Cuckoo Clock with the plant for 10 000 years.

On top of the Sierra Diablo in Texas began an unusual building. Soon there will find a house mechanical watches designed for a hundred centuries of progress. Watch these have survived longer than stood the Great Pyramids, and thereby connect us with countless future generations.

About 10 thousand years is the age of civilization, if we assume that in the first fortified settlements and the first farmers. The same time have to work non-stop "clocks cuckoo" under the name of 10, 000 Year Clock, created in the United States. They chime is designed to celebrate the century and millennium.

Some days may also qualify for "sound", but in the latter case, the ten bells will begin to move only during the visits of people. This music will never be repeated.

This project is developing is not the first year. Earlier, the inventor of the 10-thousand-year clock - Danny Hillis (Danny Hillis) - has created several working prototypes and demonstrated the ability to operate the huge metal mechanism for a hundred centuries. Now, together with a group of enthusiasts, he started to build itself "superhodikov."





The fact it has received a powerful impetus after Jeffrey Bezos (Jeff Bezos), the founder of the largest online store Amazon.com, has allocated for the construction of $ 42 million of personal funds, according to PhysOrg.com. To advertise the project Bezos even created a separate site hours, in addition to the principal.

This resource it offers visitors to sign up for an excursion to the clock (after they are built and run). For a time, access to technical miracle will be limited and there will be to see to that. In order to rust and wear could not affect the operation of the mechanism, all the parts 10, 000 Year Clock conceived truly gigantic proportions. For example, the total height of these hours will be 60 meters.

On the floor can be seen a working prototype of an element of colossal mechanism millennial chimes, and next - mock-up of the mine, showing the location of hours (or rather, only a small part of them)



Kettlebell 10, 000 Year Clock is a set of stone discs weighing 4, 5 tons. 20, some of the large gears will weigh 450 kilograms each, and their diameter is 2, 4 meters. This is the same diameter and the dial shows not only the time but also the movement of stars and planets.

And all this is to show the clock will be only in the presence of people. That is, the watch will run continuously calculate the correct time, but the arrow will remain stationary. Only when the hours will be a visitor, he can "make" special wheel dial, as if to ask "what time?».

Only after that 10, 000 Year Clock move the cursor to a new position. Further, the arrow will remain fixed until the next visit of the person. This is done to save energy.

On a visit to the people here, and another related a curious idea: every visitor will have a little winding is this giant mechanism. And how it will look like - say the authors of hours on the project site.

Multi-ton mechanism 10, 000 Year Clock assemble inside an artificial cave, the entrance to which is located at an altitude of 460 meters above the surrounding desert. (Likely to use natural cavities that are substantially deepen and expand.)

The nearest municipality Van Horn (Van Horn) then the transition day or a few hours by car. In general, it is believed that visiting hours would be the followers Hillis something of a pilgrimage.



Climbing over the rocks, the pilgrim will see a massive jade door in stainless steel frame. After it - another door, steel. Together they form a gateway, managed entirely by hand and the necessary protection from sand and curious animals.

Then the man fall into a dark tunnel hundreds of meters long. Only at the end of it he sees barely perceptible gleam of light on the floor. There he will wait for vertical shaft height of 150 meters and a diameter of 3 to 7 m with a stone staircase, a spiral cut in the wall.

Interestingly, specifically for the project 10 000 Year Clock Company Seattle Solstice, which specializes in working with stone, built a robot, equipped with a huge saw with diamond teeth. A robot must automatically cut the stairs, down the original shaft from the top down and throwing rock dust down into the central aperture.

The idea is that this machine can cut a few steps a day. But while the machine is not delivered to the mountains, but only tested in the room.

The staircase is not hard to understand winds around the clock, the Giants, and the light gets in through a tiny hole in the ceiling. To view a huge mechanism as follows, visitors will have to take advantage brought by lanterns.

The first thing you will see people come to watch - a titanic weight. Next, climb higher, they will face the mechanism of the plant. He "invite" two or three people at once pushed the horizontal arm and crank shaft of a huge mechanism, thereby slightly lifting the weight.

Award for work - a little game of bells (only to hear them, you need to arrive at noon). You will hear a special ringtone for visitors, different from the one that will be launched every hundred years and each millennium.

Calculate the melody is intended slowest computer in the world - a huge set of gears and cams, moving so slowly that the notice of motion will be extremely difficult.

This device is compared with the authors of ancient mechanical computer system - Charles Babbage's Difference Engine. With these gears no matter how many visits have gone through the 10-thousand-year clock, each a visitor hears a unique melody.

One of the main gears strange hours



The logical question - what would happen if a watch, no one will come for many years? The plant with the help of people here needed only for hedging and familiarizing themselves to the visitors of the landmark mechanism. But he can quietly ticking all 10 thousands of years without human intervention. Energy hours put daily fluctuations in air temperature over the top of the mountain. From there to the mechanism in the depths of the rock will be stretched long metal rods.

For precision must meet a number of mechanisms. The main course will measure almost two meters torsion pendulum made of titanium and tungsten, oscillating with a period of 10 seconds. But still there is a correction device that is located at the top of the mountain under the dome of quartz glass (along with thermal mechanism lifting weights - it is the only unit of hours that will be visible from the outside).

Correction apparatus, as well as all the clocks, conceived entirely mechanical. He will be able to correct the date, time, guided by the sun. Work he will also be at the expense of thermal expansion of metal under the influence of sunlight falling at noon on the desired item through the prism inclined.

To correct the correction unit operates in the following centuries, 100 specialists from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) have calculated the position of the light in the afternoon at a given point of the Earth for the next 10 thousand years. These mathematical amended in mechanism in the form of relief rotary cam cut with tremendous precision.

All bearings in the 10-thousand-year clock - ceramic, and they will work without lubrication. For slow-moving parts it is quite acceptable. In addition, the grease deteriorates with time and attracts a grain of sand, grit employees

Tucked away in a skinny rock, watch should be well protected from dust, water and sand. However, at very low during the mechanism to its developers there is a problem not so much wear and tear as welding metals together. So "lazy" will shift the point of contact between some parts.

In order to minimize this phenomenon, Hillis and his colleagues have found several solutions. Firstly, a large part of the clock is made of stainless steel. Secondly, in many cases there will be used not metal and stone and ceramic.

And, of course, the location of the clock must contribute to their preservation. In tunnels punched into the mountain, is sparse and dry air, staying at a constant temperature of 13 degrees Celsius.

By the way, about the place. Earlier we talked about the choice to host the 10-thousand-year clocks one of the mountains in Nevada. From this point we have not given up and now. Just drafters decided to create just two of these hours, and the first to build a Texan. And in the future, perhaps, a few copies of these hours there will be elsewhere.

The most important part of the watch will be closed screens of quartz glass (photo Raphael Varieras / Long Now).



Asked about the meaning of the millennial clock Hillis answers: "I can not imagine the future, but I care about him. I know that I'm a part of history that began long before that I can remember, and will continue for a long time after someone will remember me ».

Because we are talking about no more durable monument to the inventor, but rather on incentives for people to look differently at the time. And yet - to reflect on their role in this endless stream of possible long-term projects that will be developed for a long time after the death of the initiators.

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Yes. That's very mechanical computer to generate melodies:



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