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A Clock That Runs for 10,000 Years
Justin Blanton writes "Discover magazine is running an article about a clock designed to run accurately for 10,000 years. It's essentially a "future-proof" clock that blurs the line between art and functionality through advanced engineering. From the article: 'Everything about this clock is deeply unusual. 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. Like other clocks, this one can track seconds, hours, days, and years. Unlike any other clock, this one is being constructed to keep track of leap centuries, the orbits of the six innermost planets in our solar system, even the ultraslow wobbles of Earth's axis.'"
How much do you want to bet that when you loose power, the damn thing still flashes 12:00 like every cheap VCR on the planet?
~D
This sig has been enciphered with a one-time pad. It could say almost anything.
Because this depend of the earth roation speed variation that no one can predict for a such long time now.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leap_second
http://hpiers.obspm.fr/iers/bul/bulc/bulletinc.da
http://tycho.usno.navy.mil/leapsec.html
http://maia.usno.navy.mil/eo/leapsec.html
http://maia.usno.navy.mil/whatiseop.html
Last prediction are for one year ahead at most:
http://maia.usno.navy.mil/ser7/ser7.dat
Did you realize that the next new year will be after the 31 december 2005 at 23 hour 59 minute and 60 seconde, not 59 seconde ? So this clock will show false time in a few months, no needs to wait 10'000 year!!!