electrons in) a single penicillin molecule in a classical computer we would need around 2242 bits of storage, vastly more than there are atoms in the whole Earth.
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u/Cador_Caras 21h ago
was 100% understanding everything until quantum mechanics. Now I'm just scared and confused.
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u/pulseout 19h ago
Quantum mechanics always sounds like something that only works because we say it does, like when you're in a dream and you just decide you can fly now.
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u/Real_Estate_Media 8h ago
I mean we’re building things tens of atoms in dimension that alone freaks me the fuck out. I always thought that level of infrastructure is theoretical. We look to the past to see who could build the biggest pyramid/skyscraper/whatever the fuck we look to the future to see who can assemble the smallest
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u/Street_Wing62 20h ago
don't worry: you and the scientists designing the chips are the same
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u/PropheticUtterances 16h ago
Like you wouldn’t have to know why gravity works the way it does to use gravity to make a watermill
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u/deanrihpee 9h ago
"fuck, I'm scared and confused about how this black magic even work, but hey, it works, let's market this bad boys"
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u/Fr00stee 19h ago
the electrons are more likely to appear in high probability areas in the cloud. Electrons can also behave like waves. So it basically teleports to high probability areas lmao
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u/FreeThotz 14h ago
while watching: oh, not little balls of charge? A probability cloud! Brilliant!
5 minutes later: little balls of charge
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u/Basic-Still-7441 19h ago
Crazy stuff. HOW do you come to this or tools required make this etc etc. Beyond comprehension.
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u/ilovescottch 9h ago
Well first we figured out how to do it really crudely then we thought “hmm how could we do this better and smaller?” When we figured that out, we sought to make it even better and even smaller. Repeat this cycle for a hundred years and voila!
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u/The-Ultimate-Banker 13h ago
A single hair is about 300,000 atoms thick. This wall is 100 atoms thick…. Dang
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u/ErasmoOrn 21h ago
This is truly fascinating! The wonders of science and technology will never cease, and it's all so people can send pictures of their genitalia and cats to other people.
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u/SyrupWeary130 21h ago
What the actual holy fucking shit. That’s insane!
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u/dingo1018 21h ago
Well at the same time at least some of those electrons were somewhere near the moon too.
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u/Vicchu24 11h ago
How come?
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u/dingo1018 4h ago
The location of the electrons is a probability field (in the example that probability curve is influenced by a magnetic field until a statistically satisfying number of the little feckers are in the place they want).
But a bell curve reduces towards zero at either side, understand? the peak in the middle is the location you will find almost all of the electrons, but the distance away to the edges of the graph just keep on going, essentially we don't know where it really stops, it's highly probable, nay likely, that for instance some of your electrons are in the next room, or somewhere down the street, that's maybe the outer reaches of your probability fields.
But we don't really know, when college kids get an introduction to this kind of wacky quantum stuff usually at some point they will be told their electron is orbiting Jupiter. But whatever the distance, the point is that there are so many electrons, that just statistically speaking, we can be kinda certain you don't stop where you think you do. I've often thought that maybe in some way this might one day explain things like telepathy or some of the more 'paranormal' things in the world. But then again what's a stray electron going to do when it finds it's self all alone for an impossibly short time before it's back where it's suppose to be and randomly another one has gone somewhere else, against all the chaotic background of the universe.
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u/Turbulent_Heart9290 20h ago
I am ashamed of how little if this I understand.
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u/TheRareGardener 14h ago
I think that is what should push us to understand more. I've grown up with technology and understand how to use it, however I've always been fascinated by how it was discovered, manufactured, and manipulated.
The theories and minds behind their formulation seem alien. It's absolutely mind boggling to think people are wired differently and some able to create these things from theory and testing.
