This question comes from the context of two great works on popular science, one a book on cognition and artificial intelligence Gödel, Escher, Bach (GEB) And the other a fictional TV series Fringe.
In the series there is a particular episode, where a villain, kidnaps a mutant woman who "spontaneously combusts", from her house. Following this, the protagonist gets clues by analysing the partially molten glass of a window by cutting off a chunk and playing it like a record (TV show, so whatever fancy tech), finds out a very small bit of what the woman was saying while she was confronting her kidnapper.
In the book GEB, there is a particular dialogue which involves a massive record player which can play any tune on a single record by altering the record player, rather than the usual case where different arrangement of grooves give different tunes.
I have two related questions, one, is it possible to actually read voice info from the vibration patterns of partially molten glass; and two, is it guaranteed that the possible information will be a snippet of the actual conversation and not be random words/noise that happen to make "sense" due to possibly erroneous decoding?
Note: There is a relevant discussion in this wiki page on archaeoacoustics.
Note 2: For dialogue mentioned in GEB look at-
Achilles : What? A jukebox with only one record? That's a contradiction in terms. Why is the jukebox so big, then? Is its single record gigantic- twenty feet in diameter.
Tortoise : No, it's just a regular jukebox-style record.
Achilles : Now, Mr. Tortoise, you must be joshing me. After all, what kind of a jukebox is it that has only a single song?
Tortoise : Who said anything about a single song, Achilles?
Achilles : Every jukebox I've ever run into obeyed the fundamental jukebox- axiom, "One record, one song".
Tortoise : This jukebox is different, Achilles. The one record sits vertically suspended, and behind it there is a small but elaborate network of overhead rails, from which hang various record players. When you push a pair of buttons, such as B-1, that selects one of the record players. This triggers an automatic mechanism that starts the record player squeakily rolling along the rusty tracks. It gets shunted up alongside the record- then clicks into playing position.
Achilles : And then the record begins spinning and music comes out- right?
Tortoise : Not quite. The record stands still- it's the record player which rotates.
Achilles : I might have known. But how, if you have but one record to play, can you get more than one song out of this crazy contraption?
Tortoise : I myself asked the Crab that question. He merely suggested that I try it out. So I fished a quarter from my pocket, stuffed in the slot, and hit buttons B-1, then C-3, then B-10- all just at random.
Achilles : So phonograph B-1 came sliding down the rail, I suppose, and plugged itself into the vertical record, and began spinning?
Tortoise : Exactly. The music that came was quite agreeable, based on the famous old tune B-A-C-H, which I believe you remember...
Achilles : Could I ever forget it?
Tortoise : This was record player B-1. Then it finished, and was slowly rolled back into its hanging position, so that C-3 could be slid into position.
Achilles : Now don't tell me that C-3 played another song?
Tortoise : It did just that.