Bayer MaterialScience: It All Started With ABBA

Philips and Bayer revolutionized data storage / The future lies in
holography

It is small and round, provides enjoyable, crackle-free,
crystal-clear sound, and it set off an acoustic revolution 25 years
ago: the first pop CD to be made from Bayer's (NYSE:BAY) (LSE:BYR)
(GER:BAY) high-tech material Makrolon(R) was ABBA's album "The
Visitors" in 1982. The compact disc produced the songs of the Swedish
cult band in a sound quality that was totally new at the time, so that
this shiny object totally changed the international music industry. It
also changed the way people listened to music - forever. What is more,
it heralded the global conquest of optical data storage. For the last
quarter of a century the basic material for the storage of digital
data on CDs and the like has been the high-tech plastic Makrolon(R)
from Bayer. Working together with Philips and PolyGram, Bayer
developed compact disc technology in the early eighties.

Herbert von Karajan sets the tone

"What, you mean you can turn them over and then play the other
side?!" says junior with amazement as dad nostalgically gets out the
old record player to listen to one of those vinyls. Should be put in a
museum. But before the soot-blackened vinyl material was replaced by
the crystal-clear Makrolon(R) and started a digital revolution in
music, the "industry giants" first had to agree on common standards
for CDs. How many minutes of recording time and thus storage capacity
should the new medium have? What should its diameter be? We might
think it was clearly a job for engineers to decide, but it wasn't. We
owe the final decision to Herbert von Karajan, the star conductor and
classical music genius. Having correctly understood the digital
opportunities of the compact disc at this early stage, von Karajan
showed an amazing amount of foresight. He realized that it might be
possible to store his music and therefore his life's work for all
eternity, and so he clearly defined the parameters for this new sound
medium by insisting that it should have enough capacity to store his
favorite piece, Beethoven's 9th Symphony. The maestro had spoken.
Michael Lang, CEO of Deutsche Grammophon, commented: "So you see from
this example how classical music actually did influence the birth of
the compact disc. But of course, classical music benefited greatly
from the compact disc with its brilliant sound, ease of handling, ease
of storage, no scrapes, no warps. And perhaps for maestro Karajan one
of the benefits was not having to get up and turn the LP over every 15
minutes."

Other sources say that it was the wife of the former Sony
Chairman, Ako Morita, who decided on today's storage capacity. One
thing is certain now: a CD has a diameter of 12 centimeters and
provides enough space for 74 minutes of musical pleasure. When it came
to the circular hole in the middle, it was the Dutch who made the
final decision. The 15-millimeter diameter of a CD, which we now take
for granted, was exactly the size of the smallest coin in the world at
the time: a Dutch ten-cent piece.

Forward-Looking Statements

For more information, please visit our website at www.bayer-ag.de