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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."
Sometimes the term 'computer' does not literally mean the electronic thing plugged into the wall under your desk running Linux.
Help fight poverty: Punch a poor person.
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.
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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.
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".
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.
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.
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.
[FUCK BETA]
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.
- These characters were randomly selected.
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."
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
I'm glad you got the joke
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.
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.
Oh please, they're going to tear it down in 50 years because they need space for another parking lot.
Buttons aren't toys.
Why not save time and name it the "End of Time Clock"? Longest practical joke ever.
I have determined that my sig is indeterminate.
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.
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
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.
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.