0:00

Hey, everybody, it's me Josh,

0:02

and my pick for s Y s K Selects

0:05

this week is the one we did on the ten thousand

0:07

year Clock. Uh. Just looking back,

0:09

I think it's probably one of the coolest episodes

0:12

we've ever done. And it's just kind

0:14

of me and Chuck operating on all cylinders

0:16

talking about something we're super jazzed about.

0:18

So we hope you enjoy it. And my apologies

0:21

for being sick in this one. It's still good.

0:25

Welcome to stuff you should know from

0:28

house Stuff Works dot com.

0:35

Hey, and welcome to the podcast, Josh

0:37

Clark. There's Charles W. W Chuck

0:39

Bright and that makes this stuff

0:43

you should That's right. How

0:45

are you, sir? I said, it's a little under the weather. Other

0:48

than that, I'll find I've got that. Remember

0:51

the Happiness audio book. We

0:53

talked to it guy David Pierced

0:56

and trans humanist about

0:58

separating a susception

1:01

pain, like the physical experience

1:03

of pain, from suffering, like just

1:05

getting rid of suffering, like

1:08

I've reached that point and being sick

1:10

where like I see

1:13

how intertwined the two are. Like

1:16

I just keep saying, like woe is me?

1:18

Like I am suffering. It's

1:20

pretty bad. So do you feel bad, like

1:22

in a flu sense or is it just the head full

1:24

of stuff it makes it unbearable. Uh?

1:28

No, Luckily I don't have any flu symtom

1:30

because that's what puts me under this when you literally

1:33

feel those eggs in your

1:35

skin is really sensitive.

1:38

Was just what I had before you. We're

1:40

taking turns. I don't

1:42

know if I got it from you or not. Air

1:44

air travel often

1:47

will do that, so yeah,

1:49

I got I got mine after air travel too. Stupid

1:52

air travel. It's two thousand and

1:54

twelve, you know you don't. Can we do

1:56

better with the recirculated air on a

1:58

plane? Maybe? Yeah,

2:01

just like surely you can crack a window a little bit or something,

2:03

right, get some fresh air in there. There's

2:06

gotta be something there, right, So

2:08

um, I guess we should do this one.

2:12

No, we're not, you know why, because

2:16

we got all the time in the world. Man, slow down, That's

2:18

what I was saying. Yeah, and I'm just

2:20

reiterating, well, thank you. There's

2:23

no hurry, Josh. Well, let's just stay here

2:25

for a little while. We're in the foundation of

2:28

the long now. Uh,

2:32

you're misreading. It's the long now foundation.

2:34

I like the foundation of the Long Now you Longer?

2:39

Yeah it is. It's a couple of extra wards

2:41

there named by Brian Eno. Yeah,

2:44

the great musical

2:46

composer, father maybe

2:48

of techno producer. I think he's called

2:50

a rock musician in this article. Well

2:53

the guy I watched a Setti talk

2:56

from Alexander Rose, who you said is

2:58

the project manager of the

3:00

Long Nail Foundation's um clock

3:03

of the Longmail project, which we're going to

3:05

talk about, And when he was doing his presentation,

3:07

he said mentioned Brian

3:09

Eno and he said, who was an ambient music

3:12

guy? Is that what

3:14

he called him? Yeah? I was like, this is Brian

3:16

Eno? Come on? What did he write? Um? What

3:18

was his album music for Spaceports? Uh?

3:22

Something like that? That was a solo thing after Roxy

3:24

Music. Yeah wait, Brian

3:26

you know was in Roxy Music? Yeah? I know,

3:28

Brian Ferry was. They were, and

3:30

they famously butted heads and

3:34

Brian Eno left I think after one album

3:36

did solo work until he hooked up with you two

3:38

and the Talking Heads and as an uber

3:41

producer. Cool man, where

3:44

you go, Chuck. Thanks, that was a great

3:46

explanation. Okay, Mr Brian the

3:48

ambient music guy? Right? But yeah, you're right,

3:50

He's the one who coined the

3:52

the name the long now Um.

3:56

And uh, this whole foundation,

3:58

this group of people, the long now Foundation

4:01

or the foundation of the long now Um,

4:04

are dedicated to forcing

4:08

um hoisting upon humanity.

4:10

Like you were saying, like just the idea

4:13

of slowing down, of taking a

4:15

longer view of everything, the

4:17

long now. Yeah, And I think

4:20

the way they put it was to try

4:22

and think in the terms

4:24

of if you live to be one thousand years old,

4:27

so long term thinking for

4:29

the world is better than

4:32

short term thinking, although I would argue you need

4:34

both. You know what I'm saying, Yeah,

4:36

because it's like, because exactly

4:38

when should I get out of the way of the speeding

4:40

car? We don't live to be a thousand that

4:43

is, but I do like you hear it behind

4:45

it, I have a question for you. Would you

4:47

want to live to be a thousand years old if

4:50

we aged like normally and would be

4:52

like you don't turn into the

4:54

dungeon Master from the from

4:57

the cartoon. Uh,

5:00

you mean if it was like a thousand years

5:02

old would be the equivalent of like a hundred Heck,

5:05

yeah, would you really? Why

5:07

not? Well? I can think

5:09

of a lot of reasons why not name one,

5:12

Um, boredom

5:15

you'd be worried about boredom.

5:18

Boredom. I mean, think about all the stuff

5:20

you can do in a century. Now, multiply

5:22

that by ten. There's an

5:25

amount of stuff to do on this planet.

