Work Progresses On 10,000 Year Clock

KindMind writes "CNet has pictures of a planned 10,000 year clock to be built in eastern Nevada by the Long Now Foundation. From the article: 'Running under its own power, the clock is an experiment in art, science, and engineering. The six dials on the face of this machine will represent the year, century, horizons, sun position, lunar phase, and the stars of the night sky over a 10,000-year period. Likely to span multiple generations and evolutions in culture, the thinking and design put into the monument makes it a moving sculpture as beautiful as it is complex.' This was reviewed on Slashdot in 2005. Really cool pictures, including one of a mechanical 'binary computer' that converts the pendulum into positions on the dial."

Comments

10,000 years

[batquux]

This seems optimistic.

Re:10,000 years

[Tx]

For the clock, or for the human race?

Re:10,000 years

[evanbd]

Perhaps if more people stopped to consider the future that far in advance, our odds would improve. And perhaps the mere existence of such a clock would encourage a few to do so.

Re:10,000 years

[TheRedSeven]

Anyone else wonder if, just a mere two thousand years from now, some future country will discover this and wonder what it is?

Just look at the Antikythera Machine.

Re:10,000 years

[frosty_tsm]

The last man to go around touting his empire would be for only 1,000 years, it lasted less than 10.

Re:10,000 years

[Java Pimp]

In 10000 years after humans are long dead and gone and it has finally wound down its readout will show simply "42".

Re:10,000 years

[tjstork]

Perhaps if more people stopped to consider the future that far in advance, our odds would improve. And perhaps the mere existence of such a clock would encourage a few to do so.

Ah that's crazy. Any year now, the Yellowstone supervolcano is going to blow, and there's not a damn thing we can do about it. The world will be plunged into a dark ice ages, and that will be the end of us.

Re:10,000 years

[Anonymous Coward]

For example, the Mayan clock has a digit rollover in December of 2012, and that kind of forward thinking has allowed the Mayans to become one of the dominant cultures in the Western... oh, wait.

Re:10,000 years

[iluvcapra]

The period between eruptions of the Yellowstone hotspot/caldera are on the order of hundreds of millions of years. You seem to be talking about a whole different order of pessimism.

This message brought to you by Vint Cerf, who didn't let the imminent Yellowstone catastrophe discourage his work on computer networks.

Re:10,000 years

[cexshun]

Depends. The Mayans did this centuries ago. We seem to think that when their clock runs out in 2012, the universe ends. Some of the more sane among us doubt the apocalypse, but still theorize some cosmically significant event that can change the world. What will the civilization after us think about OUR clock? I can only hope they are sane enough to take it as it is, a random and arbitrary cutoff number.

Re:10,000 years

[Verdatum]

please oh please mod parent up.

Re:10,000 years

[cyphercell]

Yes, ever wonder if Noah was a geneticist? How else are you going to fit all of those beasties on a boat?

Re:10,000 years

[GameMaster]

They should leave a message that says "reset after 10,000 years" repeated in all known written languages.

Re:10,000 years

[StikyPad]

They could probably take care of that by etching a description in multiple languages in epoxy. And who knows, in the future, it may turn out to be useful as a sort of Rosetta stone.

Re:10,000 years

[Teancum]

The Mayan calendar doesn't "run out" in 2012... it merely goes through the equivalent of what we have with the Y10k bug... when date recording will move on to another digit to count the number of years.

You just need another digit in the "long count" for the Mayan calendar to keep the system going for another couple of millennia.

I would have to assume (and based on how they use dates that the Long Now Foundation is aware of this) that this proposed clock is going to take the Y10k bug seriously and compensate for it.

Knowing human irony, this clock will likely last for 100,000 years and not just 10,000 years. And being a 100k year old antique, nobody will want to modify it to count out the extra days/years necessary when that event happens.

Re:10,000 years

[Narpak]

They'll probably find it an go; "oh my how did those primitive people two thousand years ago build this?!? They can not possible have been smart enough to figure it out on their own; it must have been aliens!"

Re:10,000 years

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

And when (not if) this clock breaks down, what will that encourage us to do?

Re:10,000 years

[theotherbastard]

Oh please, they're going to tear it down in 50 years because they need space for another parking lot.

Re:10,000 years

[evanbd]

When it breaks, we fix it. Hopefully the only maintenance it needs before the 10,000 year mark is regular winding, but it's certainly possible it will need repair. Looking far into the future without the realization that things can go wrong is naive. Realizing that our plans won't work out exactly does not mean we shouldn't make them, and the law of unintended consequences does not mean we can avoid considering the consequences of our actions.

Re:10,000 years

[rlseaman]

"They could probably take care of that by etching a description in multiple languages in epoxy. And who knows, in the future, it may turn out to be useful as a sort of Rosetta stone."

That's another Long Now project:

Project Rosetta

Re:10,000 years

[Waffle Iron]

The period between eruptions of the Yellowstone hotspot/caldera are on the order of hundreds of millions of years.

Actually, it's more like hundreds of thousands of years, and it's been a good long while since the last one. However, IIRC studies show that the magma chamber beneath the park isn't currently anywhere near full, so betting that there'd be a full scale eruption in the next 10K years seems iffy to me.

Re:10,000 years

[mcneely.mike]

For the Clock...work orange.

Re:10,000 years

[rthille]

Actually, the interval of large eruptions (from memory) at Yellowstone is ~600K years, with the last one being ~670K years ago....

Of course, the world is older now, and possibly less active on the whole, or the hot spot under Yellowstone could just be cooling off. "Past performance is not a predictor... blah blah blah" :-)

Re:10,000 years

[Anonymous Monkey]

What's six times nine?

Re:10,000 years

[NevarMore]

What's six times nine?

54

Re:10,000 years

[Maximum Prophet]

My dad has a schoolhouse clock that has always been running as long as I've been alive. It has a note on the inside saying that it was last repaired in 1909. If a simple clock made of small pieces of iron and brass can last 100 years, a behemoth of stainless steel might be able to last 1000's.

Re:10,000 years

[Sockatume]

The Mayan clock does not have a digit rollover then. Their calendar system can run until the year forty octillion without modification. The previous, uninhabited iteration of the world in Mayan mythology was destroyed by the Gods after its 13th baktun, and our own world's 13th baktun ends in 2012. The Mayans were quite comfortable with the idea of a 14th baktun though.

Re:10,000 years

[Anonymous Coward]

999999

Re:10,000 years

[jmorris42]

> It has a note on the inside saying that it was last repaired in 1909.

And the last time that clock was reset to correct drift? That is another feature of this clock, it is supposed to be able to not only run for 10,000 years it is supposed to keep correct time for 10,000 without human intervention. That is an interesting goal.

Re:10,000 years

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps if more people stopped to consider the future that far in advance, our odds would improve. And perhaps the mere existence of such a clock would encourage a few to do so.

I haven't got the time

Re:10,000 years

[dragonbutt]

And when (not if) this clock breaks down, what will that encourage us to do?

My old wind-up alarm clock is busted but it is still right twice a day.

Re:10,000 years

[adonoman]

Now you just need to set it so that it's showing the right time when you want to wake up, then you'll be able to set the alarm and have it go off at the right time.

Oh wait...

Re:10,000 years

[Anonymous Monkey]

I always knew their was something fundamentally wrong with that joke.

Re:10,000 years

[Anonymous Coward]

6 x 9 = 42 in base 13.

I beleive Douglas Adams was aware of this.

Re:10,000 years

[dbcad7]

In 10,000 years as the clock nears the end.. the future humans will all be predicting the end of the world, because the ancient humans from the 20th centurury must have known somthing they didn't otherwise they would have made the clock go beyong 10,000 years.

Re:10,000 years

[eleuthero]

ah, old office technology... I have gone through three clocks in the last two years and four staplers. I finally got my department head to hunt me up a stapler not made in China... the result, one seemingly older that I am and likely to last longer than I will.

Re:10,000 years

[c6gunner]

Funny, but there's no way the human race will still be that stupid 10,000 years from now. Either we'll died out before then, or we'll have to learn to be more rational as a species.

Re:10,000 years

[Myrddin Wyllt]

I finally got my department head to hunt me up a stapler not made in China... the result, one seemingly older that I am and likely to last longer than I will.

It's not a slightly fire-damaged red Swingline, is it?

Re:10,000 years

[tjstork]

Of course, the world is older now, and possibly less active on the whole, or the hot spot under Yellowstone could just be cooling off. "Past performance is not a predictor... blah blah blah" :-)

No, its just saving up for the mother of all humanity dooming eruptions.

Re:10,000 years

[lessthan]

They're called "Dark Ages" for a reason.

Re:10,000 years

[stonewallred]

They should have it count down 10,000 years. Think of the chaos and concern that would cause the future folks.

Re:10,000 years

[fractoid]

If it has a date display, then that's very impressive. O.o

Re:10,000 years

[lanc]

He wasn't. All he did was looking out of the window, thinking '42 will do', or similar. No mythical hocuspocus, no hidden message. Yes, I wish that there was one too though. Yes, I like 42 just the same since then. Go see the fscking web for details.

Re:10,000 years

[xouumalperxe]

Douglas Adams, when confronted with 6 x 9 = 42 (base 13), is said to have responded "I may be a pretty sad person, but I don't make jokes in base 13".

Re:10,000 years

[Phoghat]

Was this inspired by "Anathem"?

Re:10,000 years

[squoozer]

I believe most people, if they thought about it with reply with something like: I don't know about you but I don't think I'm going to be around in 10,000 years so considering the state of the planet / human race at that point doesn't appear to make much sense. I have to agree to a large extent with their thinking but you are right in saying if we took a longer view we would probably avoid most of the problems we are going to face.

Re:10,000 years

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice project, although I dislike the "in the beginning god bla bla bla" emphasis.

when talking about 10000y timescales gods that were only recently invented should not be on the 'cover',( but they should be mentioned as being part of culture....on the back/bottom....in a dark corner....behind the sign: beware of the leopard :)

Re:10,000 years

[tgd]

Or we'll have discovered it WAS aliens all along!!!!!

Re:10,000 years

[Teancum]

I have no idea why this comment was modded to "Insightful". What a waste of mod points. Funny, perhaps.

Considering the place where they are going to put this clock, it is going to be likely that in 50 years people will forget about its very existence or even know where to find the dang thing. It is going to be in eastern Nevada (U.S. state) near the top of a mountain. Hardly the best place for a parking lot for any reason.

