10,000 Year Clock

You will be dead by the time this clock's millennial dial moves for the first time.

Some of the most inspiring things for me are not necessarily of aesthetic appeal, but of pensive appeal and in this case: Massive Scope.

The founder of Amazon.com is allowing The Long Now along with other foundations to construct a clock that will keep time for 10,000 years without maintenance on his property in the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range.

This thing is massive in both scale and scope, its main chamber is over 200 feet tall inside the mountain and the mechanisms are made of ceramics, stone, titanium and stainless steel; it doesn't display the time without some fool making the 6hr hike to its innards to wind up the display face.

The Technium has a more thorough write-up on it than the Official Website; its well worth the read (or at least skim). Its encouraging to know someone is making a more distant future for man kind.

Here's a video of the spiral-stair cutting machine for the main chamber around the clock.

Robotic Stone Saw testing and simulation from The Long Now Foundation on Vimeo.

And Here is part of the mechanism being tested.

Iris cam Geneva mechanism for Clock of the Long Now from The Long Now Foundation on Vimeo.