5:28

Well, if you I think everybody

5:30

would end up with huge, massive drug

5:33

problems by age four, you

5:36

might be right, but hey, four year

5:38

old should be able to handle his h

5:44

So okay, despite how you

5:46

feel about living, do a thousand long now

5:48

foundation is Um, they're kind

5:51

of into that way of thinking. Like you said that

5:54

long term thinking can lead to

5:56

short term gain and a good example

5:58

of this is climb it change, right,

6:01

So, UM, I think

6:03

one of the people who are

6:05

on the side of who are in favor

6:08

of taking great action against

6:11

climate change would would

6:13

say that, Um, if

6:16

we can take steps now, if we can think further

6:18

out, then you know, we'd be able

6:20

to mitigate this. But we're not. We're

6:22

thinking about very immediate concerns,

6:25

which some are are reasonable,

6:27

like economic concerns, that kind

6:29

of thing. But it's just two

6:31

schools of thought exactly. So, UM, you can

6:33

kind of understand where the long Now Foundation

6:36

UH would side or sit on

6:38

that. UM, debate. But what

6:40

they figured out is that we

6:44

basically we humans to think like

6:46

this, we need something to um

6:49

lead our minds in that direction, because

6:52

just saying like, man, what's it gonna be like ten

6:54

thousand years from now? It's like who

6:56

cares? You know, I'm thinking

6:59

about food, like

7:01

I am literally right now. I just pose the question,

7:03

and I'm thinking about food already long

7:06

term, right. But if they were saying, like a

7:09

two ft clock in front of me

7:11

that I knew was designed to tick

7:13

off ten thousand years, I

7:16

might take a much longer view of things. A

7:18

beacon, if you will, a beacon. Indeed,

7:20

so the long Now Foundation has

7:23

undertaken its flagship projects and there's a

7:25

bunch of other projects to UM

7:28

called the Clock of the long Now a k a.

7:30

The ten thousand year clock. Very cool,

7:32

Yeah, and I think it's pretty awesome. I

7:35

can tell you're a fan. Well, but if for no

7:37

other reason than to uh

7:40

get attention for for

7:42

their foundation and their their school

7:45

of thought, you know, right, And that's the whole point.

7:47

Like, and it's gotten some pretty good

7:50

attention, I think, Um, A lot

7:52

of people have heard of the ten thousand year clock already.

7:55

UM, But it's actually being

7:57

created. One's already done

8:00

a tabletop version. Yeah,

8:02

tabletop meaning eight ft. But the

8:04

well, the prototype, um, and

8:07

the whole thing was proposed by a guy named

8:09

Danny Hillis. Um back

8:11

in UH

8:14

wrote in a like a Wired

8:16

magazine scenarios article,

8:19

the idea for this, the concept

8:21

behind it, and um, there's been

8:23

coome this kind of rallying cry that he wants

8:25

a cuckoo to come out every millennium.

8:28

Everybody that shows up in every

8:31

article I've read on it, that's

8:33

what they say. That's his thing, like, he wants a cuckoo

8:35

to come out on the millennium. What's crazy is I don't

8:38

see anywhere in here that there

8:40

actually will be a cuckoo. Yeah. I didn't see

8:42

that either. So poor Danny Hillis

8:44

will have to wait. But he's he's the

8:46

guy behind the Long Nail Foundation, right. Yeah.

8:48

The first thing that I noticed when I look at

8:51

any of the writings about them and the long now clock

8:54

is the zero that

8:56

they just placed in front

8:58

of the current year. So

9:00

in when he wrote that article,

9:03

he proposed, you know, not that

9:05

they actually change it, but the way they look at things

9:08

is zero one, nine, nine

9:11

five and Just seeing a date written

9:13

in that way kind of makes me breathe a

9:15

little relief, because all of a sudden,

9:17

twenty twelve doesn't

9:20

look like the future. Oh to one two

9:22

looks like, oh well,

9:25

we got a long way to go, like we're backwater

9:27

Yokel's time wise. Yeah does that make sense? Oh

9:29

yeah, totally, because I think they said we've

9:31

been around, like civilization has been around for ten thousand

9:34

years or so. So essentially

9:36

this clock would represent our entire

9:39

past. Well yeah, moving forward.

9:41

Yeah, it would place us directly

9:44

in the middle of two, which I

9:46

love so which I was curious

9:49

about. Why they're not starting over

9:51

then? Why not started zero years?

9:53

Clark's clock, um

9:57

starts you want to name it a Clark

9:59

it's a millennium

10:00

yea, uh maybe because

10:03

they just they don't want to disrespect

10:05

you know, time served if

10:07

you will. But also so, what they've come

10:09

up with is a clock then that will run

10:12

until the year twelve thousand,

10:15

twelve thousand, twelve twelve thousand

10:17

and fifteen, depending on how how fast they

10:19

can get this thing built. Um,

10:22

but that's their idea, is to come

10:24

up with a ten thousand year clock, the clock that

10:26

will run without human

10:29

intervention for

10:31

ten thousand years one um

10:33

that can be easily understood

10:35

by anybody. Um, which

10:37

I think that they could have done something

10:39

slightly different with the design, Like my eyes

10:41

crossed when I look at like the face.

10:44

Yeah, um, I

10:46

feel like I'm living in zero two one two

10:49

um. But there there's some challenges

10:51

to all this, right, Like there's humans

10:54

haven't really made too many things, um

10:57

that have lasted ten thousand years yet.

11:01

Yeah, why should this be any different? Well,

11:03

you you outlined a couple of the base. I think they have the

11:05

five basic principles they were aiming for, and

11:07

you outlined a couple of them. There to

11:10

work relatively free of regular maintenance?

11:12

Was one? Uh, simple enough to maintain

11:14

that if all of a sudden we

11:17

go into some post apocalyptic

11:19

world where there's no technology, we

11:21

could still maintain it. Right, They were saying they

11:23

estimate it couldn't go back prior to the

11:25

Bronze Age. But as long as we have Bronze

11:28

Age technology, which begin and

11:31

the hallmark of the Bronze Ages metallurgy

11:34

and um in black magic

11:37

and of metal

11:39

or separating ores from metal and

11:41

um uh metal alloys. Okay,

11:44

Well if dude, if we're sent back beyond

11:46

the Bronze Age, then this clock is not gonna matter

11:49

very much. You know what I'm saying. Uh,

11:51

A close inspection of the

11:53

operational principles should reveal

11:56

the principles behind its operation. It's

11:58

a little bit of word play there that sounds

12:01

like Danny hillis and then uh

12:03

what else? No matter when someone comes

12:05

upon it, it should be able to be improved

12:08

upon. And finally it

12:10

should be able to be constructed small

12:13

enough to fit on a table. That's what the prototype.