About the only "famous" landmark of the area is the infamous "Area 51" that has been done to death in SciFi movies. I suppose archeologists from the future who are uncovering what actually happened at Groom Lake may accidentally discover this location as well. Perhaps.

Re:10,000 years

[evanbd]

No. Anathem was inspired by this. The Long Now Foundation has been working on this clock for quite some time.

Re:10,000 years

[Anonymous Coward]

What's six times nine?

54

Actually as was pointed out in the extras in the Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy mini series (see it!)

Try the 6*9 calculation in base 13!

Ha! (It was a complete accident too..)

Re:10,000 years

[cyphercell]

Maybe, WE are the aliens!!!!

Re:10,000 years

[eleuthero]

grey... not even sure if it's paint.

Moocow

[Anonymous Coward]

That is all.

Errr

[Bobnova]

As opposed to a non-binary computer?

Re:Errr

[thedonger]

As opposed to a non-binary computer?

Sometimes the term 'computer' does not literally mean the electronic thing plugged into the wall under your desk running Linux.

Re:Errr

[Tx]

As opposed to a non-binary computer?

Yes

Re:Errr

[whizzard]

As opposed to a non-binary computer?

Also, yes.

Re:Errr

[Anonymous Coward]

There are infinitely many bases which are non-binary, and as a tautology, there are thus infinitely many different designs of non-binary computers.

I'm not sure if there are countably many, maybe someone could enlighten us on the properties of irrational number bases.

Re:Errr

[MiKM]

Indeed. 50-60 years ago, a "computer" was a person or group of people performing computations.

Re:Errr

[contrapunctus]

Yeah, like a dishwasher doesn't mean the thing plugged into the wall under your counter.

Re:Errr

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't keep my wife plugged into the wall under the counter

Re:Errr

[Cyner]

Or perhaps a Ternary Computer or a Quantum Computer. There's quite a few varities of digital computer, no harm in being specific.

Re:Errr

[Cynonamous Anoward]

I do in fact believe that there are infinite possible bases. The problem is creating unique symbols. It is not enough to claim you have a base-1024 number system, you must create 1024 unique symbols for the system. For an infinity-base number system, you need infinite unique symbols.

The limit to creation of computers which function in bases other than two is mostly limited by the capabilities of the human brain. We have enough trouble juggling binary. each additional number adds significantly increasing complexity.

I believe that it has been theorized that the most efficient machine would actually be tertiary (i.e. one more than binary), and numbers past that have diminishing returns. The Tertiary system would offer several distinct advantages in data manipulation, especially in dealing with odd numbers. It also offers a third state for decision making, although debate rages over what the best use for that third state would be, probably something akin to "maybe". Arguably, The third "maybe" state of a decision is a primary limiting factor in the creation of AI, since the "maybe" state is a critical part of human intelligence and decision making.

Theoretically, a base-10 computer would also be an excellent choice. Even though exceedingly complex to design at a electronic level, the advantages would be immeasurable (programming in the same base as we naturally think would make everything far easier and less error prone). Even though base-10 is significantly more complex, the alignments of the patterns of numbers are such that it optimizes the use of the number system quite well. This is exactly why humans naturally went to it without quite understanding what they had done.

Re:Errr

[contrapunctus]

I'm glad you got the joke

Re:Errr

[esocid]

As opposed to a non-binary computer?

And yes again.

Re:Errr

[michelcolman]

Pilots used to carry around a "computer" consisting of a set of concentric rotating disks with markings on them. You could use it to multiply, divide, calculate square roots, sines and cosines, wind components, standard temperatures and density at altitude, etc... Only 15 years ago the use of this computer was still taught to new airline pilots, it was even part of my ATPL exam (even though nobody actually used them in the cockpit anymore)

Re:Errr

[timster]

base-2 and base-3 computers have exactly the same capabilities so there is no relevance to AI. Also, base-10 is lame; humans went to it naturally because we are not very smart.

Re:Errr

[Anonymous Coward]

While you could have 1024 unique symbols, and actually would in this example, you can also recycle the base 10 digits such that a base 1024 system would have digits that look something like:

[1023] [1022] [1021] .... [0002] [0001] [0000]

I guess the nice thing about such digits is you would know the base 10 value just by inspection. ;-)

Re:Errr

[badboy_tw2002]

Yeah, good thing computers invented binary for us!

Re:Errr

[Anonymous Coward]

And here I thought it was because humans had ten fingers and ten toes. ;-)

Re:Errr

[Chupathingy]

base-2 and base-3 computers have exactly the same capabilities so there is no relevance to AI. Also, base-10 is lame; humans went to it naturally because we are not very smart.

Pretty sure humans went to base-10 because we have 10 fingers. Still, that doesn't change the validity of your original statement that base-10 is lame and humans are not very smart.

Re:Errr

[Rary]

Pilots used to carry around a "computer" consisting of a set of concentric rotating disks with markings on them. You could use it to multiply, divide, calculate square roots, sines and cosines, wind components, standard temperatures and density at altitude, etc... Only 15 years ago the use of this computer was still taught to new airline pilots, it was even part of my ATPL exam (even though nobody actually used them in the cockpit anymore)

Private pilots are still trained to use an E6B, and mine is tucked neatly in my kneeboard every time I fly.

Re:Errr

[4D6963]

How could we forget them?

Re:Errr

[sdpuppy]

Well, yeah, we all know that Windows actually runs on soap bubbles.... :-)

http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi412.htm

Re:Errr

[Anonymous Coward]

They still do use those. They're circular slide rules.

Re:Errr

[Seth Kriticos]

What about adiabatic quantum computing?

Re:Errr

[turbidostato]

"The limit to creation of computers which function in bases other than two is mostly limited by the capabilities of the human brain. We have enough trouble juggling binary. each additional number adds significantly increasing complexity."

Oh, my god. I sincerely hope nobody will ever be cruel enough to try to crash onto us something like... base-10, then. I can almost see people's heads exploding all over the planet at the mere suggestion!

"The third "maybe" state of a decision is a primary limiting factor in the creation of AI, since the "maybe" state is a critical part of human intelligence and decision making."

Oh, my god. I sincerely hope nobody called Lotfi Zadeh will ever think in 1963 of forgetting about the 'tertio excluso' from the old days to the predicate logic and be cruel enough to try to crash onto us something like... fuzzy logic in wich valor of true is continuus from 0 to 1, then. I can almost see people's heads exploding all over the planet at the mere suggestion!

"Even though base-10 is significantly more complex, the alignments of the patterns of numbers are such that it optimizes the use of the number system quite well."

Can really somebody be so bombastically stupid?

Re:Errr

[michelcolman]

You seriously know a pilot who still uses one of those on actual flights? The only time I've ever used one was in the classroom during the theoretical courses before I started actually flying. And even there, I thought you were allowed to use the digital alternative nowadays.

Re:Errr

[geekoid]

None that I would fly with.

Re:Errr

[Cynonamous Anoward]

Hmmm. credentials please? citations maybe? I don't claim to be an expert, but blanket dissmisiveness with no details or citations is not going to convince me, since I do know a hell of a lot about both computers and arithmetic in alternative bases.

My opinions are just that, opinions, especially regarding tertiary machines, since, to my knowledge, a truly usable one has never been demonstrated.

So it's possible that what I said is not actually true, but my opinion is based on first hand experience and opinions of others who have been in the field of computing for a very long time. So as I said, it will take more than a general statement with no backup to change my mind.

Re:Errr

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, Slashdot's not what it used to be.

Re:Errr

[fizzup]

Yes.

Re:Errr

[timster]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_completeness

In any case, all base-3 arithmetic can be emulated with base-2 arithmetic.

Ten thousand year waranty

[MyLongNickName]

I betcha it breaks 6 months after the warranty expires.

Re:Ten thousand year waranty

[Samschnooks]

Please! The metal and parts were bought at Best Buy! The clerk promised that it will be protected for the whole 10,000 years! How can they lose!

Re:Ten thousand year waranty

[MikeOtl67of]

I betcha it breaks 6 months after the warranty expires.

No worries, you would have lost the receipt!

Re:Ten thousand year waranty

[EkriirkE]

"...under this extended 999 year warranty. We also insist on diamond encrusted gold monster ball bearings for a much more accurate time keeping."

Re:Ten thousand year waranty

[Anonymous Coward]

...We also insist on diamond encrusted gold monster ball bearings for a much more accurate time keeping.

Haha, well done sir.

Re:Ten thousand year waranty

[InsertWittyNameHere]

I betcha it breaks 6 months after the warranty expires.

They should open source it so that anyone can step in at any time and maintain it.

Re:Ten thousand year waranty

[Cynonamous Anoward]

Who the hell would go through the trouble of gold plating and diamond encrusting a monsters balls? sheesh, there are some bored motherf****rs out there...

Re:Ten thousand year waranty

[EkriirkE]

The Japanese.

Re:Ten thousand year waranty

[Anonymous Coward]

Diamond encrusted is worthless. It has to be oxygen-free milled diamond bearings, with highly polished milled diamond races.

Or better yet, hydrogen-free diamonds.

Re:Ten thousand year waranty

[Anonymous Coward]

"diamond encrusted gold monster ball bearings"

10 years later, after the next world war, the remaining cave men will (after a few thousand years living in caves) emerge once again, whereupon the tribal elders will use the shiny gold monster balls as symbols of great power and allow them to lead massive armies to great victories and wondrous monuments will be built to honor such wondrous achievements. Future generations will build on the wondrous achievements of their forefathers, until one day ...

20 goto 10

Re:Ten thousand year waranty

[sveard]

Come on, tell us how it ends!

Re:Ten thousand year waranty

[Sumbius]

Let's just hope that they don't mail order it from Ikea... Well even if it will survive it's annihilation in the nuclear doomsday, it will be disintegrated when the Earth is destroyed to make room for an intergalactic highway.

I saw the pictures.

[Samschnooks]

Does it run .... wood?

Ha!

You thought "Linux" - didn't you?!?!

Re:I saw the pictures.

[AndrewDBarker]

No, it runs Crysis. :)

Wow...

[AndrewDBarker]

I wonder when it'll be finished. I want to go see it when they start it.

Re:Wow...

[totalg33k]

IIRC, from the 2005 article: it will be built as far from civilization as possible so "that will help people forget about it and avoid the contempt of familiarity."

Re:Wow...

[robthebloke]

Mars?

Re:Wow...

[dfm3]

Alabama.

