Earlier today the sunlight hit the top of my stapler, and I noticed the reflection on the wall did not match the surface of the stapler at all. Once I finished work, I took a look, to find that there was no obvious explanation for the pattern it was producing on the wall (photos below). I then tested it using my flashlight, which produced the same result. I did the same thing to the bottom of the stapler, which again produced an inexplicable pattern (photos also below). I took the stapler apart, to find that what I was seeing was the internal plastic structure –
The obvious answer is that it’s reflecting more at the points where there’s more plastic, just like a wall that’s harder at certain points will cause a ball to bounce back harder at those points. That is, light is kinetic energy, and when it hits a surface, the amount of material it passes through will, among other things, impact the percentage of light that reflects back, rather than being absorbed or passing through it altogether (producing in that case transparency).
The stapler is truly opaque, and so e.g., placing a finger below the plastic does not change the reflected pattern. Instead, it must be that the marginal difference in luminosity in the reflection really is due to the amount of plastic at a given point on the stapler, with the most dense points producing more reflection, and therefore greater projected luminosity. I did the same thing to the bottom of the stapler, which produced another inexplicable pattern that was plainly the result of the amount of plastic below a given point.
This can obviously be used as optical storage, that’s read with an ordinary light. The advantage is that reading with a light, does not require moving the object (c.f., a compact disc), and therefore reading should be basically non-destructive, even over extremely long periods of time. Moreover, plastic is really cheap, and this is not the nicest stapler, so I doubt the substance in question is worth very much. Storing an appreciable amount of information will require either a lot of plastic, or a small scale of production, neither of which should be a problem or expensive. And again, this could create basically permanent storage if it’s otherwise cared for and simply read. This is not the new USB drive, but it could be a new means of storing data permanently (e.g., government records).
Information Overload 