American entrepreneur and computer scientist Jeff Bezos has once again decided to challenge the limits of the impossible with a wholly unique project: a 10,000-year clock. The owner of Amazon is constructing a colossal clock that, on paper, should operate continuously for the next 10,000 years. I will tell you one more time so that we both can appreciate insanity: a 10 thousand years clock!
Well, let’s delve into the details of this incredible creation by one of the world’s wealthiest people in the world.
The Clock of the Long Now
Among the various inventions we constantly witness today, predominantly dominated by computers and virtual worlds, the American entrepreneur’s creation is somewhat unusual and still anchored to everything mechanical. Jeff Bezos’s new project consists of a true mechanical giant clock intended to operate for 100 centuries in the heart of a mountain.
Introduced in 2011, this project has long been underway inside a mountain owned by Bezos himself, located in the Sierra Diablo, Texas. This utterly out-of-the-ordinary idea owes its realization to Bezos’s ability to invest the substantial sum of money required for the entire construction ($42 million).
In addition to significant capital, the most important thing was a unique project, dated back to 1986, that was conceived by inventor and scientist Danny Hillis. But what exactly will this monumental scale clock consist of?
This gigantic timepiece will be built inside a mountain and is designed to maintain accurate time for the next ten millennia. Standing 152 meters tall, Jeff Bezos’s clock will be largely made of marine-grade 316 stainless steel, titanium, quartz, and sapphire. Ceramic will also be used to form the bearings of the clock’s mechanical components to prevent corrosion and potential rust that the steel could be exposed to.
Excavations for the realization of this monumental work, which began in 2018, have allowed the assembly of the first components that will form the movement, including the driving mass, the winder, and the main gear.
As for reading Jeff Bezos’s clock, time will be displayed by astronomical and calendrical displays. Inside the mountain will be contained the 5 “chambers” dedicated to the various anniversaries that the clock will be able to mark: annual, decennial, centennial, millennial, and 10,000 years.
The clock will also be equipped with a chime generator designed with the help of Brian Eno. This system will be capable of producing over 3.5 million unique sequences of bell chimes, one for each day the clock will be visited for the next 10,000 years.
The clock will be open to visitors. It is estimated that reaching and admiring its internal gears will require a day’s walk inside the structure.
The purpose of constructing such a clock and, above all, visiting this monument, will be to offer a lasting symbol of our personal connection with the distant future.
It will also be an extremely precise clock capable of synchronizing with noon, as well as taking into account the pendulum’s oscillations for solar time, the sunlight falling on the solar synchronizer to account for long-term drift, and a precalculated solar time correction to account for Earth’s orbital and rotational changes (rendered by the Equation of Time Cam).
As for the power supply of this work, the clock will be animated by the visitors themselves. It seems quite sci-fi and a bit creepy said like that… let me explain better!
Upon arriving at the charging station, visitors will encounter a horizontal winch. It will take two or three people to turn it easily and thus lift the 10,000-pound weight (about 4,500 kg).
To save energy, the clock will be able to not update the display dials if there is no visitor providing the necessary energy. If no visitor should appear for months, instead of their necessary passage for power, energy will be guaranteed by sunlight penetrating through a sapphire glass window covering the top of the structure.
Finally, I hear you asking, when is this going to be completed, if ever? Well, I am sorry, there is still no expected completion date. However, for such a monumental task, we can understand the unknown.
Final Thoughts
Finally, as for the completion of this work, there is still no expected completion date.
The concept behind the construction of this unique clock, the passage of time, and the succession of civilizations from here to 10,000 years, I find incredible and, at the same time, makes one reflect on the concept of time itself and how such an element is what marks everything that is the entire world.
Only once this clock is completed, however, will we truly realize how monumental and fascinating this work will be, in front of which, surely, every tourist will be left speechless.
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