Re:Wow...

[geekoid]

They want to build a clock, not be burned at the stake!

ha ha ha

[grub]

This modern-day Stonehenge will be scavenged for parts and resources long before 10,000 years. Much like how the original Stonehenge was.

Re:ha ha ha

[evanbd]

That's why one of the design considerations is avoiding valuable materials. This is nontrivial -- materials with good corrosion and wear resistance tend to be pricey. Obviously the clock won't be made of anything as low value as stone, but it is a consideration.

Re:ha ha ha

[DerekLyons]

Except stone isn't low value - otherwise Stonehenge, the Pyramids, and many lesser known buildings wouldn't have been scavenged over the centuries. Even today, with stone not being a primary building material, it is still valued for decoration and used as a component in concrete.

Re:ha ha ha

[pz]

That's why one of the design considerations is avoiding valuable materials. This is nontrivial -- materials with good corrosion and wear resistance tend to be pricey. Obviously the clock won't be made of anything as low value as stone, but it is a consideration.

It's a big problem: build something pretty, and it becomes an object of desire, even to have a small part, and people will take. Build something that will last a long time, and it needs to be resistant to weathering, and therefore valuable, and people will take. Build something that has a function, it will be a source of political power to control it, and people who do not control it will try to destroy it. The engineering is only one part of the problem.

The other thing I worry about is that the design tolerances are going to be difficult to maintain. Anything that will last 10,000 years will experience seismic activity, no matter where you put it. Few large structures can withstand being shaken while retaining high tolerances. I've spent a fair bit of my youth around buildings that were only 2500-3000 years old (in Greece), and by and large, they were not in very good condition, even when not scavanged for building materials. We do not understand how to build structures to resist corrosion and weathering on millenial time scales -- that does not mean we shouldn't try, just that we aren't good at it, yet.

Re:ha ha ha

[thered2001]

I don't know -- a '22 lb. sphere of tungsten' might be handy to someone re-inventing the lightbulb in 5K years.

Re:ha ha ha

[mangu]

We do not understand how to build structures to resist corrosion and weathering on millenial time scales -- that does not mean we shouldn't try, just that we aren't good at it, yet.

We *didn't* understand that thousands of years ago. Today we have much better materials. Nickel, for instance, is much harder and more resistant to corrosion than the bronze that was used in ancient Greece. Marble and sandstone will show significant wear in a few decades if used in stairsteps, no wonder those old buildings are so worn out.

Re:ha ha ha

[jmichaelg]

If they form a monastery around the clock it may survive. The monastery need not be religious, it just needs people who are willing to carry on the original vision. I'd bet there are enough people who would be willing to donate a year, or more, of their lives to maintaining something that was designed to last 10,000 years. A sort of "carrying the flame" kind of altruism. The monastery would be devoted to seeing that we don't forget how to manufacture things and as part of its mission, it could be continually rebuilding the clock. The Japanese have some Shinto temples they've routinely destroyed and rebuilt every 20 years.

Re:ha ha ha

[sckeener]

We do not understand how to build structures to resist corrosion and weathering on millenial time scales -- that does not mean we shouldn't try, just that we aren't good at it, yet.

the humorous part about trying is we won't see if we succeed. It'll be our descendants' building on our designs and even then they won't know....

What I would like to see is more community type of buildings. If I was running a country, I'd plan for the long term. Monuments are nice, but I'd like to see some disaster relief buildings (i.e. places that can house a ton of people in an emergency) built to last the centuries. In the mean time they can be used as civic buildings for events.

Such structures I doubt would last 10k in years, but I'd be happy with several centuries.

Re:ha ha ha

[Hurricane78]

There is a great solution to this: Just make it totally deadly radioactive for the next 10,000 years. ^^
If it were me, who had to build it, I would do exactly that. I would make the only way to look at it, to use binoculars. With a large deadly zone around it. I would make it so radioactive, that it would glow in the night, for the first 1000 years or so. I would make it a legend. Something that is above religion. Above governments. Something that the two sides of the biggest war in those 10,000 years will value so much that they could never destroy it. And the radioactivity would keep more primitive thieves off of it.

Re:ha ha ha

[T-Bone-T]

Stone is low-value. We use it only in certain building applications and low-value decoration and we have lots of it and know where to find lots more. The only reason ancient buildings were scavenged is because stone was the primary building material during those times.

Re:ha ha ha

[juancnuno]

One of the conscious goals is to make it from cheap, plentiful, or otherwise unattractive-to-thieves materials.

Re:ha ha ha

[pz]

We do not understand how to build structures to resist corrosion and weathering on millenial time scales -- that does not mean we shouldn't try, just that we aren't good at it, yet.

We *didn't* understand that thousands of years ago. Today we have much better materials. Nickel, for instance, is much harder and more resistant to corrosion than the bronze that was used in ancient Greece. Marble and sandstone will show significant wear in a few decades if used in stairsteps, no wonder those old buildings are so worn out.

You're proposing to build stairs out of nickel? The Ancient Greeks were actually really good architects and civil engineers. Quite very good, if you take the time to study their techniques. There are buildings that are largely intact and have not moved, one stone relative to another, more than 1cm or so, over 3000 years (the Mycenean behive tombs), but they are rare among the buildings that still remain. These are just the buildings, I'm talking about, walls, floor, sometimes roofs. Forget complicated, moving mechanisms.

We are currently building few, if any, structures that are intended to last at the century scale. Most built form is intended to last at the decadal scale. We utterly lack expertise at the millennial scale -- although, as stated above, that does not mean we should not TRY. Just that it's hard.

And I'm not convinced at all that we have superior materials now than we did 2000 years ago for this purpose. Steel? Won't last. Stainless alloys? Corrosion still builds up over long time scales, and it's too valuable. Nickel? Valuable. Aluminum alloys? Still corrode. Valuable. Etc.

The only materials that won't oxidize at those time scales are those that are already oxidized. SiO2 (quartz, glass). CaCO3 (marble). FeOx (oxidized iron, but it's structurally worthless).

Re:ha ha ha

[warren.oates]

Nah, when the Taliban take over they'll be offended and blow the thing up.

Re:ha ha ha

[Anonymous Coward]

Kinda like the smoke monster.

Re:ha ha ha

[jdschulteis]

The only materials that won't oxidize at those time scales are those that are already oxidized. SiO2 (quartz, glass). CaCO3 (marble). FeOx (oxidized iron, but it's structurally worthless).

That's exactly why I, Jack Daws, love my big sphinx of quartz.

Re:ha ha ha

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks Neal.

Re:ha ha ha

[ahem]

If they form a monastery around the clock it may survive.

There's a book about that idea that I just finished reading. It was both challenging and interesting on many levels.

Re:ha ha ha

[I'm not really here]

I see someone has read Anathema...

Perhaps these "monks" or fraa would open the gates every decade and go out among the people to learn how society has changed?

Even though it was a sci-fi novel concept, I still think the idea has merit, and is the only way a 10 millennium clock could ever be truly made to last.

Re:ha ha ha

[sukotto]

Also because it's way easier to knock down a wall and reuse the stones than it is to go dig up and shape stones out of a quarry

Re:ha ha ha

[DerekLyons]

They had lots of stone and knew where to get more back then too... The reason ancient buildings were scavenged was because the stone was already cut to a manageable size, and was generally handily located.

Re:ha ha ha

[mangu]

And I'm not convinced at all that we have superior materials now than we did 2000 years ago for this purpose.

What about this mechanism? If it had been built of modern corrosion-resistant alloys it would still be working today.

Steel? Won't last. Stainless alloys? Corrosion still builds up over long time scales,

Iron meteorites are a natural stainless steel and last millions of years. Although iron meteorites are only about 6% of the total that fall on earth, about 90% of collected meteorites are iron, they are so much more durable than stone meteorites.

Re:ha ha ha

[turbidostato]

"We do not understand how to build structures to resist corrosion and weathering on millenial time scales"

Of course we know! And we knew it 4000 years ago too. Here goes the synopsis:
* Avoid geographical places known to suffer natural disasters
* In order to avoid corrosion, put it on dry weather.
* In order not to decay avoid mobile parts
* In order to avoid weathering, build it big enough so erosion won't take apart a sensible percentage or its mass.

You are aware that the Great Pyramid of Giza is about 4500 year old, aren't you?

Re:ha ha ha

[RoFLKOPTr]

This modern-day Stonehenge will be scavenged for parts and resources long before 10,000 years. Much like how the original Stonehenge was.

Parts and resources? I bet people are more likely to scavenge it for a clock... I think it'd be pretty cool to have a 10,000-year clock in my backyard.

Re:ha ha ha

[turbidostato]

"Even though it was a sci-fi novel concept, I still think the idea has merit"

It's only it is *not* a sci-fi novel concept. It's obviously based on copyist monks from Middle Ages.

Re:ha ha ha

[IdahoEv]

There is a great solution to this: Just make it totally deadly radioactive for the next 10,000 years. ^^

This is rather difficult, given that the gravity-fed drive needs to be rewound by lifting the weights, once per year. The goal is to have it RUN, and run accurately, for 10k years, not to do so with zero human input.

Re:ha ha ha

[ScentCone]

If they form a monastery around the clock it may survive. The monastery need not be religious, it just needs people who are willing to carry on the original vision.

Yeah, that's fine until a different set of monks decides to take over the place by force and destroy what the last monks laboriously built and tended to because it's an affront to what the new monks' prophet is supposedly telling them through their new edition magic book. That's pretty much what happened to the giant Buddhas in Banyan . The Clock Monks had better take the notion of training in deadly force well into their planning, because in a lot less than ten thousand years, somebody just a little crazy with just little bit of C4 or fertilizer, etc., will turn this thing into a pile of interesting scrap metal to appease their inner demons, or impress a hot girl who has to wear a head covering, etc. There will always be crazy people, and it's a lot easier to destroy than it is to build.

Re:ha ha ha

[Heian-794]

The Japanese have some Shinto temples they've routinely destroyed and rebuilt every 20 years.

It must be noted, however, that the Ministry of Construction, and the politicians in cahoots with them, are quite determined to make sure that every structure in the country is destroyed and rebuilt every 20 years (more often if possible).

And unlike your typical apartment block, the Ise shrines are actually beautiful. Regular folks are stuck purchasing homes that are [i]scheduled[/i] to deteriorate and wear out, like automobiles do.

