A Clock That Runs for 10,000 Years 438
Justin Blanton writes "Discover magazine is running an article about a clock designed to run accurately for 10,000 years. It's essentially a "future-proof" clock that blurs the line between art and functionality through advanced engineering. From the article: 'Everything about this clock is deeply unusual. For example, while nearly every mechanical clock made in the last millennium consists of a series of propelled gears, this one uses a stack of mechanical binary computers capable of singling out one moment in 3.65 million days. Like other clocks, this one can track seconds, hours, days, and years. Unlike any other clock, this one is being constructed to keep track of leap centuries, the orbits of the six innermost planets in our solar system, even the ultraslow wobbles of Earth's axis.'"
Actually, it just occurred to me... (Score:4, Interesting)
So...
Who's to say that the Mayan Calendar creators simply didn't do the SAME thing these people did? That is to make a Clock/Calendar which is accurate for 'n' number of years into the future.
There is NOTHING cosmic, or "End-of-the-world-doom-and-gloom" about the Mayan calendar either... It was probably something as simple as some Mayan's decided to make their Calendar last for a LONG DAMN TIME!!!
It is probably just THAT Simple!
Just a thought.
Surprising (Score:4, Interesting)
Great, does it have an alarm? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd like
Clock radios haven't changed at all since I first got one when I was about 5! Someone out there must be able to package up a glorified palm pilot with some big buttons and red led's and make a killing. These days you could put 802.11 in it and get weather/traffic reports on a led ticker
Lots of nerds missing the point, here (Score:5, Interesting)
By checking the clock to see what time it is, in the context of a 10,000-year swath of time (still a geological/evolutionary blink of an eye), one is at least encouraged to keep that larger context in mind. It's intended to dimish the long-term weight of petty squabbles, perhaps remind people that 10,000 years back we were in an ice age, that sort of thing. Might even make you think about your 401k contribution (or forget about it!).
Re:The Danger of Vandals and Other Human Disasters (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:The clock requires maintenance (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:You've just scratched the surface (Score:3, Interesting)
One could also make a point for a design where it is hard to stop the alarm when you are not completely awake. This would reduce your risk of just falling asleep again after cancelling the alarm.
Re:10.000 year is a long time. (Score:5, Interesting)
The anthropologic aspect of this project is going to be the most difficult, simply because society is a factor. The rise and fall of civilizations happens much more often than the rise and fall of material objects. We can still recover bronze-age artifacts (circa 5000 years old), and even some from the stone age (anywhere from 8,000 to 30,000 years old), but we have very little information on what the societies were like. Most of what we have is just a guess.
The good news is that those same design principles that make it physically longstanding address these problems from a sociologic / anthropologic POV also.
Maintainability - The clock should be maintainable with bronze-age technology
Maintainability and transparency:
(emphasis added)
Ten Thousand Years of Solitude (Score:3, Interesting)
The last part of that sentence indeed summarizes the chief obstacle to longevity of any monument.
Incidentally, this is not the first time that such a time-scale has been deliberately studied. A while ago the U.S. Dept. of Energy actually commissioned a study into the problem of marking a long-term nuclear waste repository (WIPP in New Mexico, Yucca Mountain if it ever opens) so as to prevent unintentional intrusion and possible spread of contamination.
Physicist and SF author Gregory Benford was on the team, and his account appears as the first chapter of his book, Deep Time. The book is, it seems, out of print, but still available on Amazon. There is a slightly garbled copy of that chapter [uci.edu] online, minus the cool illustrations of several marker concepts. Some illustrations appear in the excerpted report [vanderbilt.edu] of the WIPP Marker Panel. Fascinating and slightly unsettling stuff.
Re:mice spiders and rodents (Score:3, Interesting)
small micro-accumulation will occur in the darndest of places. if a chamber is sealed, bugs and critters are sure to get n there, and if some mice bring in a bunch of twigs and gum up the works -- and you have insects with a few centuries of grit in the device -- does it run as smoothly? the crawlspace under my house has loads of activity from little scurrying creatures -- anything that relies on exact tolerances for anything is sure to be gummed up -- its only a mattter of time.
Re:10.000 year is a long time. (Score:2, Interesting)
Carbon 14 dating has placed the age of the site to be 3200 years old, put into perspective that is around 600 years before the pyramids and 1000 years before Stonehenge.
The passage grave is so constructed so that light reaches the inner chamber of the 1-acre mound during the winter solstice (for three days around the shortest day of the year).
