The 10000 year clock

Let me start by noting that the individuals who have conceived of and are enacting this project refer to the year as 5-digit sets. That means I am writing this in 02009AD. When the rest of us, in the year 9999AD are all scrambling to re-numerate all historical records to accommodate a new number, theirs will continue unchanged for a hundred thousand years.

That in essence tells you something about the thought processes of the people at the Long Now Foundation. I heard about them on an episode of To the best of our Knowledge talking about a 10,000 year clock.

The basic concept is this: "to build a monument scale, multi-millennial, all mechanical clock as an icon to long term thinking." Seems simple enough, right? You go out to Mt. Washington, Nevada, and rising up out of the side of the mountain face is a hundred foot (or more, they haven't really decided yet, but the 10' prototype is in the picture, right) transparent tower filled with clock bits. You climb up to the top, and it will tell you, among other things, the current date and time, the positions of all visible planets, the phase of the moon and the procession of the zodiac. And this will work just as well in 10,000 years as it will when they fire it up.

Okay, it sounds simple, but the philosophy behind the thing, that it should run accurately for 10000 years, be maintainable if we get blasted back to bronze-age technology, etc., this requires a lot of thought. It seems like a literally quixotic task to try to build a mechanical device that will work longer than human agriculture has been around.

As example, the primary proposed power source... the day/night temperature change creates size change which is stored as kinetic energy and powers the thing. No, really. There are other power sources, such as a human-wound weight system like a grandfather clock, but if it gets ignored for long enough, weather cycles should wind it.

I marvel at this project. I really don't know what to think about it's viability, but it's ambition is... mythological. And they really are doing this thing. They own the land (180 acres, purchased with donation money.) They have three prototypes (none of them on an architectural scale, but working.)

And, well, there it is. A bookmark in my brain about a bunch of insane visionaries. Cheers to the human spirit.

tags: clock  10000  years  long  now  foundation  time  human  spirit  

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