Originally posted by winterkill
...Could a massive 40 x flare have reset human kind to forget all that we have known at times in history, forcing us to start again?

Any thought (that sunspots might not have erased)?

We would still have printed books full of our knowledge (although I suppose you would say we would lose the ability to read them)

As an aside and slightly off topic, ever increasing amounts of our knowledge is stored in "electronic books" rather than printed books. Even ignoring the danger of a flare wiping out that electronic knowledge, let's consider how that knowledge will be preserved for future archaeologists studying our century...

...Will archaeologists in 5000 years be able to access our libraries of knowledge, or will they look at (say, for example) a flash drive and have no idea what to even do with it?