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Shards, fragments, and ruins are all that remain from the earliest human civilizations ten thousand years ago. Nothing continues to function as it once did; the Earth has ruthlessly erased all that other humans did not destroy. But ten thousand years from now, in a cave in what is now Nevada, a single functional sign of human technological prowess may continue to tick, whether there are humans there to observe it or not. And no, it isn’t Yucca mountain.
The Clock, as its designer Danny Hillis calls it, will stand over 60 feet tall and keep track of every second, minute, day, century, and millennium for at least 10,000 years. Over that time, it will function with near perfect accuracy by occasionally resetting itself automatically using the warming heat of the desert sun. Its pendulum will be powered by the Earth itself – by temperature and pressure changes during the desert night. But its many faces will require winding. Thus if forgotten it will enter a long silence but continue to mark the years as they pass.
For all our technology, we as a society have little experience designing machines to operate for 400 generations. Since Hillis only has one chance to get things right, the Clock will not be the first that is created in its image. Over three years in construction, Prototype 1 was finished just in time to ring in the millennium on December 31st, 1999. Resting in the halls of London’s Science Museum, Prototype 1 ticks once every 30 seconds. Its polished and brushed metal surfaces gleam in the sunlight and track the hours, years, centuries, and phases of the moon and zodiac. Already, Prototype 2, displaying the orbits of the 6 naked-eye visible planets, has been built and is ready to begin its 10,000 year lifespan. More will follow until Hillis is satisfied that the Clock is ready.
Over so long a period, metal parts fatigue and wear, so the Clock can not be made with traditional works. Inside both Prototypes is a digital computer capable of counting to 28 bits of accuracy. But this computer, called a serial bit adder, is a completely mechanical device invented and patented by Hillis. The serial bit adder is designed so that even with severe wear, its parts will continue to count correctly. Even silicon microchips with no moving parts will cease to function long before this because of the very slow process of solid atom diffusion.
Yet even if the Clock can keep ticking, will there be anyone to hear it ring in the year 12,000? Hillis believes that the very presence of a machine intended to operate for 10 millennia will help humanity to achieve a longer perspective on our future. This musing is what led him, along with Stewart Brand, to found the Long Now Foundation. In addition to funding the building of the clock, the Long Now Foundation encourages people to stretch their horizons and see their actions as part of a much larger web of human existence. Among other activities, the Foundation invites famous thinkers and futurists to monthly seminars in order to help us plan now so that our descendants may someday witness the Clock’s final tick.
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So Danny Hillis decided to put this Clock of his in Nevada, but stuck it in some cave? I would have put it in downtown Las Vegas, where thousands of people would see it every day. One of the casinos might even want to buy the thing and make it one of their attractions.
Joshua said: “So Danny Hillis decided to put this Clock of his in Nevada, but stuck it in some cave? I would have put it in downtown Las Vegas, where thousands of people would see it every day. One of the casinos might even want to buy the thing and make it one of their attractions.”
There isn’t a single building in Los Vegas that was designed to last 10,000 years. Where could you put it that wouldn’t be effected by the ever changing landscape of human development? How many human structures do we have that over 1000 years old? Not many.
Do you really believe that a cave will last 10000 years? I sure don’t, seeing all those wacky plate tectonics with their cooky earthquakes and such, not to mention erosion and whatever process creates stalagmites/stalactites.
Many caves and other land/rock formations have lasted that long, if not a lot longer. In terms of actual Earth changes, 10k years is not that long. And besides, where else would we put it to be safer?
“Prototype 1 was finished just in time to ring in the millennium on December 31st, 1999.”
Why can’t people count? The new millennium began in 2001, which is the reason Kubrick and Clarke named their movie the way they did.
Metryq said: “Why can’t people count? The new millennium began in 2001, which is the reason Kubrick and Clarke named their movie the way they did.”
The 2000/2001 as the new millenium is really a matter of opinion, since it’s all relative anyways (based on when you start to count).
Bah… it won’t be the new millennium for almost 300 years. Cough.
EH I live in Vegas. We got Volcanoes -__-.
I think the concept should be altered slightly. Rather than creating one or two of these to “help humanity to achieve a longer perspective on our future”, they should be used as time markers for the changing world. When a clock breaks, it freezes at the time it stopped working, so these clocks would serve as time markers for major events in the future. If each were built in such a way that various methods of extreme intervention would cause them to fail (such as heavy radiation, flooding, etc.) then future generations would have no question as to what happened in their history and when.
Hundreds of years from now, one could be found off the west coast, underwater, where California now stands. There wouldn’t be any question to what happened and when, down to the exact second.
Furnace,
Interesting idea, in some ways it invites a longer view than the current Clock idea because it forsees the lack of human record keeping over a long period of time, and then the eventual recovery of the “data” from those disaster clocks. Interesting, it would make for an interesting short story!
Furnace,
Clocks of your idea would be interesting. However, they would only provide a specified time of their demise in reference to an earlier event. The later observer would require the additional information (history) about when that reference time was. If that information is available, then the intervening event causing the demise of the clock will quite likely be available as well. Thereby negating the usefulness of the clock as a “death record”.
But hey – big mechanical clocks are pretty neat, so build as many as you want for what ever reason you can conceive.
WILL THERE BE ANYBODY IN 11999?
Enter your reply text here.
will there be anybody in 11999?
ChickenHead said: “Furnace,
Clocks of your idea would be interesting. However, they would only provide a specified time of their demise in reference to an earlier event. The later observer would require the additional information (history) about when that reference time was. If that information is available, then the intervening event causing the demise of the clock will quite likely be available as well. Thereby negating the usefulness of the clock as a “death record”.
But hey – big mechanical clocks are pretty neat, so build as many as you want for what ever reason you can conceive.”
Building huge clocks just to keep record of major events, a pretty costly clock too. Im guessing that would be pretty expensive. Just building one to keep track of time sounds good.
Building clocks to break. Now THAT sounds like a good idea.
Try thinking of another machine instead.
libertarian123 said: “WILL THERE BE ANYBODY IN 11999?
n0 but WAIT THAT MEANS THRES GONNA BE NO COOKIES:'(
Got one better. Are we sure it’s even the 21st century. I guess you have to start somewhere. Huh. Who cares about cookies, is there gonna be PIE!?
I think that when the clock does stop ticking it should explode with fireworks or something. Just imagine 10,000 years from now and the true purpose of the clock has been forgotten but there are people there to witness it. So there they sit, waiting patiently for what the big shiney machine will do once it’s finally stopped counting and then when it finally does it just dies. How anti-climatical would that be?
There is no “year 0” in our system, therefore the first decade was from year 1 to year 10, the second 11, to 20, and so on…