12:15

So success, Yeah, success,

12:17

And then for the rest of them, they're they're kind of abandoning

12:20

that because, like we said, this thing is going to be

12:22

the one that's being constructed right now, is going to be

12:24

two ft tall. Yes, um,

12:27

but looks like it I have ourselves, um

12:29

powering such a clock. There's

12:33

if you're looking at ten thousand years, I

12:35

think it seems kind of likely

12:37

that civilization will suffer at

12:40

least one collapse, if

12:42

not several, And we

12:45

have no idea how far back humans

12:47

will be set, hopefully not for

12:49

the Bronze Age. But um, so

12:52

this clock needs to somehow gain

12:55

power from the environment, and

12:57

Danny hillis came up with a bunch of different ideas,

12:59

right, like atomic power.

13:02

Yeah, most of that, Uh, that's poor

13:04

manageability and transparency.

13:08

Most of these are scalability Like

13:10

they may have been good ideas, but they're just what too

13:12

large to fit their their

13:14

needs either that there

13:16

either they're too big or they

13:20

there already

13:23

like they're perfect for this clock,

13:25

but you can't use that to power

13:27

Maybe if if something need if something's

13:30

added on that requires more power, t

13:32

s. You already are using all the power you can,

13:35

or you can't scale it up and it wouldn't work the same

13:37

maybe exactly so that would be

13:39

chemical pre stored potential,

13:42

geothermal, tidal, gravitational

13:44

changes, and seismic

13:47

and plate tectonics. Those all had poor

13:49

scalability, so says Hill

13:51

us Um, you can't use pressure

13:54

change because you would need like a bellows or

13:56

a seal. You want this thing to be as um

13:59

simple as possable, because as

14:01

any engineer knows, the more moving parts

14:03

you have, the more parts you have that can

14:05

break down. Um.

14:07

And the flow of water. That's

14:09

a good one, right, there should be water on the on

14:12

the planet for ten thousand years. Sorry,

14:14

you're exposing the clock to water, so

14:17

inherently waters is self defeating

14:20

energy source. Wind. Yeah,

14:22

any kind of exposure to weather. That's why this thing

14:24

is buried inside of a mountain, right, So what

14:26

did he come up with? He came up with two ideas

14:29

to power this humans. That's

14:32

one. Yeah, human winding, that's

14:34

one, a novel idea. The other is

14:36

temperature change, that's right, but

14:38

yeah, he wanted He said his favorite was human

14:41

winding because it fosters responsibility

14:43

for the clock, which is a great, great

14:45

idea, I think, because ultimately the clock is

14:47

for humans, even though it's sequestered in

14:49

a mountain and it can run by itself for ten

14:51

thousand years, if no human ever lays eyes

14:53

on it, it's for humans.

14:56

And we'll explain on that. If it sounds like we're talking

14:59

out above side to our amounts, will explain on

15:01

that by saying doesn't

15:04

need humans. Yet, it doesn't need humans.

15:06

I bet people can't wait. I could just feel

15:09

attention. The hairs

15:11

in the back of their necks bristly. All

15:13

right. So for the prototype, um,

15:15

it's sort of like an old school clock in a way. Uh.

15:18

They used to helical

15:21

weights, Uh, similar to the

15:23

weight gravity systems just like clock towers,

15:25

old clock towers, and they drive the energy

15:27

going up and down these tubes which

15:30

will drive the pendulum, right yeah,

15:32

um. And ultimately the prototype,

15:36

the drive assembly

15:38

as you'd call it, Um, it served

15:40

its purpose. There was a prototype and that it

15:43

said, okay, we need to do something different, and

15:45

they have. But for the prototype, Yeah, there's helical

15:48

weights we're not familiar with, are

15:50

you okay? Um, But

15:52

the the

15:56

prototype also still had like

15:58

a solar synchronizer, which we'll

16:00

talk about later, um,

16:02

and a pendulum, which will also

16:05

get a little more into But the pendulum

16:08

is kind of key to keeping

16:10

the time. We should do that now you want to Yeah,

16:12

yeah, okay. So back in the six D

16:16

people were trying to figure out how to

16:18

keep time better than they have him

16:20

more accurately. UM. And

16:22

somebody a Dutch astronomer.

16:25

Back in the day the best astronomers

16:27

were Dutch Christian holligans.

16:30

He said, hey, why don't you try

16:32

using a pendulum because a pendulum

16:35

has pretty cool property

16:37

and that the only two

16:40

um things that affect

16:42

the swing of a pendulum. Nothing else

16:44

affects the swinging of a Pendlum, not changes in

16:46

temperature, not humidity,

16:49

not anything else except

16:51

the force of gravity and the length

16:54

of the pendulum. I didn't know this well I

16:56

didn't either. Um, if you take

16:58

a pendulum and put it just about

17:00

anywhere on Earth, you're gonna find that the gravitational

17:03

field is is so

17:05

close to the same that a pendulum

17:07

will swing the same way anywhere

17:09

on Earth. So the same rate to right, right,

17:12

So what affects that rate The period,

17:14

which is the amount of time it takes

17:16

for a pendulum to swing all the way from

17:18

one side to the other. So

17:20

not just one side, it's it's both.

17:23

That's a pendulum period. So really

17:25

the only thing that affects it is um,

17:27

the length of the pendulum. Right. The shorter

17:30

the pendulum, the faster uh

17:32

they go. The longer the pendulum usually

17:35

uh, the um the longer it takes.