I'd rather see the philosophy of the Horyu-ji, the world's oldest wooden structures, brought back. No intentional wasteful destruction, just solid maintenance.

Re:ha ha ha

[BlueParrot]

There is a great solution to this: Just make it totally deadly radioactive for the next 10,000 years. ^^

Believe it or not but this is amazingly tricky to do. An isotope that has a high enough radioactivity to be lethal even when handeled carefully will have a half-life much shorter than 10.000 years. Conversely an isotope with a long enough half life will not be very radioactive. As an example Plutonium-239 can be handled with minimal protection. You hear a lot of fuss about nuclear waste, but reality is that beyond the first few hundred years or so it is only moderately more toxic than many other things we handle daily.

Re:ha ha ha

[geekoid]

Build it out of diamonds.
We are very closer to being able to grow diamond at a reasonable pace now.
It would last for a very long time. couldn't break a piece off, it would be too perfect to be sell.

Plus, once we can grow diamonds, diamond will fall to a price that reflects their actual rarity.

There will always be a demand for a 'real' diamond, but that will be left for a small percentage of the population.

Plus, looking at the thing as the morning sun hits it would be awesome.

Re:ha ha ha

[cyphercell]

Indeed, I think the locations of these clocks should double as a safe haven for society, culture, and sustainable industry. http://www.longserver.org/ - check that one out. The need for long term computing has only been met with this mechanical clock as far as I know.

Re:ha ha ha

[geekoid]

"..above religion."

NO, you can't do that. It's not possible. religious nuts will claim it, or it will become the center of a new religion. Religion owes it's whole history to taking other things people create or believe and tricking people into thinking it's their idea.

Re:ha ha ha

[Mab_Mass]

So... you propose deliberately making something that lives above ground, is intensely radioactive, and is designed to attract visitors?

What could possibly go wrong?

Re:ha ha ha

[spazdor]

So all we need is to know the course of building technology over the next 10,000 years in advance, and we're all set!

Re:ha ha ha

[religious freak]

And the radioactivity would keep more primitive thieves off of it.

Because after the thieves pilfered and ruined the clock, they would die? Seems like you'd be a few days too late with that solution.

Re:ha ha ha

[Attila the Bun]

Anything that radioactive would corrode to oblivion within a few years. Ionising radiation destroys crystal structures and stimulates chemical reactions which would not otherwise happen - which is what make radiation dangerous in the first place. Even stainless steel, after long exposure to high levels of radiation, will oxidise and crumble.

Re:ha ha ha

[pz]

And I'm not convinced at all that we have superior materials now than we did 2000 years ago for this purpose.

What about this mechanism? If it had been built of modern corrosion-resistant alloys it would still be working today.

Steel? Won't last. Stainless alloys? Corrosion still builds up over long time scales,

Iron meteorites are a natural stainless steel and last millions of years. Although iron meteorites are only about 6% of the total that fall on earth, about 90% of collected meteorites are iron, they are so much more durable than stone meteorites.

I'm not familiar with meteorite dating: do we have evidence for ones that fell millions of years ago? My understanding, which is admittedly meager, is that we only have historical dating on meteroites. And that although stainless, they do corrode. The outside isn't shiny, after all.

I mean, you realize that calling it stainless steel doesn't necessarily mean it is 100% corrosion-free, right? I have stainless trays in my lab that have rust rings from going through the autoclave with a flask sitting on them. They probably aren't going to last 1000 years.

Re:ha ha ha

[pz]

"We do not understand how to build structures to resist corrosion and weathering on millenial time scales"

Of course we know! And we knew it 4000 years ago too. Here goes the synopsis:
* Avoid geographical places known to suffer natural disasters
* In order to avoid corrosion, put it on dry weather.
* In order not to decay avoid mobile parts
* In order to avoid weathering, build it big enough so erosion won't take apart a sensible percentage or its mass.

You are aware that the Great Pyramid of Giza is about 4500 year old, aren't you?

Um, yes. And the temples on the Acropolis date to ca. 500 BC. Neither is in really good shape. Neither is a working complex mechanism. Both just sit there and yet, neither are all that pristine. None of those technologies could be used to create the mechanisms in a clock that would last 10,000 years. I stand by my statement, especially the original one regarding political power, which caused more damage to the Acropolis structures than any weathering mechanism (although with the advent of anthropogenic sulfur and nitrogen oxides in the atmosphere around Athens, weathering has taken a serious toll).

Re:ha ha ha

[Hurricane78]

You got it. MUHAHAHAHAHAAAA...

And I shall call it "THE GREAT NATURAL SELECTOR SLASH ORACLE" :D

Re:ha ha ha

[Hurricane78]

Nah. I imagined them starting to burn before even being able to touch it. Even when being faster than the speed of sound.

Yeah. That was the radiation level I was imagining. O:-)

Re:ha ha ha

[GrahamCox]

It's a big problem: build something pretty, and it becomes an object of desire, even to have a small part, and people will take. Build something that will last a long time, and it needs to be resistant to weathering, and therefore valuable, and people will take. Build something that has a function, it will be a source of political power to control it, and people who do not control it will try to destroy it. The engineering is only one part of the problem

Solution: make it nuclear-powered, and not make any provision for shielding the radiation. That ought to keep people away! The time can be safely read using a telescope.

Re:ha ha ha

[mangu]

I'm not familiar with meteorite dating: do we have evidence for ones that fell millions of years ago?

Here's one that has been dated to a fall on earth 110 million years ago. It's corroded, not much of the original mass remains, it's true, but it's something like four orders of magnitude older than any known bronze artifact.

I mean, you realize that calling it stainless steel doesn't necessarily mean it is 100% corrosion-free, right?

You know, "stainless" is a name applied to thousands of different alloys. And there are so many different corrosive mixtures. Some perchlorates will eat through any metal. With a 1000 degrees centigrade air flow blowing on it any steel will rust. But there are many alloys that will sit quite happy in an autoclave without getting rust marks. Try Hastelloy B, for instance.

Re:ha ha ha

[turbidostato]

"Um, yes. And the temples on the Acropolis date to ca. 500 BC. Neither is in really good shape."

You can certainly say that Acropolis is not in good shape. But the Great Pyramid? It is still in perfect functional shape. Has it taken its damage? certainly yes. Is it still fully operational? Except for the pyramidion, yes too (mainly due to precaution#4: make it really massive) and it has been there for almost 50% of the stated period. Oh! and Acropolis fails precaution#4 -Partenon is not so big, precaution#1: it is on a seismically active region and precaution#2 -too a humid weather.

"None of those technologies could be used to create the mechanisms in a clock that would last 10,000 years"

I clearly remember we were talking about structures -any kind of them, not clocks. Clocks are against precaution#3, no moving parts.

"I stand by my statement, especially the original one regarding political power, which caused more damage to the Acropolis structures than any weathering mechanism"

Then so do I: for an structure to be long standing, follow my four points and you'll be quite save (like pyramids are -though I'm with you political power is indeed the worse danger; not even pyramids would stand nukes).

Re:ha ha ha

[enoz]

You hear a lot of fuss about nuclear waste, but reality is that beyond the first few hundred years or so it is only moderately more toxic than many other things we handle daily

I think a fair number of people would disagree with you there.

Re:ha ha ha

[mark_hill97]

At one time uranium was considered useless and of low value. Now its quite valuable. Predicting what will or will not become valuable is quite hard without knowing what technologies will be developed.

Re:ha ha ha

[tsjaikdus]

Whoah! Free materials! *sits patiently at bottom of Great Basin National Park mountain with extra large set of Allen keys*

Re:ha ha ha

[syousef]

This modern-day Stonehenge will be scavenged for parts and resources long before 10,000 years. Much like how the original Stonehenge was.

Not if you name it Deep Thought

Re:ha ha ha

[Anonymous Coward]

Stone is low-value. We use it only in certain building applications and low-value decoration

You, my friend, have not priced a granite counter top as of late...

Re:ha ha ha

[samwichse]

I haven't read Anathem, but I have read A Canticle for Leibowitz, written in 1960.

Re:ha ha ha

[I'm not really here]

Thanks. I look forward to reading it. I always love adding another good book to my collection.

Re:ha ha ha

[euxneks]

If they form a monastery around the clock it may survive.

There's a book about that idea that I just finished reading. It was both challenging and interesting on many levels.

There is another book that probably predates that with a similar idea called A Canticle For Leibowitz. One of the books that has left a lasting impression on me.

Leap Seconds

[Talthybius]

I wonder, does it account for leap seconds and the slowing rotation of the Earth? If not, someone's going to look foolish in a few thousand years when their clock is off.

Re:Leap Seconds

[chebucto]

Yes: http://news.cnet.com/2300-11386_3-10000718-7.html?tag=mncol

I can imagine this device looking like a magic number to engineers 9,000 years from now as they try to figure out how the thing works.

Re:Leap Seconds

[flaming error]

> I wonder, does it account for leap seconds and the slowing rotation of the Earth?
Try reading TFA:

Due to the elliptical orbit of Earth, variations in the absolute time kept by the pendulum and solar time can vary by as much as +/- 15 minutes each year. The Equation of Time Cam measures the difference in these two times and recalibrates the clock, while also correcting for the Earth's axis wobble and 1 second per century decrease in speed.
...
Sunlight striking a wire will allow this solar synchronizer to make minute adjustments and realign the clock's absolute time pendulum with true solar time.

> someone's going to look foolish in a few thousand years when their clock is off.
That's wrong at so many levels, but I'll just say that it's better to miss a few seconds over 10,000 years than to miss your life by doing nothing with it.

Re:Leap Seconds

[Anonymous Coward]

no, 9,999 years from now some conspiracy theorists will use this clock as a proof that our civilization foresaw the end of the world for the following year.

Just like Mayan calendar ends in 2012 with the last words from the Mayan guy who was working on it: "damn, i got to get a life, I'm done".

Re:Leap Seconds

[DragonWriter]

no, 9,999 years from now some conspiracy theorists will use this clock as a proof that our civilization foresaw the end of the world for the following year.

Just like Mayan calendar ends in 2012 with the last words from the Mayan guy who was working on it: "damn, i got to get a life, I'm done".

The Mayan (Long Count) calendar doesn't end in 2012; OTOH, I suppose the idea that our concept of time ended at the end point of the 10,000 year clock's coverage would the kind of preliminary mistake as "the Mayan calendar ends in 2012" that could precede and support a further mistaken belief that we expect the end of the world at that time.

