Clock of the Long Now
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The Clock of the Long Now, also called the 10,000-year clock, is a mechanical clock under construction that is intended to keep time for ten millennia. It is a project of the Long Now Foundation, and a two-metre prototype is displayed at the Science Museum in London.
Danny Hillis conceived the project in 1989. The first prototype began operating on 31 December 1999 and marked the transition from the year 01999 to 02000 at midnight.
Construction of the first full-scale version is being supported by Jeff Bezos and is taking place inside a mountain in the Sierra Diablo range in Texas. The clock is designed to embody very long timescales and encourage consideration of responsibility across generations.
Its design principles include longevity, maintainability, transparency, evolvability, and scalability. The mechanism is intended to remain understandable and repairable with relatively simple tools and to combine durable mechanical timing with corrections from natural cycles such as the Sun.
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- Source / publisher: Wikipedia
- URL type: WWW
- Credits: Wikipedia
- URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clock_of_the_Long_Now