17:37

And once you get a pendulum going, which doesn't require

17:40

a lot, it will keep going. Yes, it

17:42

takes a very small amount of energy

17:44

input to keep it going, right, yeah, which

17:46

is perfect for something like a ten year

17:48

clock. Right. So if you put a

17:50

pendulum and attached it to something

17:53

called an escapement, right,

17:55

Yeah, this is a part I got confused on. Okay,

17:57

we'll check this out. So you have a pendulum,

17:59

and you've figured out the exact length you need

18:01

for a pendulumce period to take

18:04

one second to tick off one second

18:06

on on a second hand. That's exactly right. So

18:08

you can attach the pendulum to this thing called

18:10

an escapement. An escapement is just like a wheel

18:12

with some gears to it, right, And these

18:15

gears are attached to the second hand, Okay,

18:18

and the escapement is always wanting to go forward,

18:20

but it's being held in place by the pendulum,

18:23

which is attached to an anchor. But we'll just call

18:25

it the pendulum, right, So as the pendulum

18:28

swings one way, the

18:30

escapement gear is being held in place,

18:33

and it's when it swings the other way, which

18:36

is the end of a second, the pendulum

18:38

opens up, allowing the escapement gear

18:40

to take forward one tooth, thus

18:43

moving the second hand forward one

18:45

movement in a second. So

18:49

that's how you do it. And if you're very, very clever,

18:52

you can design the escapement gear

18:54

so that as it moves, as

18:56

it escapes, it also nudges

18:59

that anchor that's a touched to the pendulum, transferring

19:01

energy back to the pendulum to keep it swinging

19:04

and that's basically the basics of a clock,

19:07

mechanical clock, right, and that's what they

19:10

use for the ten thousand year clock too, very smartly

19:12

inappropriately to Yeah. I love how when

19:14

they do design something to work ten thousand years

19:16

they go back to bronze age and well

19:19

this wasn't bronze age, but a lot of just

19:21

old mechanical technology. Well yeah,

19:23

I mean it's I think we've

19:26

advanced in a lot. I mean, if you're gonna

19:28

make a digital clock, yeah we know what we're doing,

19:31

but how are you going to power it? And you

19:33

want to just use some really old,

19:36

perfect technology exactly? That's

19:38

called long thinking, Josh. So

19:40

we've got winding and

19:44

temperature changes, differences in temperature

19:46

changes that are powering this clock, now

19:48

right, that's right, um. And then

19:51

those are the two principles that are powering the

19:53

clock. And there are different parts of the clock

19:55

that need to be powered, like your

19:57

favorite the Geneva wheels, right Yeah,

20:00

Aneva wheel sounds intimidating a Geneva

20:02

drive until you look it up on

20:04

YouTube and see what it is, and

20:06

it's really just um. And it

20:08

can come in all kinds of shapes and in this case,

20:11

it's sort of the shape of a star, and

20:13

it's imagine each point

20:16

of a star has a notch cut in it, and

20:18

sitting underneath that is a is

20:20

a wheel, a drive wheel that spins

20:22

with a peg coming out of it, and

20:25

it slips into the little

20:27

slot on the star, advancing it one little click,

20:29

keeps turning and and spins out of

20:31

it and then by the time it comes back around,

20:33

it slips back into the next one. So it's

20:35

just a slow ticking around

20:38

in a circle. Right, And so there's I

20:40

think twenty of these for the big clock. But

20:43

they're designed with a bunch

20:45

of holes in a pins and holes

20:47

system basically, which essentially

20:50

is making a mechanical Babbage

20:52

Babbage difference engine like an

20:54

early computer, like a punch hole computer.

20:57

Yeah. Right, they use before

20:59

calculators. They is mechanical summers

21:02

or actors, and this is you. But it's adding

21:04

in binary ones and zeros. So

21:06

it's carrying out digital calculations

21:09

through mechanical means, which is astounding.

21:13

And they're using this astounding technology

21:15

to power basically what um in

21:17

this article that we're reading. It's the world's

21:20

slowest computer, and

21:22

that computer is being used to calculate, uh,

21:24

an algorithm that will produce

21:27

a different chime using ten different chimes

21:29

or two bells, um

21:32

so that this thing supposedly will

21:35

never make the same chime twice.

21:37

Yeah. I think the algorithm maxes

21:39

out at three point five million chimes

21:41

of course, designed composed by Brian

21:43

Eno, the ambient music guy, right

21:47

and uh and that that doesn't have anything

21:49

to do with the powering of the clock. That's

21:51

just the chimes. No, but the dirty secret

21:53

of the Long Mouth Foundation is that three point

21:56

five million different possible

21:58

chime tones uh

22:01

or combinations is about ninety thousand

22:03

days short of ten thousand years. Oh

22:06

really, yeah, it wasn't ninety thousand

22:08

days and years. I don't know, you

22:12

have a binary add we

22:15

need some Geneva wheels in here. Stat Well,

22:18

they're not telling anyone that though obviously no they

22:20

did actually wired. Yeah, They're

22:23

like, you know, this thing's not gonna

22:25

chime every day, so I'm sure it'll be

22:27

fine, Okay, But basically

22:30

no one's speaking to probably Needo right

22:32

now. He's been demoted

22:35

to ambient music guy from legendary

22:37

producer. Uh. So the

22:39

prototype, that's the prototype. It's eight ft

22:41

tall roughly eight and a half. It is

22:43

um at the Science Museum

22:46

in London. You can go see it there. And

22:48

it first started ticking on

22:51

December thirty first, nineteen or

22:53

O one if

22:56

you're a long hour, and it worked the

22:58

gong twice at the turn of the millennium

23:01

to indicate that two millenniums

23:03

are now past, which

23:05

is funny because technically the millennium

23:08

didn't start until two one. That's

23:10

true. But they don't care. They

23:12

don't care about a lot of stuff I'm finding out. Uh,

23:16

So let's talk about the real deal when this

23:18

article is written. The real deal was

23:20

just proposed and it was going to be about sixty ft

23:22

tall. That was two years ago. Well,

23:24

that one is the one in Nevada. I think that's still

23:26

gonna be sixty. They

23:29

just decided to start on the Texas one first, gotcha

23:32

because Bezos was like, Hey, here's forty two

23:34

million bucks, can we get started? Well, go ahead and spill

23:36

the means there. I just Jeffrey Bezos,

23:38

founder of Amazon dot com, UH

23:41

is heavily involved in this, to the tune of money

23:43

and UH it being built on

23:45

a mountain inside a mountain in

23:47

West Texas, on his property. Yeah,

23:50

so he he owns it sort of kind

23:52

of. I get the impression that, yes,

23:55

he definitely has This project is his,

23:57

but it's one of many that are going to

23:59

be built around the world, Like they

24:01

got approval to build one in a Smithsonian

24:04

just this past year. Um

24:06

and uh also Bezos by the

24:08

way, he said that the two are unrelated. It's just a

24:10

cool coincidence or whatever. But

24:13

he's also building a spaceport by the

24:15

mountain too, and

24:17

he says that's unrelated to the clock. Yeah,

24:19

he just said, Hey, that's why not

24:22

there's a space port. There's gonna be ten thousand year

24:24

clock. We'll see what happens. But if you want to

24:26

see he's um funding this, uh

24:28

this space program called Blue Origin.

