Amazon.com founder to make 10,000 year clock

Amazon.com founder to make 10,000 year clock

(PhysOrg.com) -- Jeff Bezos the founder of Amazon.com has embarked on an interesting and unique project that, if all goes well, will last the test of time, a whole lot of time. He is looking to create a clock that is able to run for 10,000 years.

If, at first, this sounds like a bit of a strange project you have to understand why Mr. Bezos wants to make a giant clock that will keep long after his great-great-grandchildren are dead and gone and Amazon.com is less than a faint memory in the collective of the web.

Amazon.com founder to make 10,000 year clock

To Mr. Bezos the clock is not just about creating a timepieces that will give him the ultimate in bragging rights, even among the super rich. It is his hope that by building a clock meant to stand the ages it will alter the way that humans think about time and the way that we act, encouraging to take a longer-term view.

Amazon.com founder to make 10,000 year clock

The clock, which will be built into a mountain ridge, represents a monumental feat of engineering, since it will have to run for as long as it took to create all of . Keeping a clock operational and accurate over this epic of a time span is no small feat. The clocks accuracy will be maintained by a complex set of calculations made by the Jet Propulsion Laboratories that will calculate the suns position at noon for the next 10 . This will allow the clock to automatically correct its time.

Amazon.com founder to make 10,000 year clock

$42 million has already been put towards the creation of the to date, all of it from Mr. Bezos private fortune.

More information: www.10000yearclock.net/learnmore.html and longnow.org/clock/

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Citation: Amazon.com founder to make 10,000 year clock (2011, June 23) retrieved 19 March 2024 from https://phys.org/news/2011-06-amazoncom-founder-year-clock.html
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