Please help me to remember a TV show/series back in the 90s

I can only remember two talking points on this.

One was the discovery of a crystal (?) that could recall/store a wavelength of light on each and every part of it.

Since there is an infinite array of light, plus the area of the crystal (?), it was speculated that an entire library could be encoded inside.

The other was from a theorist.

It was about instant communication, no matter the distance.

From one planet to the other.

A tuning fork was given as the example on this.

All I can recall are a few images of his workspace and a giant chalkboard in the background with formulas that were beyond my understanding.

Those were postmortem though since he had suddenly died.

Going back that far, I don't believe I had cable programming at the time, so it was featured and aired on a major TV station.

CBS, NBC, ABC.

Could someone please help me to find this show?

I've tried with Google for hours but the results are a mess with not a single lead.

Cheers.

a reply to: Steffer

One that comes to mind is Contact.

a reply to: Steffer

I for sure know both of these and remember both the tuning fork and the crystal. I don't think it is the X-Files, and I'm not sure it was a TV series that it may have been a movie. Will keep pondering it today.

a reply to: Steffer

I'm prob wrong, but was a show sci-fi-ish...called "The Librarian"...he was always getting into things like that.

originally posted by: mzinga
a reply to: Steffer

I for sure know both of these and remember both the tuning fork and the crystal. I don't think it is the X-Files, and I'm not sure it was a TV series that it may have been a movie. Will keep pondering it today.

Superman (Movie) had crystals in his 'Fortress of Solitude', that stored data and holographically communicated.

a reply to: mzinga

Yeah, it was like a documentary of sorts.

I don't think this was Unsolved Mysteries or anything similar back then.

The show was far too scientific.

one-season tv show called Threshold, maybe
Peter Dinklage was in it
some stuff about crystals ('trees of glass')

mid 2000s so might be too late


www.imdb.com...

originally posted by: Steffer
a reply to: mzinga

Yeah, it was like a documentary of sorts.

I don't think this was Unsolved Mysteries or anything similar back then.

The show was far too scientific.

Crystal Skulls.
There was an old documentary on Mitchel-Hedges skull talking about storing a library of data in them.

a reply to: Steffer

Some kind of data crystals were used in several shows. Holocrons and datacrons in "Star Wars." Data crystals in "Babylon 5." The Asgard's memory crystals in "Stargate." Superman's memory crystals that contain most of the knowledge of the Kryptonians. Probably others i cant thnk of but its a popular idea to store information on crystals.

originally posted by: Steffer
a reply to: mzinga

Yeah, it was like a documentary of sorts.

I don't think this was Unsolved Mysteries or anything similar back then.

The show was far too scientific.

If it was documentary, I recall one of my favourite shows of the 90s was "Beyond 2000" that ran on Discovery Channel.

If it was fiction, there was this sci fi show called "The Girl From Tomorrow". I had a huge crush on that main character xD

originally posted by: mysterioustranger
a reply to: Steffer

I'm prob wrong, but was a show sci-fi-ish...called "The Librarian"...he was always getting into things like that.

I liked the series "The Librarians" and the movie "the Librarian". They are on one of the channels like Hulu or Roku or amazon prime or netflix, or one of many other internet channels we get.

a reply to: Steffer

Arthur C Clarke perhaps?

Arthur C Clarke's Mysterious World.

Arthur C Clarke's World Of Strange Powers.

Arthur C Clarke's Mysterious Universe.

originally posted by: ElGoobero
one-season tv show called Threshold, maybe
Peter Dinklage was in it
some stuff about crystals ('trees of glass')

mid 2000s so might be too late


www.imdb.com...

That's the one I was thinking of. I was disappointed that it got cancelled. As I remember it the story was just coming together and I was interested in where they went with it.

originally posted by: Tundra
a reply to: Steffer

One that comes to mind is Contact.

Just to clarify. The tv science show on pbs, not the movie.

originally posted by: Steffer
I can only remember two talking points on this.

Hope you find out as I'm now curious

a reply to: Steffer

I do not remember any shows about it, but some theorize that the dozen Crystal Skulls found here and there around the world are actually data repositories. If only we can learn to decode and read them.

originally posted by: Steffer
It was about instant communication, no matter the distance.

From one planet to the other.

A tuning fork was given as the example on this.

originally posted by: Steffer
a reply to: mzinga

Yeah, it was like a documentary of sorts.

I don't think this was Unsolved Mysteries or anything similar back then.

The show was far too scientific.

It doesn't sound scientific at all. Scientific thinking is that what you say the show discussed, faster than light communication, is not possible, even with a tuning fork.

The current scientific consensus is that faster-than-light communication is not possible, and to date it has not been achieved in any experiment.

Superluminal communication other than possibly through wormholes is likely impossible[1] because, in a Lorentz-invariant theory, it could be used to transmit information into the past. This contradicts causality and leads to logical paradoxes.

That article talks about the various ways scientists have considered the possibilities of instant communication, but, none of them work, so that part of the article is short and most of it is about fictional examples of instant communication.

Being impossible or likely impossible doesn't stop physicists from spouting BS, like I hear some talk about possibly traveling through wormholes, but most scientists seem to think if wormholes are possible they would be at best atomic scale that you couldn't travel through. So could you send a signal instantly or faster than light through a wormhole? That's one idea discussed at the link, but it's highly speculative and I don't see what tuning forks could have to do with it:

it may be that only atomic-scale wormholes would be practical to build, limiting their use solely to information transmission. Some hypotheses of wormhole formation would prevent them from ever becoming "timeholes", allowing superluminal communication without the additional complication of allowing communication with the past.

But wormholes are thought to be unstable if made using the matter we know about, with mass. Physicists theorize something called "exotic matter" which has negative mass, which if it existed might be used to fix the problem with the wormhole being unstable. But, how do you get something with negative mass? Negative mass may not exist, and it's never been found, but such a magical substance allows people to theorize wormholes that might actually be stable.