24:31

And you know how like in the fifties, like science

24:33

fiction rockets would like land just

24:36

going straight up and straight down, you

24:38

know, yeah, yeah, Okay, that's

24:40

what his rockets do. And there's you

24:42

can see video of It's the most amazing thing

24:44

I've ever seen that. I'm I'm

24:46

like, is this real? Like we're pretty

24:49

good at after effects these days, it's

24:52

gotta be. I think it's real. You can

24:55

make it happen blue Origin dot com.

24:57

I will I will look that up, sir. So,

24:59

like you said, Bezo says, or the

25:01

one in Texas, I guess is what you should call it.

25:04

The one that's under construction is going to be about two hundred

25:06

feet tall, um, and it's

25:08

kinda it's out in the middle of nowhere, very

25:10

purposefully. Yeah. I think it's hours from the

25:12

nearest airport. It requires

25:14

a full days hike to reach

25:16

the mouth of the cave opening,

25:19

which is like a steel door, and it's a mountain

25:22

rising up from the the desert,

25:24

so you have a fifteen hundred foot climb

25:27

just to get to the steel door the first door.

25:29

So vandals, not only will you be trespassing,

25:32

but you need to be a mountaineer if

25:34

you want to go mess with this thing, which

25:36

we don't encourage one, but they

25:39

have they The first door is going to be

25:41

jade, which is pretty cool. It's gonna be

25:43

hidden behind the rock face, so like you have

25:45

to, I guess you could stumble upon

25:47

it. I think that's part of the idea,

25:49

the fun. Yeah. Um, but you

25:51

will know when you do stumble upon it that there's

25:54

something very cool there because it's going to be a

25:56

carved jade door in the rock face. Well,

25:58

they're gonna open it up when they finish, they said

26:00

they are. But I'm saying, like, if if this if

26:03

the location or the idea or anything you're having

26:05

to do with the clock, it'll still be there

26:08

and people can find it accidentally. Yeah.

26:10

What really bothers me about this is I'm not going to know the

26:12

result. You know,

26:15

if you lived to a thousand, maybe you would,

26:17

but I can't live to ten thousand regardless.

26:20

But does that bother you? Yeah?

26:22

Like I want to know how this ends. I want to know if

26:24

in ten thousand years, if it's still running, Well, what happens

26:27

if if? Okay, so just the clock

26:30

just you don't care what happens like hundred

26:32

years from now, not just the clock. Um,

26:36

So, if you want to access this thing, you go through those

26:39

two doors. It's in complete darkness.

26:41

It's not all lit up, which is kind of cool, right

26:43

because I guess any kind and they don't want any kind

26:45

of electricity to be needed

26:48

obviously why they're building it. They're using stuff

26:50

but for a visitor

26:52

later on, Yeah, exactly, a post Bronze

26:54

age visitor. It's going

26:56

to be housed in a five hundred foot

26:59

tall tunnel about twelve ft

27:01

in diameter, Yeah, a vertical

27:03

tunnel. Yeah, it's like

27:05

a shaft. Basically, it's a twelve

27:07

ft diameter shaft that's five

27:10

ft tall, very tall. And um,

27:12

it's got a very

27:14

precise rock staircase that was carved

27:17

with a robot slicing

27:20

machine. You see video that I think it was

27:22

awesome. And it starts at the top, which is

27:24

cool. Basically it starts

27:26

at the top with this just big hunk

27:28

of rock and just cuts in

27:30

a circle, down, down, down, one stair at

27:32

a time, like the golden ratio kind of nautilus.

27:35

Yeah, very cool. Yeah, And so that's how

27:37

you're gonna access the gears.

27:41

So let's go ahead and get to that. Let's go ahead and get to the counterweights

27:44

at least. Well that's the first thing you would kind

27:46

of come upon if you walked in on this

27:48

thing and it's completed. And the counterweights

27:51

are made up of stone discs, each about

27:53

the size of a car, each waying about

27:55

ten thousand pounds um.

27:57

And we said that winding is

28:00

winding in differences in temperature change

28:03

of the principles that provide energy for this

28:05

clock, but um,

28:07

the weights are what keep it running.

28:11

Um. And when you come upon the weights,

28:13

you're gonna come upon a platform.

28:15

And you know there's like old um

28:18

those old movies or whatever where there's you

28:20

know, slaves or um,

28:23

somebody on a ship and they're having to like

28:25

crank a wheel. Like there's three guys

28:27

like all moving in the same direction, and each one has

28:30

like a pole that is pushing like a

28:32

horizontal wheel. Right. Yeah, they're gonna have one

28:34

of those for visitors to crank,

28:36

and that will raise these enormous

28:39

counterweights and once

28:41

they're fully raised, they'll have enough

28:44

stored potential energy to power

28:46

the clock for about a century

28:49

without a single dash of sunlight or

28:51

another human visitor. So that's essentially

28:53

winding the clock. I think they said two or three

28:55

people it takes to do this, and

28:58

um it what's

29:00

it called a cap stand? I think

29:02

that that is what it's called. It's called a cap stand,

29:04

right, Yeah, that's the horizontal wheel.

29:06

That's yeah. Yeah, so it's

29:08

pretty cool, like it requires human intervention.

29:12

But as we said, and let's go ahead

29:14

and spill the beans how that works. If

29:16

no one came around ever, it

29:18

would still run because of uh

29:20

differences, and it collects sun's

29:23

rays. The prism that sticks

29:25

out at the top a sapphire couple

29:27

of I bet that looks nice. And that's

29:29

the only part that's visible from outside. They

29:31

said, yes, And it collects the

29:33

sun's rays and then

29:36

channels them down through metal rods.

