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A Clock that will tick for 10,000 years....

Started by jsgcdude Feb 7, 2006 at 10:11 PM 17 replies 2k views

Original Post

Feb 7, 2006 at 10:11 PM

I stumbled across this interesting article the other day. These people are going to build a monument sized clock that will keep perfect time for 10,000 years. At first I thought, "wtf? More tax dollars down the drain" but it turns out the project is being privately funded by Paul Allen. I know you guys are lazy so here are some quotes:

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It is a clock, but it is designed to do something no clock has ever been conceived to do—run with perfect accuracy for 10,000 years.

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For example, while nearly every mechanical clock made in the last millennium consists of a series of propelled gears, this one uses a stack of mechanical binary computers capable of singling out one moment in 3.65 million days.

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Made of stone and steel, it is more sculpture than machine. And, like all fine timepieces, it is outrageously expensive. No one will reveal even an approximate price tag, but a multibillionaire financed its construction,

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The clock idea originally sprang from Hillis's observation that in the 1980s, all long-range planning seemed to smack into a wall called the year 2000—the nice, round number seemed to be the omega point for everyone from software programmers to international policymakers: "Nobody could even think about the year 2030. It bugged me." Because technology began 10,000 years ago—there are pot fragments at least that old—Hillis decided to build a clock that would tick that long into the future, conceptually fixing humanity in the center of 20 millennia.

Anyway their going to build it into a monument in the desert, read the article to learn more about that. What do you guys think of this thing? Is it practical? Will it last? What effect will it have on society if any? Will it make people more concerned about the environment and global warming? Will end war and cure aids? Discuss.

Thevenin

Feb 7, 2006 at 10:22 PM

At the heart of that machine, I'm guessing there is a Rolex watch.

High precision, high durability, and high asthetics is why I made Rolex the watch of my choice. Go buy a Rolex today, and start enjoying the higher timing in life.

(To Rolex company: You can ship the box of free Rolex watches to my home address.)

Conner McCloud

Feb 7, 2006 at 10:23 PM

I read half of it, and all told its a complete waste of time. In particular, you can design all you want, but the machine will break. That's what things do. For the immediate future, its little more than a pipe dream.

CM

jsgcdude

Feb 7, 2006 at 10:27 PM

Here's another interesting article about it:

Quote:
JB: When you promoted the famous picture of whole Earth in 1969, showing night and day at the same time, I thought you were talking about space. Thirty years later, I realize that all along yo were thinking about time. That image of the earth on my television set - night and day at the same time, all the time - and the hands on the clock on the wall showing a local time of 3p.m. - that turned my head around and influenced the way I think about things.

BRAND: Yeah, it's a big jump for a lot of people. We know the image of earth in space set in motion the ecology movement - it was a year later, in 1970, whereas before that there was not really an ecology movement. What you say about time suggests that some of the globalization of the economy may have also gotten going increasingly when you look at an image that has night and day in it you think well, the market never closes. In a sense what we're doing with the clock is to do even more for time what the photograph of the Earth did for space. Like understanding of the earthly environment as one whole thing - we're trying to understand a period of time reaching 10000 years into the past and 10000 years into the future as one containable thought. Brian Eno, one of our board members, calls it the long now. The idea that you sort of move in the now and feel a responsibility for what happens in the now; if you can push the now out past your own lifetime in a couple of directions, that's good. If you can push it way out, then that's better.

Antisheep

Feb 7, 2006 at 10:32 PM

What's the point? =P

Sneftel

Feb 7, 2006 at 10:33 PM

I had a class with Alan Kay a couple of quarters ago, and this guy came in to give a talk. Some really interesting stuff.... it's cool how many aspects of engineering this project touches. And some of the engineering decisions are truly inspired, like the method of using the sun to reset the clock at noon every day--as well as a special cylinder that tells it exactly where the sun will be at noon every day for the next 10,000 years. Oh, and the permutative chimes are kickass too.

Stonicus

Feb 7, 2006 at 10:37 PM

Will it take into account the decaying orbit of the planet, shortening the year? Does it factor in accretion of space dust, adding mass to the planet and slowing its rotation?

AnonymousPosterChild

Feb 7, 2006 at 10:46 PM

Why not just adjust a normal clock? I imagine it would cost less.

nagromo

Feb 7, 2006 at 11:15 PM

Quote:
Original post by Stonicus
Will it take into account the decaying orbit of the planet, shortening the year? Does it factor in accretion of space dust, adding mass to the planet and slowing its rotation?

It's a 10000 year clock, not a million year clock. The effects of space dust should be small enough that the sun-powered reset should correct for it.

Who knows, he might put that on the cylinder, too.

It looks like an awesome project. Pointless, yes, but really cool. The money could probably be better spent elsewhere, but it's his money.

Luckless

Feb 7, 2006 at 11:19 PM

yeah, I think a big ass pile of rock is going to last longer. We can make a maze inside for those historian guys to climb through and wonder what the hell it was made for. maybe a few traps to keep things interesting for them.

LessBread

Feb 7, 2006 at 11:41 PM

Pretty cool, I guess. Sort of like a glorified tombstone. The article says they're going to embed it into the side of a mountain in Nevada. I wonder if that would be Yucca mountain so that in the future people exposed to the piles of radioactive waste stored there can tick down the duration of their death throes... [dead]

Will F

Feb 8, 2006 at 2:07 AM

Quote:
Original post by jsgcdude
These people are going to build a monument sized clock that will keep perfect time for 10,000 years.

The clock migh be accurate, assuming that our understanding of time doesn't change in the next 10,000 years. Heavens forbid that something like the inter gravissima papal bull might occur again (the switch to the gregorian calendar) where the catholic church decided to decree that October 4, 1582 will be followed by October 15, 1582.

cignox1

Feb 8, 2006 at 3:34 AM

Quote:
Original post by Will F
Quote:
Original post by jsgcdude
These people are going to build a monument sized clock that will keep perfect time for 10,000 years.

The clock migh be accurate, assuming that our understanding of time doesn't change in the next 10,000 years. Heavens forbid that something like the inter gravissima papal bull might occur again (the switch to the gregorian calendar) where the catholic church decided to decree that October 4, 1582 will be followed by October 15, 1582.

Introducing the gregorian calendar was a major leap in terms of precision.

sirob

Feb 8, 2006 at 4:16 AM

Quote:
Original post by Will F
Quote:
Original post by jsgcdude
These people are going to build a monument sized clock that will keep perfect time for 10,000 years.

The clock migh be accurate, assuming that our understanding of time doesn't change in the next 10,000 years. Heavens forbid that something like the inter gravissima papal bull might occur again (the switch to the gregorian calendar) where the catholic church decided to decree that October 4, 1582 will be followed by October 15, 1582.

The sad part is a lot of people opposed doing so on the grounds they lose 10 days of their lives.

intransigent-seal

Feb 8, 2006 at 4:31 AM

It'll be destroyed by a natural disaster before the 10,000 year mark. Nice try though.

John B

_goat

Feb 8, 2006 at 5:46 AM

Quote:
Original post by Sneftel
And some of the engineering decisions are truly inspired, like the method of using the sun to reset the clock at noon every day--as well as a special cylinder that tells it exactly where the sun will be at noon every day for the next 10,000 years.

Sundile?