Computer scientist and inventor Danny Hillis came up with the idea for the clock in 1995. He wanted to build a clock that would last for 10,000 years as a way to encourage long-term thinking and perspective.

To this end, and in 1996, he cofounded the Long Now Foundation alongside: Stewart Brand, Kevin Kelly, Brian Eno, Peter Schwartz and Alexander Rose. [Ed: Lots of thinking and processing power in that group.]

The clock (hundreds of feet tall) is being designed to withstand 10,000 years of time. A two-metre prototype is on display at the Science Museum in London. It began working on 31 December “01999”, just in time to display the transition to the year “02000”. (Note that in Long Now world, calendar years have five digits, so as to avoid any Y10K issues.)

The clock is eventually intended to be a public monument that people will be able to visit and engage with.

The originally envisioned home for the public clock is atop a remote mountain in Nevada. Having said that, Long Now is currently building a full-scale clock of similar design deep within a mountain in the Sierra Diablo ranges near Van Horn in Texas. The site is on property owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who is also funding its construction (US$42M and counting).

The clock is real. HERE is a short video documenting the beginning of installation in 2018.

The clock is entirely mechanical, made from long-lasting materials, including titanium, ceramics, quartz, sapphire and 316 stainless steel. But, how do you power a clock for 10,000 years? Many options were considered for the power source of the clock. In the current design, a slow mechanical oscillator, based on a falling weight and torsional pendulum, keeps time inaccurately, but reliably. At noon, the light from the Sun, a timer that is accurate but (due to weather) unreliable, is concentrated on a segment of metal through a lens. The metal buckles and the buckling force resets the clock to noon. The combination of these two systems can, in principle, provide both reliability and long-term accuracy. What’s more, the clock is designed to run for 10,000 years even if no one ever visits.

The clock is more than a technological marvel; it's meant to provoke thought about long-term responsibility and foresight, promoting sustainability and care for the future of humanity and the planet.

In the words of co-founder Stewart Brand from his 2000 book The Clock of the Long Now:

“Such a clock, if sufficiently impressive and well-engineered, would embody deep time for people. Civilization is revving itself into a pathologically short attention span. Some sort of balancing corrective to the short-sightedness is needed — some mechanism or myth which encourages the long view and the taking of long-term responsibility, where 'long-term' is measured at least in centuries."

And as another cofounder Kevin Kelly writes for Long Now in 2011:

“Building something to last 10,000 years requires both a large dose of optimism and a lot of knowledge. Why would anyone build a clock inside a mountain with the hope that it will ring for 10,000 years? Part of the answer: just so people will ask this question, and having asked it, prompt themselves to conjure with notions of generations and millennia.”

In REMORANDOM 2 [89] we explored "The Year 2000”, and how for centuries, that year was a potent symbol that represented “the future”.

The point of this new clock is to kick the can way down the road, to revive and restore the whole idea of the future, and to get us thinking about the future once again.

Almost 30 years after coming up with the idea, Danny Hillis remains committed:

“My hope is that a 10,000 year clock will serve as a symbol of the future, in the same way the picture of the whole Earth floating in space serves as a symbol of our shared home.”

See also: The Year 2000 [RR2:89] and Pale Blue Dot [RR1:36]
__________________

References

longnow.org
wikipedia.org/wiki/Clock_of_the_Long_Now
businessinsider.com/jeff-bezos-10000-year-clock-2011-6

Images

1. Face of the 10,000 Year Clock. Credit: Long Now Foundaiton
2. Danny Hillis. Credit: Long Now Foundaiton
3. The first prototype, on display at the Science Museum in London, 2005
4 to 6. 10,000 Year Clock components. Credit: Long Now Foundaiton
7. Sierra Diablo ranges in Texas. Credit: Google Maps
8 and 9. Installation begins inside the mountain
10. Video: Clock of the Long Now - Installation Begins, 2018
11. Stewart Brand with a prototype chime generator for the 10,000 Year Clock.
12. Book: The Clock of the Long Now, Stewart Brand, 2000. Photo: Peter DaSilva
13. NASA photograph AS17-148-22727, The Blue Marble, taken by Apollo 17 crew