Re:Leap Seconds

[iluvcapra]

someone's going to look foolish in a few thousand years when their clock is off.

The antikythera mechanism doesn't even turn anymore, but no one looks foolish for making it.

The real question is what does it say about us as a people that we would construct such a thing? That we are very conscious of our mortality? That we live in a time where a concept like the End of Civilization is taken seriously? (Note that this is very different from a belief in the apocalypse, and shows a certain development over the past thousand years). This is an artifact that says a lot about its makers without its makers saying anything- the best kind of artifact.

Re:Leap Seconds

[trentblase]

We should just have it display this at the end of 10,000 years: http://farm1.static.flickr.com/204/457753126_1934773ba3.jpg?v=0

Re:Leap Seconds

[TemporalBeing]

I think they're still missing solar drift and how it affects the lengths of any given year. I think looking through history and calendars and such we can see a 5 day growth over roughly the last 3000 years. Around 1200 B.C. to 500 B.C calendars were created with 360 days per year, and were dead accurate for that time. Years (centuries) later there were adjustments made - the leap day, etc. - to account for some drifting; but even then those newer calendars while pretty accurate then are not accurate enough now. Personally, I think this is because of a growth in the elliptical orbit of the earth around the sun. Likely with the leap day being added once it was big enough to actually make a bigger impact as such. Can I prove it? no; it's just my hypothesis. But I'm sure someone studying the elliptical orbit of the earth around the sun and the speed of the sun its its galactic orbit would be able to see it. (e.g. speed of the sun in the galactic orbit will affect the length of the ellipsis [mostly making it longer] and likely requiring a long time before the lengthening is really noticed; though perhaps short changes in directions could change things quickly as well....) Any how...just saying, there's likely a lot more there than they have accounted for and it will likely be off dramatically in another few thousand years. It'll just show how little we truly understand about the universe; just like we think of how little people understood about everything even just a few centuries ago.

Re:Leap Seconds

[rlseaman]

I wonder, does it account for leap seconds and the slowing rotation of the Earth?

Not to mention continental drift...

The design includes a mechanism for setting the clock using diurnal and seasonal variations. Leap seconds only matter in comparison to atomic timekeeping. Mother Earth takes care of her own.

Re:Leap Seconds

[ebh]

00 02 * * * /usr/bin/yum update tzdata 2>&1

Re:Leap Seconds

[Anonymous Coward]

it's better to miss a few seconds over 10,000 years than to miss your life by doing nothing with it.

Very well-put.

I'm getting so fed up with the constant cynicism on slashdot. Everybody here thinks they're smarter than the scientists and engineers who these stories are about. I mean, come on, a guy with a PhD that spends every waking hour thinking about this clock but oops! he didn't realize there are leap seconds! der der! He should have consulted the random anonymous slashdot guy who got a C- in high-school math.

Think about it, that attitude is so goddamned arrogant.

Re:Leap Seconds

[Sensible Clod]

I'm not so sure about that. The Hebrew lunar calendar was 360 days, but had leap years 7 times in 19 years wherein an extra lunar month was added. This indicates that even 3000 years ago, the solar year was still around 365 days.

Don't get me wrong; solar drift is an issue, but it's just not changing the year as quickly as you might think. As far as the cause, some think it is because the earth's rotation about its axis is slowing. This makes sense when you take into account: 1) the Moon's gravitational drag and associated tides; 2) that Earth is getting heavier (est. 400 tons of meteors land every year).

Re:Leap Seconds

[Anonymous Coward]

Jesus Christ, what is wrong with you? You think by just babbling randomly you might discover some phenomenon that hasn't been discovered by scientists making precise measurements using equipment you couldn't begin to understand? If you want to actually make a study of ancient calendars, the adjustments made to them, their drift over time, and then find out actual information about modern calendars and THEIR drift as determined by people who know more than you, THEN maybe you'll be able to post shit like this on slashdot.

Until then, recognize that you don't know anything and you're not remotely qualified to comment.

Didn't...

[Jonah Bomber]

...we already find one of those?

Re:Didn't...

[Anonymous Coward]

No. Don't be stupid.

How about a non-powered clock?

[davidwr]

How about a non-powered clock that used the positions of the sun, moon, and stars to tell the time?

We already have a version? that works for about half a day in most parts of the world, and 24 hours during the summers near the poles.

Another option:
A clock that simply reads the remaining amount of radioactive material in a sample. Use the radiation to drive the device.

Re:How about a non-powered clock?

[StevenMaurer]

It sounds like a good idea, but because of precession of the Earth orbital axis, a sundial becomes inaccurate over the course of even a couple hundred years. Everything from Mayan ruins (which were originally lined up with the sun), to astrological signs (which originally stood for the period of time when a certain constellation was covered by the sun) have been made inaccurate by this effect.

Re:How about a non-powered clock?

[evanbd]

Reading the amount of radioactivity in a sample to a precision of even 1 day in 3.6 million is nontrivial. Doing it with a device that will survive 3.6 million days while being exposed to said radiation is even more so.

Building a clock that lasts 3.6 million days is not a project for a single day, let alone the five minutes spent on a slashdot comment.

Re:How about a non-powered clock?

[Anonymous Coward]

How about a non-powered clock that used the positions of the sun, moon, and stars to tell the time?

Pfft. Those won't work after humanity is forced to scorch the sky in order to deprive the warring machines of solar energy.

Re:How about a non-powered clock?

[Anonymous Coward]

But now (or since 1863 according to wiki) we have a good understanding of precession and would be able to build that into the clock.

Re:How about a non-powered clock?

[Anonymous Coward]

Another option:
How about a Foucault clock. My school, St. John's University in MN, had one, although it was on a 33 hour 44 minute rotation.

Re:How about a non-powered clock?

[geekoid]

It depends on what they are measuring. A clock is just a measurement device.
The daily clock is used to tell us when it's time to do something. It get mucked with to keep the sun withing a specific range at a specific time.

A 10,000 year clock could just be there to measure 10,000 years worth of seconds. The fact that noon doesn't equate to the sun being at the top of the sky would be irrelevant. No one is using it to tell them it's time to get up and go to work.

Re:How about a non-powered clock?

[BlueParrot]

Reading the amount of radioactivity in a sample to a precision of even 1 day in 3.6 million is nontrivial. Doing it with a device that will survive 3.6 million days while being exposed to said radiation is even more so.

Building a clock that lasts 3.6 million days is not a project for a single day, let alone the five minutes spent on a slashdot comment.

36-Chlorine has a half-life of 30 000 years, decaying into either stable Sulfur-36 or Argon-36. Since the ratio of decay events that result in Argon-36 is known the sample could be prepared as to let the Argon diffuse away, thus causing a predicable loss of mass of the sample. Part of the container could then be built as to allow noble gases to diffuse out, but not let anything else in. The problem is then reduced to that of constructing a mechanical balance of sufficient accuracy as to weigh the reduction in mass of the sample. Designing a balance with sufficient accuracy and longevity would no doubt be a challenging task, but at least there is no requirement for any rapidly moving parts, thus substantially reducing wear and tear.

Re:How about a non-powered clock?

[BlueParrot]

Just realized and obvious challenge for my solution. To allow for a measurable change in mass the chlorine would initially produce a lot of heat, comparable in fact to that of a nuclear reactor, and seeing that argon is a poor thermal conductor there would be an issue with transporting this heat away while retaining a predictable mass of the sample.

Re:How about a non-powered clock?

[evanbd]

We don't know how to build a reference mass that is accurate to even 10 ppm over a century. You're asking for a mass that is accurate to (about) 0.05 ppm over 100 centuries if you want the clock to be accurate to a single day at the end of those 100 centuries. Furthermore, you want it to be built not from a high-stability noble metal alloy, but from a radioactive, reactive gas. And you want to maintain this stability without even doing the best job you know how of isolating it from its environment, but instead to have it communicate in a defined manner.

In short, I think radioactive decay is a problematic method of measuring time -- even for less chemically active isotopes and non-mass-based measurement techniques.

Re:How about a non-powered clock?

[ResidntGeek]

Gosh, it's too bad someone didn't tell you before you said it that building a clock that lasts 3.6 million days isn't a project for the 5 minutes it takes to write a slashdot comment.

Maybe this time you'll listen, hmm?

Disclaimer: Not Related to End of Time

[Anonymous Coward]

Should we engrave something somewhere that states 'this does not predict the end of time', so we don't have the Dec 21, 2012 hoopla starting up again?

Re:Disclaimer: Not Related to End of Time

[Camann]

Do you really expect people to remember that for 9,000 years? By then, I expect the "Not" to have worn down or maybe the whole thing... When asked, people will first relate, "Oh, that said, 'Not the end of time'." which will be remembered as, "Something about the 'end of time'." passed on simply as "End of Time" and eventually will become the name of the clock: "End of Time Clock"

Re:Disclaimer: Not Related to End of Time

[PitaBred]

v'ger? Is that you?

Re:Disclaimer: Not Related to End of Time

[inasity_rules]

Why not save time and name it the "End of Time Clock"? Longest practical joke ever.

Re:Disclaimer: Not Related to End of Time

[_anomaly_]

Nah, let those around in 10,000 years shake in their boots for a few months.
Heck, maybe some will make some money off of all the hoopla (a la Y2K).

Re:Disclaimer: Not Related to End of Time

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not save time and name it the "End of Time Clock"? Longest practical joke ever.

Because in 9,000 years the "End" will have worn away leaving only "of Time Clock". You don't want our great^450-children to think their anscestors were moronic enough to use a prepositional fragment as a proper name, do you?

Kind of useless pictures...

[Merovign]

You'd think I would appreciate lots of close-up pictures of dissociated machine parts, but today, not so much. Must be taxes, but that gallery just looks like a lot of meaningless gears.

Even pictures need context.

Re:Kind of useless pictures...

[cplusplus]

The pictures have context. Read the caption to their immediate right.

Re:Kind of useless pictures...

[iluvcapra]

Plenty more pictures (and plans too) where those came from.

Re:Kind of useless pictures...

[T-Bone-T]

Captions aren't the same as context. There is no telling where most of those gears are or how they fit into the rest of the clock. They are simply pretty pictures.

Suppose you have a picture of the front of an airplane in flght and the ground and clouds aren not visible. Is the airplane large or small? Is it going fast or slow? Is it flying high or about to crash into a mountain? Even if you could actually see this non-existant photograph, you couldn't answer these questions because the picture lacks context.

Re:Kind of useless pictures...