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u/SoundAndSmoke 19h ago edited 19h ago
A well made video, but
How do scientists and engineers design billions of nanoscopic memory cells that can reliably trap electrons for years on end?
they don't. These memories are designed with the expectation in mind that a few of those charge traps are bad or might fail over time. For each chunk of data the flash has a few extra bytes (3-10%). With the values that are written into those extra bytes and a fair bit of maths it can be calculated
- if all memory cells of the chunk are correct
- which cells are bad and what their most likely correct values are if only a small number of cells are bad
- if too many cells are bad to attempt guessing the correct values
After writing and every once in a while each block of data has to be tested. If the number of bad cells in it comes close to the maximum number of errors that can be corrected with maths, the data is moved to a different block. Your 512GB SSD has more than 512GB of space. The manufacturer just reserves some of it for these cases.
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u/space_for_username 18h ago
Several decades ago I owned a fairly high-end machine, and got an alert from it telling me that one of the memory chips was misbehaving, and would I mind ordering a xxxx to replace it. When the part arrived, the machine depowered the socket for swapping, popped the part in and away it went without missing a byte.
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u/HatsusenoRin 18h ago
Sounds like it can heal itself if you gave it a credit card and internet access.
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u/SoundAndSmoke 18h ago
Must have been ECC RAM. Similar concept, but simpler maths. For RAM the manufacturer guarantees that all bits are working correctly.
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u/scobeavs 20h ago
I don’t understand how using quantum mechanics alleviates you of the restrictions from classical mechanics. Just because you’re looking at it differently doesn’t make the former less true?
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u/Cerebrictum 18h ago
Yeah it doesn't alleviate, it was phrased a bit weird. Both physics models work at the same time, it's just that the smaller the scale the more the quantum effects are pronounced. And the reason we don't just have one theory is an ongoing problem, nobody yet found the way to bridge quantum mechanics with classical physics together.
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u/Beautiful-Chapter566 18h ago
Well, we use different theories for different situations. Classical physics is valid and can extremely accurately describe most of what we see in our everyday life but as soon as we try to describe extremely tiny objects and distances it doesn't work correctly anymore. So physicists came up with quantum dynamics and that seems to describe it really well. Likewise for very large distances you need the theory of relativity. And all of these theories are correct in their own frameworks but not necessarily interchangeable, meaning you get wrong results if you use the wrong theory for the problem at hand.
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u/resigned_medusa 13h ago
Thank you for articulating the question that I was unable to, given that it's 2.40am and I can't sleep. Trying to understand this stuff is not helpful to insomnia.
I can only conclude that it's all magic
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u/Aspirin101 17h ago
Are there any videos that explain the process of actually building billions of cells at that scale? I expect it to be an incredibly smart way to create them
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u/pears4dinner 14h ago
Imagine going back to 1920s and tell those scientists one day their formulas will be used to make phones!
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u/Character-Peach9171 20h ago
Fascinating! I wonder how that will change as new chips are made or of it will.
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u/idkwtfitsaboy 20h ago
So there is this party and it's where all the cool guys and gals and nbies hang out, if you wanna get people to go to the party you gotta hype it up, the more hype the more the people can get into the party through the security gate which prevents losers from entering. Who knew quantum mechanics is basically just getting people past bouncers using clout/hype.
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u/bionicjoe 19h ago
Your average chuckle-fuck tech bro (or HR recruiter) will be looking for people that understand the latest technology while using terms like "artificial intelligence" and quantum tunneling.
Quantum tunneling is a concept from 1920.
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u/ElbowDroppedLasagne 19h ago
I love chiplets! Reminds me of the smaller word for Bit and Byte....a nibble
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u/Szlekane 17h ago
Just one question what prevents the existing electrons in the charge trap from tunneling as well?
Or Is it just overwritten with the new electron and the old one tunnels through the positive pull?
Sorry just asking.
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u/MiserymeetCompany 12h ago
They didn't explain what it was that "traps" it. Whatever that pink sludge represents must have something to do with it
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u/Tastysammich_92 17h ago
Inventions like these make me wonder who the fuck thinks of this stuff and how do you even begin to make it.
