Slashdot Mirror
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."
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.