Jeff Bezos-Backed Group Starts Excavating 10,000-Year Clock in Texas

贝索斯资助团队在德克萨斯州开凿万年钟 要在数千年的文明兴衰中存续，必须弃用电子介质和气密封装，转而采用机械二进制逻辑、被动重力排水以及访客手动上弦。 Alexander Rose阐述了在西德克萨斯州一座山体内建造“万年钟”（Clock of the Long Now）的构想起源与机械挑战，该时钟旨在持续运行一万年。团队汲取了历史建筑、地下地窖和核废料库的经验教训，摒弃了传统钟表机构，转而采用数字二进制机械计算、太阳同步、陶瓷轴承以及被动重力排水系统。讲座还介绍了地下挖掘过程——包括使用重达8吨的机器人金刚石链锯在石灰岩中直接雕凿出一条250英尺高的螺旋阶梯——并介绍了基金会的相关项目，如微蚀罗塞塔圆盘（Rosetta Disc）档案。 今日永存基金会（Long Now Foundation）已在西德克萨斯州的一座白云石石灰岩山体内开始建造全尺寸万年机械钟；该项目由杰夫·贝索斯（Jeff Bezos）资助并按季度进行审查，未设定固定的截止日期或预算上限。 (39:54) 挖掘250英尺地下垂直竖井时，采用了反井钻机以及一台重达8吨、配备9英尺金刚石链锯的定制数控机械臂，直接在天然岩石中雕琢出一条螺旋阶梯。 (36:41) 为实现长达数千年的寿命，该机构消除了滑动摩擦，采用二进制数字机械计算取代模拟齿轮传动，并使用了陶瓷轴承、滚动摆线齿轮以及用于驱动15英尺石轮的步进挠性轴承。 (27:35) 基础计时所需的动力通过昼夜温差被动产生，而到访的参观者必须通过人力手动上弦，才能使显示表盘与当前时间同步。 (45:53)

To counter modern society's neglect of multi-generational challenges, the Long Now Foundation is constructing a 10,000-year mechanical clock inside a West Texas mountain. Executive Director Alexander Rose outlines how the project synthesizes deep-time archaeological precedents, unlubricated mechanical engineering, and active human stewardship to outlast civilizational churn. Historical Precedents and the Threat of Obsolescence (7:51) Artifacts that endure over millennia typically rely on specific survival modes: accidental loss in protective environments (such as the Antikythera mechanism), overwhelming mass with sacrificial 'ablative' wealth (the Great Pyramids and the looted jewels of the Taj Mahal), or continuous institutional maintenance (Cologne Cathedral and the 20-year rebuilding cycle of Japan's Ise Shrine). Rose identifies the most perilous phase for any monument as the 'chasm of obsolescence'—the 50 to 100 years after its creators die, when an object is no longer novel but has not yet become a revered antique. Surviving this intermediate window often requires accidental utility, as when the Eiffel Tower escaped planned demolition by serving as a radio and television antenna. Beyond functional neglect, ideological destruction represents an existential hazard. The Taliban's targeted demolition of the 6th-century Buddhas of Bamiyan demonstrates that even ancient, benign monuments can be obliterated if future societies perceive them as ideologically offensive. To mitigate human-driven harm, the clock incorporates a remote location requiring a deliberate pilgrimage, sacrificial outer layers, and a 'ship-in-a-bottle' subterranean layout whose components cannot be easily extracted or scavenged. Subterranean Mining and Passive Water Management (19:05) Constructing the clock's underground chambers in dolomite limestone required combining civil mining technology with high-precision quarrying robotics. Workers excavated a 12-foot-7-inch-diameter, 250-foot vertical shaft using a raise bore rig previously employed in the 2010 Chilean mining rescue. To avoid blasting fractures that would ruin fine structural work, an eight-ton robotic arm fitted with a nine-foot diamond-toothed chainsaw blade was deployed to carve a