29:38

And the difference in that was it

29:40

the cave, the interior cave temperature and the temperature

29:43

that collects between day and night. It changes

29:45

okay and night, which is pretty ingenious because

29:47

you think about what they're probably

29:49

still will be over ten thousand years, there

29:52

probably will still be day and night.

29:54

Yes, and that's ultimately what powers

29:57

this. Well, they're with no human intervention,

30:00

Yeah, exactly. This dude though, the Alexander

30:03

uh what was his name? Rose? He

30:06

said that what they had to figure out there's something called the

30:08

equation of time, and

30:10

it's not constant, like the Earth

30:12

is slowing its rotation by about a second

30:15

every couple of hundred years, and all this

30:17

stuff sounds like you have a big deal, but when you

30:19

look on a ten thousand of your timeline, it is a big

30:21

deal. Um,

30:23

So the Earth is slowing by about a second every couple

30:25

of hundred years. Uh, it's

30:28

also processing

30:30

on its pole every twenty six

30:32

thousand years, so they have to take that into

30:34

account. And then climate change,

30:37

it's gonna if poles

30:39

continue to melt, water is gonna be pushed out, it's gonna

30:41

rotate even slower. So what they

30:43

figured out there was a variance, Well,

30:46

normally there's a variance of about ten or fifteen

30:49

minutes throughout the course of a year

30:52

from where the Sun should be. And they

30:54

designed this thing too self correct to

30:56

still be able to pick up the Sun's rays. Yeah,

30:59

pretty ingenious, but they needed to do

31:01

it on a ten thousand year scale. So they

31:03

basically formulated this massive

31:05

equation and they figured out

31:07

how time would evolve over ten thousand years

31:10

according to all these variables, and

31:12

they found out it is a plus or minus

31:14

and this worst case scenario with climate change

31:17

of twenty three days from

31:19

where they think the sun should be over ten thousand

31:21

years, which means that the clock is

31:23

way off by the end of the ten

31:26

thousand years. Well, but they accounted for that

31:28

with this equation they did. And the way that they accounted

31:30

for it though, also is through the solar synchronizer.

31:34

So every sunny day

31:36

that um. At

31:39

noontime, the sun will hit

31:41

that prism. We'll heat up this

31:43

little rod that sends a signal

31:46

to the clock center working. So the

31:48

the smart part of the clock that keeps

31:50

time all the time, no matter what um

31:54

and says, hey it's solar noon, and

31:57

they the clocks readjusts

31:59

itself. So the most it's ever

32:01

going to get off is say, you know, however,

32:04

many days or maybe a couple

32:06

of centuries without

32:08

sunlight if there's some sort of horrible nuclear

32:10

winner or whatever. But let's say a couple

32:12

of hundred years without sunlight. The next time

32:14

there's sunlight, it'll say, oh, it's noon,

32:16

and the clock will just readjust itself kind

32:18

of wake back up. Yeah that's crazy, but

32:21

but it will go back to Okay, it's noon now.

32:23

No matter how far it drifted, it will

32:25

now know it's noon. Solar

32:27

nude. It is

32:29

very awesome. And the timber. The differences

32:31

in temperature also, it's it's called the thermoelectric

32:34

effect UM. The

32:36

electrons. If you have a thermoelectric

32:38

device, electrons will go from a hot

32:41

side to the cold side. And

32:43

you know as well as I do that the flow electrons

32:45

equals electricity, that's right,

32:47

So that will keep things in check

32:50

as well. That will keep the inner workings

32:52

powered too. They thought of everything they

32:54

did, and they also thought of ways

32:56

to store energy or to keep from

32:58

using energy, saving energy. He's another way to

33:00

put it, well, yeah, I mean over time. I think they

33:02

said that if the difference

33:05

in temperature is great enough, it will just store

33:07

that temperature and over a timeline.

33:09

If that keeps happening, it won't

33:11

even have to you know, stop and catch

33:13

up. It'll just start operating fully

33:15

mechanically by itself. Right. So here

33:18

in the order of winding exactly,

33:20

So in the order of um

33:23

preference or of importance, the

33:25

solar energy or the diurnal temperature

33:27

change energy UM

33:30

goes from the inner workings of the clock, yes,

33:33

spills over to the weights, yes,

33:36

and then if the weights are wound, then

33:38

you will have the Geneva

33:41

drive operating. Right,

33:43

So it goes basically like the clock

33:45

knowing the correct time, the clock

33:48

operating and showing the correct time or

33:51

whatever information that's supposed to and

33:53

then the clock making sounds. Those

33:55

are the levels of importance as

33:58

far as energy distribution. Sure, yeah, that makes

34:00

sense because the chimes, they gotta come last

34:03

they do. It's nice and all, but they're also

34:05

they're meant for human consumption.

34:08

But if enough of that diurnal

34:10

temperature difference uh energy

34:13

spills over to the weights, then the clock

34:15

will ostensibly um

34:18

be chime when nobody's there. That's pretty

34:20

cool. That's very cool. And next

34:22

to his little rocket station. Right,

34:25

he's got it all. He's got all figured out. Um

34:29

So, while we mentioned the Geneva gears on

34:31

on the on the main uh the two ft

34:34

when they're building these are about eight ft

34:36

in diameter, each one weighing

34:38

about a thousand pounds.

34:41

Yeah, and it's it's pretty remarkable.

34:44

I mean, if you think if you ever been inside a clock tower and seeing

34:46

that, it's like, imagine that times

34:48

twenty. And remember the Geneva drive system

34:50

is the the mechanical computer

34:53

that's come that's calculating the algorithm to

34:55

play the chimes. It's the whole reason it's there,

34:57

that's right, and it's being powered by winding

35:00

or the weights. Winding the weights.

