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

Ten thousand year waranty

[MyLongNickName]

I betcha it breaks 6 months after the warranty expires.

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

[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

[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

[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:10,000 years

[Tx]

For the clock, or for the human race?

Re:Errr

[Tx]

As opposed to a non-binary computer?

Yes

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: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.

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.