continuous, cantilevered spiral staircase directly into the living rock wall over an estimated year of continuous CNC runtime. Investigations into long-term repositories, including the permafrost-based Svalbard Global Seed Vault and the LDS Church's nuclear-hardened Granite Mountain Records Vault, revealed that subterranean moisture cannot be permanently sealed out. Both facilities experienced flooding and required retrofitted pumps or trenches. Consequently, the Texas clock relies entirely on passive gravity drainage: every room and horizontal tunnel slopes downward toward the mountain exterior, and the staircase steps are cut with an uncorrected droop to channel condensation harmlessly along the perimeter walls and out the lower drift. Materials and Mechanics Engineered for Millennial Wear (30:41) Standard mechanical movements fail over millennial horizons due to lubricant degradation, metal wear, and oxidation. Liquid lubricants are excluded entirely because they flow away and collect abrasive debris. Instead, the clock relies on aerospace-derived ceramic bearings to eliminate microwelding under heavy static loads, prevent galvanic corrosion between stainless steel alloys, and operate unlubricated across an estimated 15 billion escapement cycles. For the slowest-moving display—a 15-foot stone wheel that completes a single revolution in 10,000 years—engineers avoided traditional rolling bearings altogether, designing a 'walking bearing' composed of alternating metal flexures that transfer weight sequentially without sliding friction. To preserve computational accuracy across millennia without wear-induced backlash drift, the clock abandons continuous analog gear trains in favor of a binary digital mechanical adder utilizing two-state levers. Drawing on corrosion studies from the Yucca Mountain nuclear repository, critical components employ substantial operating slacks—up to half an inch on the chime carillon—so mechanisms continue to clear even after heavy surface oxidation. High-precision escapement elements substitute metal with sapphire and advanced ceramics. Hybrid Power, Solar Tracking, and Ritual Stewardship (45:53) The clock avoids continuously driving heavy display dials, dividing power between environmental capture and direct human input. Baseline timekeeping is powered by daily diurnal temperature differentials harvested at the mountaintop, which provide just enough energy to keep the escapement and pendulum oscillating. A falling weight stores roughly a century of energy dedicated exclusively to Brian Eno's algorithmically sequenced 10-bell chime carillon. The massive planetary and calendar dials advance only when visitors supply physical winding energy, displaying the exact time of the previous visit until wound forward to the present moment, thereby demanding active human engagement. Solar synchronization corrects cumulative mechanical drift at solar noon on clear days. To account for planetary dynamics—such as the 26,000-year precession