35:03

Uh So, if you keep climbing up in this

35:05

thing, you will get to the primary chamber, and

35:08

that is where you finally see the face

35:10

of the clock, which is the

35:12

most important thing. If you're building a clock, it's also

35:14

gonna be baffling thing. Yeah,

35:16

I mean the face of this clock is uh or

35:20

if it's anything like the prototype,

35:23

it's not like any clock I've ever seen.

35:25

It's very awesome, Like you can clearly say,

35:27

oh, I see the century, and I see them

35:30

the millennium, maybe

35:33

even the year. But like when I get to the star

35:35

field, I imagine like so the starfields

35:37

being displayed, I get that. I think

35:39

that that means that if it were nighttime and you can

35:42

see the star field and you went outside and looked up,

35:44

you would see the same stars, right

35:46

right, Okay, But the horizons

35:49

are what's throwing me off the most.

35:51

The ret r e t e. It

35:54

shows horizons. I don't

35:56

understand what that, what that

35:58

means, or what you're gonna it from that fortunately,

36:02

and I haven't seen it. But supposedly

36:04

there's going to be a manual, some

36:06

sort of explanation. Yeah, I'm sure they'll

36:08

have it, some sort of uh it.

36:10

Once they open it up for people to come visit. There'll

36:12

be some like a little button you push and it

36:14

will be Morgan Freeman's boy explaining

36:17

our works or what the

36:19

horizon means. Um

36:21

If you want to know the time of day, though,

36:23

you have to ask the clock. Chuck I thought

36:26

this was one of the coolest parts of this whole deal because

36:30

they built it to to operate at

36:32

its most frugal over the years,

36:34

obviously, and one thing that you

36:36

don't need is a current read out

36:38

if no one's there to read it. And

36:40

so they says, well, why don't you ask the clock, like

36:42

you said, So whatever

36:45

time you see when you approach the clock

36:47

is the last time that it read

36:50

when someone wound not the

36:52

clock itself, but the clock's face

36:56

right the display the yeah, the clocks. So

36:58

there's two ways to win. The cap stay and that

37:00

raises the weights, and then

37:02

there's the there's a little hand wheel that

37:05

just one single person can do to wind

37:08

the clock the clocks display

37:10

and it'll correct itself and say, we'll ring

37:13

it's now you know whatever time it is. And

37:15

here's the horizon, which Josh doesn't get. Here's

37:18

where the moon and sun phases are, and here's

37:21

what year it is with the zero in the front of it.

37:23

It's pretty cool. So the clock always

37:25

knows what time it is. It's just not necessarily

37:28

displaying it. It's just not gonna tell it's

37:30

asked. Pretty cool, so chuck.

37:32

Um, there's some pretty obvious

37:34

reasons to choose the inside of a mountain

37:36

to put this clock in earthquake

37:39

protection, nuclear bomb protection

37:42

mountains. They're they're long lasting,

37:44

yeah, um. But there's other reasons

37:46

that they chose the interior of a mountain

37:49

as well, Like, um, the differences

37:51

in temperature between seasons and day

37:54

within the mountain um

37:56

are very minimal, which

37:59

means that you're not gonna have a freeze thaw cycle,

38:01

which is apparently very corrosive. Yeah,

38:04

but it's great enough to where you're gonna

38:06

get the energy out of it, right,

38:08

especially at the top. So remember like

38:10

there's the mountain top that from

38:12

the entrance the bottom of the clock,

38:15

the top is five feet, but

38:17

the clocks only two d feet, so the extra

38:19

three feet is above there is where

38:21

the temperature differences will really be

38:24

noticeable. Right. Uh.

38:26

So they've picked a very

38:28

good place. And also the one in Nevada has got similar

38:31

conditions, I think so, which is why they

38:33

picked that high dried desert, highdried desert.

38:35

Uh. And then the parts this is remarkable

38:37

to me, Um, if you're going to construct something at last

38:39

for ten thousand years, you're not gonna

38:42

want to throw a bunch of thirty

38:44

weight oil in there, because oil

38:47

uh has the potential to fail

38:49

and leak, and oil will attract dirt

38:52

like crazy, and little hairs

38:54

in like fuzzy pieces

38:56

of grit over ten thousand years will stop any

38:58

machine from running. So what

39:00

they did was they barring

39:03

from NASA, who originally

39:05

developed ceramic bearings to use

39:07

on satellites. So because

39:09

you don't want to have satellites that need oiling either, uh,

39:12

they used uh ceramic,

39:14

which nowadays can be harder than diamonds.

39:17

Ceramic bearings, like the moving parts are ceramic.

39:20

And remember earlier I said, like humans haven't

39:22

made too many things that have lasted ten thousand

39:24

years. Ceramic pot shirts

39:26

are one example of something. Boom Uh

39:29

we have pot shirts that are like seventeen

39:31

thousand years old, and that's just

39:33

like from a pot. What they're making today

39:36

should be able to last way longer because

39:39

these parts move so slowly they

39:41

don't require any lubrication. So

39:43

the ceramic ball bearings are keeping the metal

39:46

parts away from one another, because if you have

39:48

to like metals that are in contact and

39:50

aren't moving really like the millennium dial

39:53

um basically won't move the whole

39:55

time you or I are alive, children

39:57

are alive. Um. And

39:59

if you have the same kind of metal and like

40:02

one gear touching the other gear, um,

40:05

they're's gonna fuse together. You know. Micro

40:08

vibration. I

40:10

did not enlighten me. No, it's micro

40:12

vibration, Like it's not moving, quote

40:15

unquote, but micro vibration over

40:17

ten thousand years will cause it to weld itself.

40:20

That's pretty cool. And that's if it's a like metal,

40:22

and if they're unlike, they will corrode over

40:25

time in that right, Yeah, it's um

40:27

galvanic corrosion. If they're

40:29

dissimilar metals, they'll just eat into

40:31

each other. So either either way, you don't want these metals

40:33

touch you another. So the ceramic ball

40:36

bearings that don't need any lubrication are perfect.

40:39

It's right. The rest of it is made from three

40:41

sixteen sainless steel, which this

40:43

Alexander guy said that'll last ten thousand

40:45

years. And even if it starts to rust.

