How to make a clock run for 10,000 years
June 27, 2011 | Source: Wired
Clock design model (credit: Long Now Foundation)
Billionaire Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos has a long-term plan: to build a clock that runs for 10,000 years.
The idea for the clock has been around since Danny Hillis first proposed it in WIRED magazine in 1995. Since then, Hillis and others have built prototypes and created a nonprofit, the Long Now Foundation, to work on the clock and promote long-term thinking.
But nobody actually started building a full-scale 10,000-year clock until Bezos put up a small portion — $42 million, he says — of his fortune.