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

I saw the pictures.

[Samschnooks]

Does it run .... wood?

Ha!

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

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.

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.