[Merovign]

Sorry I wasn't specific enough. The pictures (in the article) are largely small parts disassociated from their function or other parts they may be attached to. It's like the photographer was obsessed with the gears themselves and didn't care about the machine.

It seemed kind of more-artsy and less-informative.

Inspiration for "Anathem"

[StefanJ]

Neal Stephenson's novel Anathem was inspired by the work and philosophy of the Long Now Foundation.

In brief: The narrator and many of the characters are members of a scholarly order which separates itself from the distractions of the outside world. Their monk-like existence is bound by many rules and rituals. Many of these center around the "winding" and tending of an immense clock.

Not a book for everyone, but I found it entertaining and intriguing.

Re:Inspiration for "Anathem"

[BigHungryJoe]

Anathem was fantastic - it's my new favorite Neal Stephenson book. His best work yet.

Re:Inspiration for "Anathem"

[jerquiaga]

As soon as I read the summary I wondered if it had anything to do with Anathem, or vice versa. Definitely enjoyed the book.

Re:Inspiration for "Anathem"

[Quiet_Desperation]

Curious, because 10,000 years is how long it seems to take to get through one of his books. Aw, geez, here comes another troll mod. :-(

Re:Inspiration for "Anathem"

[sukotto]

[no spoilers, just opinion]

I read it, I read the whole damn thing. And the whole time I kept wondering WHY I was bothering.
Hoping that, if I just stuck with it, then it would eventually reward me by becoming interesting and exciting. But it never really did.

Instead it was a dull, trudging grind, watching Raz bumble from one stupid pointless task to another.

Whoever said "any book with more than 3 made-up words in it isn't worth reading" was right.

Just read the three appendixes. They were pretty cool. Even if NS changed all the names for everything.

NS hit home runs with Cryptonomicron and Snow Crash. I really liked Diamond Age. Hell, even Zodiac was a fun read (if a bit Deux Ex at the end)... but this one fell flat and was dragged under the wheels. Bleck.

Re:Inspiration for "Anathem"

[Opyros]

Whoever said "any book with more than 3 made-up words in it isn't worth reading" was right.

It was Randall Munroe who said it — and look at what his mouseover text says.

Re:Inspiration for "Anathem"

[thebobster]

Well (and here we start to approach spoilers) it turns out the phenomenon of made-up words are relevant to the plot.

Re:Inspiration for "Anathem"

[immcintosh]

Just goes to so you, it's all a matter of taste.

Anathem was my favorite out of all his books.

Re:Inspiration for "Anathem"

[stonewallred]

Sword of knowledge. too drunk to look it up, good book, about monastic order discovering science or keeping science alive. etc etc. got to stop drinking 8oz of vodka as soon as I get home from work on an empty stomach. think the steady 2oz an hour i drink at work is a better formula.

Re:Inspiration for "Anathem"

[sukotto]

[spoiler]

Only so the author could throw in the the "shocker" that the ship had previously visited Earth (or a planet/reality that identified itself as Earth)

Not worth the pain of all the made up words for that teeny-tiny payoff.

Re:Inspiration for "Anathem"

[sukotto]

Why exactly? (no sarcasm intended)

I think I pretty clearly stated why I thought it sucked. What about it engaged you?

Non-moving clock

[interiot]

The motion of galaxies/superclusters/filaments is pretty steady, why not just record the current positions many of them, and note when each observation was taken? Even if a small number of superclusters collide, most are likely to still be intact after millions of years, and this would require no moving parts.

Re:Non-moving clock

[Rakshasa Taisab]

The point of this clock isn't the accurate keeping of time, rather it is to create dreams for the living, of a time long after their own death.

Re:Non-moving clock

[geekoid]

My name is on a comet, and on mars. so I'll all set without this clock.

A 54 years old 25,753 year mechanical clock exists

[Gnavpot]

This mechanical clock was completed 54 years ago. It has a 25,753 year cycle.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jens_Olsen's_World_Clock

(And it had to be completely renovated after 40 years...)

Apocalypse 12012!

[analogkid76]

I wasn't able to glean the date that this clock will start officially ticking, or what will happen when the 10,000 years is up. But I hope that the creators document these things in a way that will be unambiguous to earthlings of our distant future - or else they may be creating yet another year in which apocalypse will be predicted, perhaps somewhere around 12012? Like 2012 all over again...

Re:Apocalypse 12012!

[Anonymous Coward]

12! Oh, 12! Why?!?!

Rube Goldberg here we come.

[fixmedaily]

overly complex Rube Goldberg machine!

Re:Rube Goldberg here we come.

[Brewmeister_Z]

Maybe Pee Wee can use this thing to start his breakfast machine in the mornings.

The End is Near

[travdaddy]

Just think, if this thing really works, then we've created another day where everyone will stockpile cans of food and hides in the cellar! "The Ancient Americans knew this clock would only need to be accurate for 3.65 million days!"

If you doubt that will happen, take a good look at the Mayan calendar.

Save it for the next intelligent species.

[SalaSSin]

Why would we want to make that?

In 10000 years, the only living beings around will probably be some sort of overdeveloped cockroaches just starting to get a grip on speech.

12009

[Lakitu]

THE WORLD IS GOING TO END IN 12009

THE AMERICANS PREDICTED IT

Re:12009

[Chris Burke]

Lol, yeah, I can even see that happening.

Plus, if I understand the device, then it's powered by a couple huge weights slowly falling down a screw. Whatever future society encounters it may not fully understand it, and based on the "Doomsday myth" might assume something is supposed to happen when the weights reach the bottom. There'll be a whole society of people who want to find out, and on that auspicious day they'll travel up to the mountain and have a big party and sit around speculating what'll happen. Will a secret passage open up containing the wisdom of the ancients? Will the whole thing collapse as if mimicking the destruction that will soon engulf the world? Then the moment finally comes, the bells sound one final time, the weights settle at the bottom of the machine... and it stops moving. That's it. They wait around for a while, but still nothing happens. They all leave, and one is heard to mutter "Whoever these Society of the Long Now people were, they're a bunch of jerks."

Re:12009

[GMFTatsujin]

Not only do we predict it, we're doing our best to make sure it happens.

So far, we're refreshingly ahead of schedule. We are, however, a bit over budget.

Re:12009

[evanbd]

The weights descend over the course of a year, and then the clock needs to be wound. This is not a device meant to be left alone; it is supposed to last 10,000 years while being cared for.

Re:12009

[plsander]

So we need to design it so that a door opens and a sign pops out saying some form of "Ha!"

Re:12009

[T-Bone-T]

It said it was self-winding so doesn't that mean there would be a mechanism to return the weights to the top? I think the clock rewinding and continuing on would be even funnier than nothing at all.

Re:12009

[Chris Burke]

Aw, bummer. So in other words the future society will find it, and it'll already be stopped long before reaching the 10,000 year count. :(

Oh well, they can still assume it was a doomsday countdown. :)

Re:12009

[Dripdry]

The originator wants to leave something of himself for the ages.

It could be longest running joke humanity has ever seen! (except for maybe Cowboy Neal)

Re:12009

[zobier]

It could open to reveal Cowboy Neal's remains, he will be revered as King of the Nerds.

Re:12009

[Anonymous Coward]

Better yet have a passage open containing a huge slab of engraved rock reading "YOU FAGS SVRE GOT TOLD"

Shit would be SO cash.

yes, but....

[Anonymous Coward]

...imagine a beowulf cluster of Soviet Portmans.

Perpetual motion

[piripiri]

Running under its own power

Perpetual motion ?

Re:Perpetual motion

[AndyGJ]

Running under its own power

Perpetual motion ?

Yeah, either I haven't had enough coffee today or they are promoting the wrong aspect of the project here.

Re:Perpetual motion

[jjohnson]

It has weights that descend over the course of a century, and will need to be wound every century. The point was to have an independent, purely mechanical power source that could run for 10,000 years as long as someone just bothers to reset the weights. No chemicals to run out, no dependency on an outside power source to keep functioning.

Re:Perpetual motion

[Obfuscant]

No chemicals to run out, no dependency on an outside power source to keep functioning.

Other than the human power source that has to reset the weights.

I've been wondering. If you power a clock with a battery, the battery runs out and doesn't work anymore. If you power a clock with a weight and gravity, why can you reset the weight? You can't reset the battery. Why doesn't gravity run out? Why doesn't gravity start leaking and ruin the electronics if you store it in a device for a long time?

Re:Perpetual motion

[_anomaly_]

While I agree with most of your explanation.... no dependency on an outside power source?
How will the weights get wound every century without using an outside power source?
I imagine you're thinking of the use of man-power; but it is most certainly an outside power source.

I didn't read about the magnitude of these weights, but something tells me that man-power might not even be an option.

Re:Perpetual motion

[Anonymous Coward]

humans resetting the weights is an outside power source. A suspended weight is "Potential Energy", which is supplied by the act of LIFTING the weight. Overunity does not happen here; The energy required to power the clock is supplied all at once to the balls, as they are leveraged into place at the top of the clock.

No outside power my foot.

Re:Perpetual motion

[Dragonslicer]

You can reset the battery. Chemical changes are always reversible; for reactions that release energy, you have to add energy to revert the changes. There's pretty much always some energy loss in this process, too, and in many cases the energy needed to charge the battery is much higher than the energy that's released by the battery. Something that's powered by gravitational potential energy works the same way. As the weight falls, the lost potential energy (or to be more precise, I guess, the kinetic energy that comes from the potential energy) can be used to do work. To restore the potential energy, you have to add energy in order to lift the weight again. There will be some energy loss here, as well, mostly in the form of friction/air resistance as the weight is lifted.

Re:Perpetual motion

[Anonymous Coward]

Gravity itself does not provide the energy. It is simply the mechanism by which energy transfers from the weights to the clock. When you reset the weights, you are lifting them back up to some starting position. The mechanical energy required to lift up the weights is stored as gravitational potential energy. It is then transferred to the clock as the weights fall again. The mechanical energy of lifting them is what actually powers the clock for the next cycle.

In other words, lifting up the weights is like recharging a battery. The battery runs out (the weights fall down), then you charge it by adding external energy from the electrical grid (external energy from the poor guy carrying the weights back up).

Re:Perpetual motion

[m50d]

No, 10,000 year motion. A hard task, to be sure, but by no means impossible.

Re:Perpetual motion

[jjohnson]

The stupid is strong in this thread.