Oh and the roof still doesn't leak.
If you're familiar with Irish weather, that's an achievement on its own.
Much like Stonehenge no one is sure why it was built. (apart from being a grave)
Could the designers have had similar intensions as this project has?
Yes, but... (Score:2, Interesting)
Have you ever wondered why we don't find time capsules from two thousand years ago with messages for the future? It, apparently, simply didn't occur to anyone that they might be able to, by leaving a durable message, communicate in a one sided way with the future. That the human race now can think "I wonder what people will think of us when we're gone... we'd better let them know what kind of folks we are so they don't get the wrong impression", is a very hopeful sign. It indicates to me an elevation of consciousness-- the kind of consideration for the future that might make it so we don't *need* to build devices explaining our society to a hypothetical post-apocalyptic people.
Maybe we can make this whole civilization thing sustainable after all. The big concern is, are there enough people like this?
Oh, I'm sorry... Slashdot, right. "Yes, but does it store phone numbers?
Other long-view thoughts: Time capsules (Score:3, Interesting)
There's a HUGE time capsule at Oglethorpe University [oglethorpe.edu] called "The Crypt of Civilization". Most time capsules you may have read about are small things about the size of a shoebox meant to be opened 50 to 100 years after they are sealed. The "Crypt" was a (indoor, apparently) swimming pool (emptied of water, of course) loaded up with many artifacts and sealed in 1930, and scheduled to be opened in about 6,000 years.
Oglethorpe is also the home of The International Time Capsule Society [oglethorpe.edu]. Notable pages on the website are Tips on Building a Time Capsule [oglethorpe.edu] and The Nine Most Wanted Time Capsules [oglethorpe.edu].
As I discussed on the forum at that site, it would be interesting to couple one or more time capsules to such a clock, to have each capsule be opened at a pre-programmed time.
Disclaimer: I have no connection to Oglethorpe, just a fan of the site, and the "most prolific" contributor to the site's time capsule forum (three of the six posts).
The clock is certainly a "Next-Generation" design, bring the very first Y10K-compliant device.
Re:Julian Calendar only? (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Actually, it just occurred to me... (Score:2, Interesting)
Well, what I didn't mention is that the Mayans thought that this was the fifth attempt - each time the Gods made people from different things (the elements and then flesh and bone, I think) and the first four times said exactly that and scrapped it all to start again. So the outlook isn't good, but it's nice that they thought there was SOME chance of getting it right!
Ah, people, eh?
TWW
Re:mice spiders and rodents (Score:0, Interesting)
The article also mentions finding material that will last for 10K years, maybe titanium? they havent decided yet. The functioning prototypes use stainless steel.
Re:mice spiders and rodents (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Actually, it just occurred to me... (Score:3, Interesting)
The end and rebirth of the world is not a matter of failure or victory, it's just what happens. Every Long Count (52,000 years), the world is "reborn" - this one comes to an end and another one begins. This date range is actually based on stellar movement, although as I recall there are a lot of amazing "coincidences" about such stellar movement too - the Mayans based it off of planetary positions, as everything in the solar system should be in the same place at two dates exactly 52,000 years apart, but also the Milankovitch (sp?) cycle, the wobble of the Earth's axis, lasts 26,000 years, so two of them is a single Long Count, and IIRC either 26,000 or 52,000 years is also something like the amount of time it takes for the galaxy to rotate once or some such. It's been a while since I researched it but it's all just stellar movement, nothing mystical about it.
The date is December 21, 2012, by the way. We've got two months and two days until the End Times begin. (Yes yes, I'm crossing mythologies now, so sue me, it's an old hobby).
Re:Is it noon? (Score:3, Interesting)
There's another drawback you're missing. If civilisation collapses, there isn't going to be a caretaker for projects that only 1 in a 100 million people have seen. Whereas if it's a place where you take your kids so they can see a place that their great^200-grandfolks left them a big hello in the guest book, society as a whole might ensures it survives whatever comes down the pike. My sons' mother descends from the family that built the oldest standing house in the United States. The boys' names are in a guest book waiting for them to come see the house some day and sign the spot in the book that's waiting for them. Chances are they'll do it when they have kids of their own and can put their kid's names into the book. This has been going on since the house was built some 400 years ago. Granted, that's only 4% of 10,000 years, but I suspect that as long as the house endures, so will the tradition. The house endures, not because of the descendants, but because lots of people are interested in old houses and are willing to see to their upkeep.
Re:Now Then (Score:3, Interesting)