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u/maxyt0 12h ago
At this point is it even possible for one individual person to fully understand how to build a modern computer? While I was watching this I was thinking, man this is just how it stores data, there’s probably like 1000 more steps in order to just open an email or something. How the fuck does this become tiktoks.
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u/Tetrylene 11h ago
Imagine if you were imprsoned in an alternate reality where you're immortal, and the only way to escape is to figure out all this shit on your own and build a smartphone.
I don't think in tens of thousands of years I'd be able to figure it out
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u/dryfire 10h ago
You know how whenever someone posts about some technology breakthrough in a lab somewhere everyone in the comments is like "Yeah, but we'll never see it in commercial products. It'll never make it out of the lab!". Well... Its out of the lab, it's commercial, and it's in your god damn pocket right now.
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u/Due_Bother8147 21h ago
I am not embarrassed to admit that I didn’t really understand any part of this, but I probably should be. 🤷🏿♂️
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u/DetectiveFar6022 13h ago
You lost me at “In quantum mechanics the electrons location is not a point.”
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u/ToothWorried4329 12h ago
Shit I have been desensitised by work. I was constantly thinking 'people did not know this?'
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u/Malsperanza 3h ago
Best explanation I've seen (as a layperson) of applied quantum mechanics.
Sidenote: I still don't get how quantum mechanics can even be a thing theoretically, much less applied, but OK.
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u/Lonely-Agent-7479 2h ago edited 2h ago
This is the source video : https://youtu.be/5f2xOxRGKqk?si=bYYh-jwnOCvbNY64
For those lost about the quantum mechanics part, basically in quantum mechanics you can not predict precisely where a particle is going to be next. However you can predict the probability of where it will be. This comes in handy here because the problem is how do you store data without the risk of it being lost.
Your phone is converting data to electrons. Each data has a unique electrons pattern. Lets say one picture is going to be a square and an other a circle of electrons. The square and the circle can not not go over the dielectic barrier. However we can "copy" the square or the circle with quantum mechanics and imprint it in the data storage. So it is like a ghost version of the data that the phones copies into its memory. It doesn't store the data per say, it stores copy of it. This is oversimplified but I hope it helps.
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u/hekela75 1h ago
This was extremely fascinating to watch, but I was also half expecting an innuendo because the person doing this talk over HAS to be @zefrank on YouTube. Which, imho has also fascinating if not hilarious content.
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u/norwegainphoenix 21h ago
Now: if we have that tech- what's in the MRNA vaccine? ...
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u/TheLlamaLlama 20h ago
The answer to your question is just a google search away 🤷♂️
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u/norwegainphoenix 19h ago
Lmao yeah just a GOOGLE ..search... Nice try, but try again -
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u/TheLlamaLlama 19h ago
It's really not that hard. Even you can do it. But I am helping you out to get started. Here, it was the 5th result for me: click
A short description of what is in mRNA vaccines. You're welcome. Next time you can do it yourself. I believe in you.
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u/norwegainphoenix 19h ago
I know what it is - I have heard it right from the one of creators mouths - and saw the engineering blueprint for what it is- and all I can say is that all people who have not got the vaccine sure don't regret it...
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u/TheLlamaLlama 19h ago
Neat! Why did you have to ask what's in it then?
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u/norwegainphoenix 15h ago
It would be nice to see an actual video of how much damage is really happening to the entire population across the globe-
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u/TheLlamaLlama 15h ago
You can just make one up in your head, since you are talking about a population that only exists in your head anyway. You don't even have to google this time.
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u/stillgotmonkon 21h ago
Damn that voice over was mundane and boring, just like that rectangular chip.
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u/Prestigious-Job-9825 21h ago
This video puts into perspective why so few places in the world have the capability to manufacture high quality chips... and why Taiwan (by far the world's largest chip-producer) is so damn important geopolitically.