By "no outside power source", I meant "isn't dependent on being connected to the power grid", or otherwise requiring a separately engineered power source that could suffer from its own engineering/societal failures.

If you really want to be pedantic, then yes, a human being resetting the weights every century is an outside power source. This is what I get for arguing with aspies.

The solution is clear

[hedwards]

Just give it a warranty period of of 119,996 months and it should be good to go.

Re:The solution is clear

[idontgno]

Again, we're talkin' Best Buy here. The basic warranty is 90 days. The extended warranty for the rest of the 10,000 years cost $OMGTHATSALOTOFMONEY.

And they won't sell you the clock without the warranty. "Nope, sorry, fresh out, we got a really small allocation from the distribution center. I think you passed the guy who bought the last one walking out of the store as you were walking in. Check at the other store (20 miles) across town. Kthxbye."

Re:The solution is clear

[Anonymous Coward]

90 days?! Are you serious? That makes me glad to be living in the EU where warranties must be at least 2 years. Doesn't stop sleazy shops from trying to sell a super special extra extended warranty of the same length providing what they legally must anyway...

Building things to last....

[javacowboy]

Doesn't seem to be a priority in our modern capitalistic, manufacturing-intensive civilization. It seems that things are built deliberately to break down nowadays. Appliances that used to last decades now seem to break down in less than 10 years.

With all the environmental problems and the scarcity of resources, I welcome efforts to make things more durable in order to encourage reuse of resources. Sadly, this lesson seems to be lost on most people.

   

Re:Building things to last....

[u38cg]

The sad fact is, companies that build to last go out of business. It turns out that, despite protestations to the contrary, consumers want built in obsolescence.

Re:Building things to last....

[arth1]

The sad fact is, companies that build to last go out of business. It turns out that, despite protestations to the contrary, consumers want built in obsolescence.

This is not true. It's just that the working class consumers want a low price before anything else.
In an "open" market and a class based society, quality will deteriorate to the lowest the consumers are willing to tolerate, because that maximises profits for the seller.
That's what Karl Marx discussed and why he rejected consumerism, decades before consumerism was rediscovered and embraced by the conservatives.

Re:Building things to last....

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a market for things that last for generations, and it does get catered to.
It just isn't all that large, on account of those products being extremely expensive. Compared to the mass produced alternative anyway.
Companies that try to enter that market and fail just overestimate its size - most places, it's already saturated.
Also, there's a factor of changing lifestyles and continueing development. People replace their furniture/wardrobe/technology every few years anyway, so why pay for something that lasts longer?

Re:Building things to last....

[geekoid]

Nope. What that actually means is that a company needs to be dynamic and nimble so they can focus on another project once there first one gets to saturation.

Tower of the Winds is not 10,000 years old

[CodeBuster]

The Tower of the Winds, the public mechanical calendar/sundial in the old Roman agora in ancient Athens, was probably not more than a few hundred years old before it was stripped for parts, looted, and converted into the bell tower for a former Byzantine Christian church. If history is anything to go by, then this mechanism will also be broken up and destroyed long before 10,000 years have passed.

Re:Tower of the Winds is not 10,000 years old

[momerath2003]

Yeah, with the amount of steel and tungsten (!) in this thing, it will quickly be cannibalized at the next fall of government/civilization.

Re:Tower of the Winds is not 10,000 years old

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a terrible example. They aren't exactly building this thing in the middle of a major city center. The land they purchased for it is pretty remote.

Re:Tower of the Winds is not 10,000 years old

[Jaysyn]

And probably in the name of some God or another.

10,191

[shawn(at)fsu]

I can't wait for the year 10,191 lots of cool stuff will start happening around then.

Re:10,191

[Anonymous Coward]

CE or AG?

not future-proof.

[gandhi_2]

What you are telling me is this thing isn't y12.013k compliant?

Teotwawki all over again. . .

[agnosticanarch]

Oh, great. Now some culture in the far future is going to think that teotwawki is going to happen when this clock finally winds down. This is as bad as the Aztec calendar! Can someone fix that problem and include somewhere on there directions for building the next one so our descendants don't have to hear paranoid religious zealots and superstitious nutballs going on and on about Armageddon (or whatever they'll be calling it up then)?

~AA

Re:Teotwawki all over again. . .

[DahGhostfacedFiddlah]

include somewhere on there directions for building the next one so our descendants don't have to hear paranoid religious zealots and superstitious nutballs going on and on about Armageddon (or whatever they'll be calling it up then)?

Only if the directions also let them know that if the new one isn't done on time, the Consequences will be dire.

The "Equation of Time" Cam...

[Anonymous Coward]

...looks very organic. It's kinda sexy.

10.000 years? Don't think so.

[nomorecwrd]

No machine that complex (according to the photos) would last 10.000 years. Or they suppose there will always be funding for maintenance for the next 10.000 years?
If that's the case, even my Casio digital wrist watch could last that long, with proper care and maintenance. (It's turning 22 years old and still ticking ... er... oscillating??)

Re:10.000 years? Don't think so.

[maxume]

In the last few years, they came out with a solar powered GShock. Give them another couple hundred years and Casio will be turning out artifacts full time.

solid state solar watches will last longer

[tjstork]

If you really want something to last 10,000 years, build it, then throw it away. It will get buried in the landfill and will sit there for all eternity.

In the future our ancestors will be happily discovering that a reasonable percentage of the stuff we've thrown away will still be repairable and made workable.

Indeed, 10,000 year old watches will be so common in the future that its probable that the clock won't even be worth a post on some future slashdot when it is unearthed.

Re:solid state solar watches will last longer

[Chris Burke]

So what you're saying is that even in the distant future humans will be so amazingly primitive that they'll still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea?

mechanical clock?

[InsertWittyNameHere]

Don't forget to wind it!

obviously

[Anonymous Coward]

Long Now is L(o ^ 10,000)oong.

10000 binary years ?

[olivier69]

We have been fooled ! This will last only 16 years !

And I understand binary !

--
There are 10 types of people in the world : Those who understand binary, and those who don't...

or to put it another way

[eclectro]

Will you be able to obtain warranty service at 9,573 years from now?

The 10,000 year clock

[frank_adrian314159]

Because 10,000 years from now we're still going to be using the same calendar and time system.

Antikythera Mechanism?

[ZenDragon]

Sounds like a modern version of the Antikythera Mechanism. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism

Re:Antikythera Mechanism?

[2short]

Except that it's a giant clock designed to run for thousands of years, only needing someone to add energy to it once a century, while the Antikythera Mechanism is small, of unclear purpose, but certainly not a clock, and didn't involve any stored energy.

They both involve gears. Beyond that, what?

Re:Antikythera Mechanism?

[ildon]

Right, because if someone found this thing smashed at the bottom of the ocean 4,000 years from now with no written records of its existence they'd know EXACTLY what its purpose was.

Re:Antikythera Mechanism?

[ZenDragon]

"They both involve gears. Beyond that, what?" It somewhat accurately calculates not only time but lunar cycles, solar years, planitary positions, etc. Which, at the time where largly used for time keeping in general, like a giant astrological calendar. I was only implying similarity in function. Though Im sure both will elude scientists as to their actual purpose.

Re:Antikythera Mechanism?

[2short]

I don't understand what point you are arguing with. My point was that calling this a "modern version of the Antikythera Mechanism" is not reasonable.

Re:A 54 years old 25,753 year mechanical clock exi

[PitaBred]

And wound every week. This clock is meant to be completely autonomous. That world clock is a neat device, but it's not nearly the same kind of project.

Predictability

[davidwr]

If you can predict the unique patterns of shadows or light on any cloudless day or night in the future, you can make a calendar and clock that will work on that day.

In the worst case, you chisel astronomical tables into stone tablets then leave long-life measuring instruments behind. At that point, "what's the date and time" becomes "measure and look it up in the table."

Re:A 54 years old 25,753 year mechanical clock exi

[gknoy]

I was under the impression that the Long Now's clock is intended to be a lasting monument, so durability and minimized maintenanced needs are likley a core design requirement -- in addition to technical accuracy.

Obligatory question

[IGnatius T Foobar]

Are they going to make sure it can handle 5-digit years? In other words, is it Y10K compliant?

Re:Obligatory question

[Animats]

Are they going to make sure it can handle 5-digit years?

Yes. The Long Now Foundation even uses 5-digit years on their web site.

Even ternary computers

[amck]

Ternary computers also exist. I've seen circuits and algorithms that benefitted from using balanced ternary rather than binary.

Y2K is so 2000

[Anonymous Coward]

Finally!
Something that's Y10K compatible.

in reading the summary quickly....

[S7urm]

I though this sentence: "Likely to span multiple generations and evolutions in culture" really said THIS:"Likely to spam multiple generations and evolutions in culture" and thought to myself, "Now I've got really long range clocks spamming me!?!?!?!?! How many gmail accounts do I need before I get something REAL!

Then I realized exactly how sad that thought really was, and now kinda wish the 10,000 year clock WOULD spam me....just to take up some of those 10,000 lonely years......... :(

Ted vid w/ more clock info

[religious freak]

This is a really cool video (at least I thought it was really cool) with some more details on the clock of the long now.

Great Egg Race?

[GordonCopestake]

Looks like something made for The Great Egg Race (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Egg_Race)

likely?

[wgoodman]

Am i the only one who was a bit thrown by them saying "likely to span several generations..." I should really hope so! There's a few cheap clocks at my house that have already accomplished that.

But can it measure the simutanious 4-day?

[Hillgiant]

Like the time cube can?

Moving parts, really?

[desinc]

They seem a little naive to me using moving parts.

10,000 years is a long time to hope that bugs, animals, or debris won't get caught in the mechanical moving parts of this clock.

At least nobody who built it will be around then to prove them wrong.

it will be dismantled

[Ralph Spoilsport]

and melted down for the metal when the going gets tough.

RS

Only possible flaw is:

[DarthVain]

someone has to enter a code and press execute every 108 minutes.

you work for google don't you...

[cyphercell]

...I mean, are you arguing that it should be in beta for 12,000 yrs? Makes sense, heck it even fits the purpose of building the thing in the first place. Someone will HAVE to be working on the project in 12,000 yrs in order to verify function. How will the foundation last that long? Why will people of the future commit to it?

Ship's propellers

[Kupfernigk]

I have seen it suggested, forget where, that a new civilisation or visitors from space could tell, perhaps several millions years in the future, that we had once had a technical civilisation when they discovered the remains of (bronze) ship propellers, which would still be recognisable. (They may be the thickest bronze castings.) Stainless steel will be long gone, so probably will commercial grade nickel, though coinage metal may last.

