A meteor can't destroy knowledge.
Until the 7th-8th century AD and the arabic invasions, knowledge, in western europe, was written on papyrus imported from Egypt. It was very cheap, but even handled with care, it was destroyed after 1 generation. So all the books had to be copied each generation. Which obviously led to a "selection" with time. 80% of the antique litteracy was lost not because of invasions, or library fires, but because nobody took care of copying it.
It shows how fast massive amounts of writing knowledge can be lost. Parchment (goat skin) and finally paper were a clear progress, as in some libraries you still have genuine books from the 9th century AD.
The latest revolution is clearly numerical supports ; if kept in a sealed box, they can last almost forever. The problem is that, found 2000 years later, a CD or a HDD would probably be a complete mystery to archeologist ("they probably depicted their god as a flat shiny disc with a hole inside, which was obviously a reference to the structure of the galaxy !"). Also consider that everything on Wikipedia, websites, and then servers, can easily be wiped out (well, 99% of it, assuming that some military bunkers have highly shielded servers) by a nuclear war, a massive and unexpected solar EM flare, the destruction of the big power transformers (which are extremely valuable things and very long to manufacture), etc...
Another month, another newly discovered asteroid getting very close.
Watch out for the 12-12-12 :lol:
hailprobe