of the equinoxes, Earth's rotational deceleration, and polar ice shifts that NASA JPL models show could drift tracking by up to 23 days—the mechanism uses an expendable 10,000-year cam follower and thermomechanical sensors. Precession is also directly reflected on the face, where an off-axis rotating hemisphere will track the slow celestial migration of the northern pole star from Polaris to Vega over the next 13,000 years. The Clock of the Long Now serves primarily as an imaginative instrument rather than a utilitarian timekeeper, prioritizing physical accessibility over the environmental safety of outer space. Rose acknowledges that while physical materials can be tested against millennial wear, the greatest unknown remains cultural: whether any guiding institution, linguistic archive like the Rosetta Disc, or generational tradition can preserve human memory and continuity over 400 unbroken generational handoffs.

Long Now Foundation 执行总监 Alexander Rose 提出，为了应对气候变化与教育等需要数十年甚至数百年才能解决的文明级议题，人类需要突破短期政治周期，通过建造一座万年机械钟来唤起深层时间意识。该项目将历史存续策略、严苛的地下工程学与数字机械计算相结合，旨在打造一个跨越万年仍能运转并与公众互动的文化象征物。 深层时间意识与历史存续策略 (2:18) 万年钟构想源于计算机科学家 Danny Hillis 与 Stewart Brand 等人的讨论，其灵感包括牛津大学新学院（New College）在14世纪建造大厅时便提前种植用于500年后替换横梁的橡树林传说。为应对现代社会对缓慢议题的忽视，团队确立了面向未来一万年（约400个人类世代）的时间尺度，以匹配自农业诞生以来的文明史跨度。为使人造物抵御岁月侵蚀，团队梳理了历史上的存续范式：例如安提基特拉机械因沉入海底等极端保护环境而得以偶然留存；吉萨大金字塔与泰姬陵依靠巨大的物理体量或可牺牲的“烧蚀装甲”（如被剥离的外层石灰岩与镶嵌宝石）转移破坏力以保全核心；科隆大教堂与圣家堂则依靠数个世纪不间断的营造与修缮维持生命力。 在社会学维度，Rose 指出文物在建成后50至100年面临最大的生存鸿沟——此时它已不再时髦，却尚未成为受保护的古董，极易因审美过时而遭拆除（如旧金山的维多利亚式住宅）。埃菲尔铁塔凭借偶然的广播天线功能渡过了被拆除的危险期；日本伊势神宫则通过每20年拆解并完全仿造重建的仪式，保持木构工艺和代际记忆延续超过千年。此外，巴米扬大佛遭塔利班炸毁的教训表明，深时间结构必须尽量避免陷入特定政治或宗教意识形态的冲突。 地下极端环境的被动工程法则 (15:54) 在考察尤卡山核废料库、芬兰 Onkalo 核废料库、斯瓦尔巴全球种子库及摩门教花岗岩山档案库等长期地下设施后，团队总结出关键的地下设计原则：严禁依赖主动密封来阻挡地下水。无论斯瓦尔巴种子库因冷凝水出现的地表径流，还是摩门教防核档案库经历的三次水灾，都证明在万年尺度上地下水无法被彻底封堵。得克萨斯州西部的万年钟地下工程完全依赖无动力的重力导流设计，所有地下洞室与平硐均向山体外部倾斜；用于开凿竖井250英尺螺旋楼梯的定制8吨数控金刚石链锯甚至刻意保留了微小的下垂切角，使台阶微向外倾斜，引导渗水沿岩壁流至底部隧道排出。 机械元件的选材同样考量了极端氧化与磨损。虽然尤卡山的研究提供了两千年罗马上等火山灰混凝土的配方与镍基高温合金腐蚀模型，但金属在空气环境中的万年退化数据仍不完备。为此，钟体机械采用了双重设计余量：虽然零件加工精度达到0.005英寸，但如报时系统的关键传动结构预留了高达0.5英寸的操作间隙，以防氧化锈蚀阻卡；高摩擦接触面则采用蓝宝石与先进工程陶瓷。陶瓷轴承无须液体润滑剂，既避免了润滑油招引灰尘或流失，又彻底消除了重载长期静止下的微动磨损熔焊（microwelding）及异种金属间的电化学腐蚀。 数字机械计算与天文纠偏机制 (27:35) 传统模拟钟表依靠连续旋转的齿轮啮合传递运动，其齿形在数百万次循环中不可避免地产生材料磨损，累积的侧隙误差会摧毁万年级别的计算精度。为解决这一难题，Hillis 与团队采用了完全数字化的二进制机械计算架构，利用双稳态杠杆（0和1）进行机械加法运算，实现无磨损积累的计算保真度。在此基础上，时钟在正午通过山顶采光井的热机械传感器进行太阳对时。然而，地球自转面临严苛的天文摄动：地轴存在约26,000年的岁差运动，地球自转以每世纪约1至2秒的速度减慢，而极地冰川消融引发的质量再分配更导致自转惯量出现极端波动，NASA喷气推进实验室（JPL）计算出可能累积产生正负23天的太阳视位置漂移。团队将这些长期可预测的天文轨道变化物理编码在一个复杂的三维凸轮上，由机械随动件以一万年为周期扫描该凸轮，实现绝对时间的自主纠偏。 钟体在缓慢运转机制上也进行了根本革新。对于一万年仅旋转一整圈的15英尺巨型石质指示轮，任何传统滚动轴承在数毫米每年的极低转速下都会因集中应力压陷滚道。工程师设计了一种无滚动元件的“行走挠性轴承”（walking flexure bearing），通过交替弯曲的金属弹性叶片在弹性屈服极限内顺序转移负荷，彻底消除了滑动摩擦与滚道磨损。针对报时机构，团队利用 Brian Eno 设计的编钟算法及二十层日内瓦轮堆栈，使钟体在万年内每日敲响不同的排列组合，可产生超过350万种不重复的音序。 混合动力拓扑与公众仪式设计 (45:53) 万年钟在能源供给上并未采用单一的超长重锤持续下坠模式，而是设计了一种混合分工架构。山顶利用昼夜温差产生热膨胀动力，仅提供极其微弱的能量以维持擒纵机构和摆轮的持续基础计时，其间擒纵机构每十秒动作一次，在一万年中累计循环约150亿次。由于传统时钟的滴答声源于擒纵叉撞击产生的机械冲击破坏，团队在原始设计中消除了机械噪音，后为满足听觉体验特意增加了受控共鸣鼓轮。 