Exegi monumentum aere perennius, wrote Horace, but with modern bronze alloys I wouldn't bank on it.

Re:Ship's propellers

[mangu]

the remains of (bronze) ship propellers, which would still be recognisable. (They may be the thickest bronze castings.) Stainless steel will be long gone, so probably will commercial grade nickel, though coinage metal may last.

Bronze corrodes *much* quicker than nickel alloys. Monel and Hastelloy are two nickel alloys that could easily last totally intact after thousands of years under the sea. Coinage alloys typically aren't particularly resistant to corrosion.

Re:Ship's propellers

[evanbd]

The alloy nickels are made of is copper-nickel, a relative of Monel. True Monel is better, but nickels should last quite a while.

Re:A 54 years old 25,753 year mechanical clock exi

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a cheap imitation of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zimmer_tower . And 25 years late!

We can't even get small clocks right.

[Kayden]

How many decades is it going to spend blinking 12:00?

The Ancient Nevadans

[WED Fan]

Children, the ancient Nevadans were a race of people known for their great engineering skills and their faith in the God Roulette, a god that they believed would judge people, punishing them or rewarding them. It is said that with a wave of the hand, the King of the Nevadans could cause a great temple to crash to the ground and then raise a new one up that very day.

The Nevadan culture built this clock, it will run out in 3 years. They were known for their prophecy. They must have known something we don't. The world will end in the year 12,012. This is off course, a significant number...

Taken from a lecture at the Art Bell Elementary School in the year 12,009.

What about

[rossdee]

Daylight Saving Time. Are they sure the govt isn't going to mess with the start and end dates again?

9,000 years from now...

[Anonymous Coward]

9,000 years from now, someone will look at this clock as irrefutable evidence that our ancient culture had some secret knowledge that their current culture lacks which told us of the exact date of armageddon.

Just like those idiots with the Mayan calendar and 2012.

Two Words.....

[IHC Navistar]

E P I C F A I L

I don't think that the engineers of this clock truly realize just how long 10,000 years is. Sure, "10,000" is a nice, round number, but is far, FAR, longer than they can anticipate, especially if they expect it to power itself, with purely mechanical functions, and using only the brass weights to power it?

Also, showing that they might not be fully understanding what they are trying to do, they are using solar components on something that will be sealed inside a limestone cliff. Do I really need to explain the problem there?

True, it may run for a VERY LONG TIME, but it is definitely NOT going to run for as long as they claim it will.

Re:Two Words.....

[geekoid]

Yes they do. You clearly don't realize the point.

Re:Two Words.....

[jjohnson]

Wow. It's astonishing, the density of stupid you've achieved in that post.

To highlight one item: it's not going to be sealed inside a limestone cliff, you moron. You can't even get your facts right, and you're criticizing them for not thinking it through?

Re:Two Words.....

[religious freak]

Read the website maybe you'll understand their mission a little more clearly. Just because it will be difficult and may not last the whole 10,000 years doesn't mean it shouldn't be done. Maybe people will start to think more than 15 minutes ahead in life with discussions like these.

Re:A 54 years old 25,753 year mechanical clock exi

[Merovign]

Want!

Ambition

[Merovign]

While I complained about the coverage, I don't have a problem with the ambition behind the project. I don't know how it will end, but I don't have a problem with building something to last 10,000 years to prove it can be done, or because you want your name up in lights or whatever. It will probably require renovations (like Jens Olsen's 25ky clock linked elsewhere here), but it's still an audacious concept, and admirable for that.

END OF THE WORLD!

[Anonymous Coward]

so, just wondering, in 10,000 years, when this clock finally runs out, will idiots in that time think it means the end of the world, like idiots now believe that the end of the mayan calendar is the end of the world?

and will also predict the coming Great Conjunction

[GeekZilla]

Did anybody else think of the movie, "The Dark Crystal"?

Definition?

[ascari]

What makes this thingamajoob a "clock" as opposed to a "calendar"?

To everyone whining "it won't last!"-

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe you're right. But I am very familiar with the clock's design- it's all there on their site. RTFS for a change!

Most of the clock has been designed AROUND the problems of theft/damage stated here. 2 big points:

Most of the clock is made of MONEL. Monel is an extremely corrosion resistant metal alloy, mostly made of nickel & copper, with some iron and other stuff. Monel's a real bitch to machine, but they picked it because of it's extreme corrosion resistance- some specialty types can actually survive fires in PURE OXYGEN. Add to that it's not a precious metal, and doesn't look especially valuable (even though it's expensive), the idea was it would survive a long time without people repurposing it for other uses (ie: extremely hard to machine/shape into anything, and not pretty like gold).

Someone commented about surviving shock from earthquakes- the clock is regulated DAILY by a focused beam of sunlight at noon each day, in a purely mechanical fashion, where a shape-memory nicrome wire heats up, and pulls on a regulator part mechanically on the main clock to re-adjust its true rate DAILY with the real solar position of the sun, basically, a real-time "equation of time" regulation done automatically and DAILY for 10,000 years- not a simple feat, but their arrangement should correct on the order of 1/100 of a second, or something around there, at least to +/- 0 seconds a day.

Again, read the site- I can't say this very often about anything on Earth, but this clock really is, in every aspect, an engineering masterpiece to say the least. They've thought of everything- even that binary time calculation mechanism is the first of it's kind in the history of timekeeping.

READ THE SITE. It's a geek engineer's paradise, even for the layman's reading.

Yep

[mbessey]

Perhaps if more people stopped to consider the future that far in advance, our odds would improve.

That is, more or less, the mission statement of the Long Now Foundation (the folks designing and building the clock).

Two words

[Anonymous Coward]

Arrogant twat.

Fucking idiot.

Presumptuous cunt.

Perhaps the engineers of this clock actually thought about it for more than ten seconds, with a little more information available to them than you, you stupid piece of shit.

500 years from now they'll predict another 2012

[Anonymous Coward]

The last LONG calender has everyone predicting doom and gloom on the 'last day' it records.

Betcha in 500 years the populace will have some dippy voodoo superstition about the date the calendar ends.

People are too predictable these days. *sigh*

Wake me up

[Cabana Bob]

...does it have a snooze alarm?

Radiation? An entirely different set of problems.

[Anonymous Coward]

(Sorry to post as an AC, I can't log in from here.)

A lot can happen in 10k years. Have you read "Deep Time" by Gregory Benford on how to inform people that radiation is dangerous? If not, I urge you to do so (it's fascinating) and reconsider if you still want to protect this site with massive radiation (which, apart from its symbolic value, might also damage the clock by attacking the materials).

Off-topic (or is it?), the captcha is "trespass". Spooky.

Neat project. My thoughts. . .

[Fantastic Lad]

The designs are very pretty and very smart within a very narrow context which makes a number of rather wishful assumptions. Let me list a few items I think may have been overlooked by the design team. . .

1. You have to travel out into the middle of a Nevadan wasteland to wind the clock every 100 years. Oh boy. 100 years? This assumes that we will not even once during the next ten millennia be reduced to very hard living conditions which preclude such luxuries as leaving the family hearth to make an exhausting and largely meaningless pilgrimage out into the middle of nowhere to maybe screw up something we were not trained for and no longer have the education required to read the instruction manual to do right. --All to satisfy the high-minded notions and general Gee-Whiz factor of a team of long-dead geeks. Hmm.

2. Valueless metal? The kind which is enormously strong and doesn't corrode? When I'm looking to make knives or a new plough, that kind of metal is worth far more than crappy bog iron.

3. Vegetable life. Fascinating stuff. Faster than it looks, eats rock, and is basically about as predictable as a seed in a bit of bird poop on a random gust of wind. One tree taking root in the wrong spot and, "all your clock are belong to us". --The fact that the current clock design requires sunlight for daily calibration means that the chance of vegetable matter interacting with it goes waaaay up.

4. Ice. Ice ages happen and 10,000 years is plenty of time to see another one. --This does not mean that Nevada will be covered in a blanket of frozen water. But it does mean that the biosphere will adjust itself enormously, creating all kinds of random conditions. New bodies of water, new weather patterns, new migratory paths, new forests, new deserts. Nevada may seem desolate today, but it may be a rain forest in ten thousand years.

5. Basic human nature. How many of your parent's vital passions did you adopt? At a 100 years, you've got about three to four generations between windings. Even in an advanced culture like ours, most people reading about a big clock project will yawn and not get it, (certainly not enough to commit themselves to the high-skills task of maintenance.)

I think there are two solutions.

A) Embrace life in a far greater way; (Make the clock mobile so that it won't risk being eaten by the planet, use religion; it seems to be the only thing which can last for any appreciable length of time. Survived the last dark age after so many wonders were forgotten. (Jesus will come to the Jews in 10,000 years so long as you wind this thing and don't tell anybody. Something like that.) This, however, is probably futile. Religious artifacts tend to get scattered to the four winds despite all precautions. While religion is good at preserving certain ideas, those very ideas make them the target of vitriol and war.

The best we can really expect is for some diluted and largely mangled spiritual philosophy to transit the millennia. We've actually got a few examples floating around today. Not so many clocks though. . .

B) Remove life from the equation altogether. If you can build a weight which takes a 100 years to fall, then why not a 100 of them? Or 50 which take 200 years to fall? This way, you can put it deeper underground, away from trees, fickle humans and glaciers. The only problem with this is that people will forget. There's a very good chance it will reach its final tick, send up its flag and then set in for the really long wait. . .

Which raises the question. . .

I wonder how many ancient clocks there are currently sitting around in deep underground vaults? --If some people working in some off the department books are to be believed, if they are willing to talk to you, then the answer is, "More than one."

-FL

Mayans

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone put a note in there somewhere saying --
"NO, the world is not ending in 10,000 years. We are just lazy to calculate beyond 10,000 years."

The truth behind the scene ...

[noppy]

... that it is silently running linux hosting a simple ntp server that routinely synchronizes its analog dial with pool.ntp.org.

After a few decades when ntp.org domain expires, the clock would mysteriously stop working. And it coincidentally relates to yet another doomsday conspiracy, sparks worldwide chaos and marks the end of humanity.

Anathem of the heart and anathem of the mind?

[Hognoxious]

Rush rock (well, their earlier stuff did). But I think "Time Stand Still" is more appropriate.