40:48

The movements of this clock because it

40:51

moves so slowly, because it's so large

40:54

Um, the the precision

40:56

doesn't need to be like thousands of

40:59

an inch, that's what's cool. It can be like a quarter

41:01

of an inch. Last plenty of room for rust,

41:03

right, so if there is rust, it really doesn't matter.

41:06

And also saw where he said in the video that

41:08

all the gear teeth were cut three

41:10

dimensionally, and uh,

41:13

what that means is it uses

41:16

rollers to roll the gear, so it's a

41:18

rolling mechanism instead of what he

41:20

called a scrubbing friction. So

41:23

I guess a rolling friction is much easier

41:25

on the parts and scrubbing. And um,

41:27

I was reading a Wired article on it, and the

41:29

reporters said that he came upon

41:32

a Geneva wheel, remember their eight feet in diameter.

41:34

Yeah, these are um and

41:37

they had the ceramic ball bearings in

41:39

it and he could turn it

41:41

very easily with just like gentle pressure from

41:43

his finger. So they're going to be working

41:45

just fine. I can't I want to visit this thing when

41:48

it's done, at least I know I won't see the end, but

41:51

I'd like to be there for the beginning. Well you can

41:53

actually you can go join the long Now

41:55

Foundation at long now dot

41:57

org. Right, Yeah, they operate on don't

42:00

nations. I don't think we ever even mentioned.

42:02

It's a private organization and funded

42:04

by people like Bezos.

42:07

And I think the the UM

42:09

basic membership costs

42:11

like eight bucks a month. Um,

42:14

you probably have a pretty good idea of where your

42:16

money is going. Uh,

42:18

their website long now dot org,

42:21

long now dot Oregon. Then there's also now ten

42:23

thousand year clock dot net and that's

42:25

bezos website. Yeah, and there's not

42:27

a whole lot there yet, but no, I

42:29

mean it's just give overview,

42:32

but um, there's there.

42:34

We were left out this one part and the one in

42:36

Texas Bezos is millennium

42:38

Clock. There's gonna be little alcoves,

42:41

different rooms. There's a one year room,

42:43

a ten year room, hundred a

42:46

thousand and ten thousand year room, and

42:48

like they're leaving it to later civilizations to figure

42:50

out what artifact to put in there. But

42:52

in the one year room they're putting the ory which

42:54

tracks the motion of the calculates

42:57

the movement of the planets, and

42:59

it also is an animation of

43:01

I think Voyager two on this

43:04

grand tour of like some of the outer planets.

43:07

UM. And that's going into one year and

43:09

they're going to figure out what to put in the tenure. So

43:11

they're soliciting um

43:13

ideas from any if

43:16

you have an idea of what you what should be put in

43:18

the ten year alcove. But I

43:20

guess some of that stuff would require electricity

43:22

though, right, I know, I don't

43:25

think so now, I don't think any of

43:27

it's going to or if it does,

43:29

it will just be a thermoelectricity.

43:32

Right, So

43:35

I feel like we covered that pretty well. Yeah,

43:38

ten year clock. I mean it's a

43:40

way more basic than it

43:42

appears like when you first look at it.

43:44

It's like simple gears moving pendulum

43:47

swinging. It's also going up and fully

43:49

and genius. Though, Yeah, the way they put

43:51

it together overcame problems that it

43:54

may not encounter for thousands of very

43:57

smart, dudish indies. If

43:59

you want to learn more about the ten thousand year

44:01

clock, you can type in ten thousand year clock

44:03

in the search bart how stuff works

44:05

dot com And that I

44:07

said search bar, So that means it's

44:10

time for listener mail. That's

44:13

right, Josh, I'm gonna call this the

44:15

cone snail saved my life. Yes,

44:18

remember when we talked about the cone snail in

44:21

the Venom podcast No,

44:24

it wasn't venom. What was it? It was? Probably?

44:28

Was it just called venom? No, it's like,

44:30

what's the most venomous animal on earth? That's

44:32

right? This from David Miami.

44:34

Hey, guys, love the show. I recently listened to the

44:36

show on venom and you mentioned the cone

44:39

snail. Five years ago, cone snail

44:41

venom saved my life.

44:43

Was diagnosed with cancer and due to the

44:45

cancer chronic pain. After many

44:47

years have failed attempts to control my pain with conventional

44:50

medication, I was extremely frustrated

44:52

and still suffering intolerable pain. Luckily,

44:55

I found out about the ziconotide

44:58

cone snail venom because remember

45:00

I think we talked about scorpion venom being used

45:03

in cancer. Yeah, that's right, okay.

45:05

Uh. The only problem with using the cone snail venom

45:07

to control pain is that I needed an

45:09

implant. It can't be taken in pill form.

45:12

One needs to be implanted with a hockey puck

45:14

sized implant that slowly releases

45:17

the medication into my intrathecal

45:19

fluid. What which is the fluid

45:21

surrounding the spinal cord? I might be pronouncing

45:23

it wrong. Every three months,

45:25

I need to go in for a refill so using a small

45:28

needle. This guy's like Iron Man. The

45:30

doctor refills the pump that's inside

45:32

of his body with Cone Snail venom.

45:34

It has been a godsend and greatly improved

45:37

my quality of life and some days

45:39

I am completely pain free. That is

45:41

cool. So David Miami, kudos

45:44

to you, sir and continued good health. Hats

45:46

off to your medical pioneering. Absolutely,

45:49

what's old is new again and thank you Cone Snail.

45:51

Yeah, thanks Cone Steele. Uh

45:54

let's see if you have an

45:57

email about a past episode

46:00

and how it affected your life. We always want

46:02

to hear that kind of thing. Sure, you

46:04

can tweet to us at s y

46:07

s K Podcast. That's our handle. Um,

46:09

you can enjoin us on Facebook at facebook

46:11

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46:14

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46:22

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46:24

It's over on the left side under our picture.

46:26

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46:28

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46:30

out once a week, right, is it something

46:33

like that? It's it has like our links

46:35

to some of our favorite articles Just cool Stuff.

46:37

Link to the newest episode, It's

46:40

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46:42

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46:44

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46:46

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46:50

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46:56

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