A bit difficult to put on the wrist (Long Now Clock project)

[GenTLe]

"I want to build a clock that ticks once a year. The century hand advances once every 100 years, and the cuckoo comes out on the millennium. I want the cuckoo to come out every millennium for the next 10,000 years."

 

http://vimeo.com/56495936

 

There is a Clock ringing deep inside a mountain. It is a huge Clock, hundreds of feet tall, designed to tick for 10,000 years. Every once in a while the bells of this buried Clock play a melody. Each time the chimes ring, it’s a melody the Clock has never played before. The Clock’s chimes have been programmed to not repeat themselves for 10,000 years. Most times the Clock rings when a visitor has wound it, but the Clock hoards energy from a different source and occasionally it will ring itself when no one is around to hear it. It’s anyone’s guess how many beautiful songs will never be heard over the Clock’s 10 millennial lifespan

 

The priciple behind the design:

Longevity: With occasional maintenance, the clock should reasonably be expected to display the correct time for the next 10,000 years.

Therefore:

Go slow

Avoid sliding friction (gears)

Avoid ticking

Stay clean

Stay dry

Expect bad weather

Expect earthquakes

Expect non-malicious human interaction

Dont tempt thieves

 

 

Maintainability: The clock should be maintainable with bronze-age technology.

Therefore:

Use familiar materials

Allow inspection

Rehearse motions

Make it easy to build spare parts

Expect restarts

Include the manual

 

 

Transparency: It should be possible to determine operational principles of the clock by close inspection.

 

Evolvability: It should be possible to improve the clock with time.

 

Scalability: It should be possible to build working models of the clock from table-top to monumental size using the same design.

Therefore (both evolvability and scalability): 

Make all parts similar size

Separate functions

Provide simple interfaces

 

More info: http://longnow.org/clock/

 

 

PS: reacking the pinions?

 

I don't think so...

 

 

PS2: for those ones complaining about the difficulty to read the new SevenFriday V series dials, well, look at this:

[kernow]

Nice, but pointless idea. I'd like to hear it chime though!

[GenTLe]

Nice, but pointless idea. I'd like to hear it chime though!

The sponsor is the owner of Amazon and inventor of PayPal... You know when you have TOO MUCH money you can also do things like these

And the chimes have been studied by Brian Eno (U2) too, so they should be interesting

[kernow]

Indeed.

I'll never have too much money, partly thanks to RWG