与之相对，带动沉重星空盘、行星显示器以及报时机构运行的能量并不由环境提供，而是特意留给到访的人类。当访客历经偏远跋涉进入得克萨斯山脉深处时，盘面显示的依然是上一位访客离开时的停滞时间；唯有通过访客手动绞盘上弦，中央重锤被提升（储存约一个世纪的能量），时钟才会实时计算出中途流逝的岁月，并顺次鸣响钟声。Rose 强调，这一设计汲取了原型机陈列于伦敦科学博物馆隔绝于玻璃之后的反思，旨在将无意识的时计机器转变为必须依靠代际仪式与人类直接接触才能唤醒的意义载体，正如作为文明语言备份的“罗塞塔磁盘”一样，依赖光学放大而非数字解码，以保证最底线的信息可读性与启蒙价值。 万年钟项目并不以追求按期竣工或精确工程预算为导向，而是由 Jeff Bezos 等资助人按季度审议，重点在于探索人类在极深时间尺度下的技术与文化连续性。然而，正如 Rose 所承认的，金属在万年大气环境中的腐蚀预测仍具不确定性，且人类历史尚无任何单一非宗教世俗机构能够维持一万年运作；即便留下如同日本海啸石般的永恒物质警示，未来的文明能否理解并重视前人的遗赠，仍是一个无法由工程学单独解决的悬案。

## Background 该视频由 SETI 研究所（SETI Institute）于 2011 年 6 月 2 日在 YouTube 平台发布，属于 SETI 每周系列研讨会讲座。视频描述介绍，20 年前计算机科学家丹尼·希利斯构想了一座纪念碑规模的慢速机械钟作为长远思考的图腾，在经历原型制造与多年论证后，全尺寸万年钟已正式动工开建，项目总监亚历山大·罗斯将在讲座中全面解析万年钟（Clock of the Long Now）的工程方法与建造历程。 ## TL;DR 今日长远基金会执行总监亚历山大·罗斯深入探讨了建造一座运转一万年的巨型机械钟背后的哲学起源与硬核工程挑战。讲座从牛津大学橡木梁等历史存续先例切入，系统总结了人类跨越千年的工程经验与设计法则，阐述了团队如何摒弃传统模拟齿轮而采用二进制机械计算架构、无润滑陶瓷轴承及柔性行走轴承以应对万年磨损。随后，罗斯分享了在得克萨斯州利用巨型数控链锯机器人在地下岩体内凿出 250 英尺螺旋步道等真实开工进展，并结合罗塞塔语言存档项目与现场问答，阐释了万年钟作为唤醒人类跨世代长远思考文化图腾的核心意义。 ## Atmosphere & style 整场讲座兼具宏大深邃的哲学思辨与脚踏实地的硬核机械工程感，氛围严谨而充满极客式的幽默与哲理。罗斯叙事平实而自信，将上千年的历史轶事、地下水防渗的现实困境与前沿材料科学信手拈来，让观众仿佛置身于一场横跨万年时空的思想漫游。现场听众与科学家的互动提问极具针对性，最终在 SETI 主持人赠送“防破坏马克杯”的会心笑声中收尾，给人带来强烈的智识启发与面向未来的宏大敬畏感。 ## Bulletin - [34:56](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nphxoUxSvgY&t=2096s) 万年钟项目正于西得克萨斯地下基岩中施工，采用反井钻机开掘直径约12.6英尺、深数百英尺的垂直竖井，并配备8吨重金刚石链锯数控机器人雕刻出250英尺长的人行螺旋阶梯。 - [27:15](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nphxoUxSvgY&t=1635s) 为避免模拟齿轮累积磨损造成的指数级走时漂移，该钟采用机械二进制加法逻辑，并通过热力学追踪机构与定制三维凸轮抵消地轴岁差及冰川融化导致的23天正午偏差。 - [45:53](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nphxoUxSvgY&t=2753s) 在动力与交互层面，时钟由昼夜温差热能自主驱动核心走时机构，高耗能的指针显示与Brian Eno编排的350万种不重样鸣钟乐曲则依赖访客手动上条触发。 - [41:06](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nphxoUxSvgY&t=2466s) 团队将配套的“罗塞塔计划”语言磁盘用镓离子束刻入镍合金薄片（单片容纳13,500页微缩内容），只需普通光学放大镜即可阅读，该装置已搭载于欧空局罗塞塔探测器上。 ## Key takeaways - [04:05](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nphxoUxSvgY&t=245s) 现代社会日益加速的技术循环导致长期规划能力丧失，万年钟旨在以跨越400代人的时间标尺唤起人类对教育、气候和资源等长远议题的思考。 - [07:51](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nphxoUxSvgY&t=471s) 古代人工造物的存续经验展示了三种不同路径：被遗忘在稳定环境中（安提基特拉机械）、超大体量与牺牲性外层（泰姬陵、金字塔），以及无休止的建造修缮（科隆大教堂）。 - [11:09](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nphxoUxSvgY&t=669s) 建筑物最容易被摧毁的脆弱阶段是落成后50到100年间，此时制造者离世而物品尚未成为公认文物，往往因被视为落伍而遭拆除（如旧金山维多利亚建筑）。 - [13:26](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nphxoUxSvgY&t=806s) 通过制度化的代际重构仪式（如日本伊势神宫每20年重建迁宫），有机材料和古老技艺同样能实现超越千年的保存。 - [19:05](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nphxoUxSvgY&t=1145s) 地下极端长寿命工程的铁律是绝不能盲目假设能够绝对防水，而必须顺应水流走向进行定向疏导（如斯瓦尔巴种子库与摩门教档案库的水患教训）。 - [23:18](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nphxoUxSvgY&t=1398s) 长周期工程最大的潜在敌人是不可预测的人类意识形态冲突（如巴米扬大佛被毁），因此设计需尽量剥离特定宗教与政治符号。 - [24:15](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nphxoUxSvgY&t=1455s) 丹尼·希利斯为时钟确立了五大核心设计原则：长寿性、可维护性、机制透明性、可演化性以及从小尺度平滑过渡的可扩展性。 - [29:52](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nphxoUxSvgY&t=1792s) 为消除传统连续齿轮带来的材料磨损与累积误差，万年钟计算单元彻底转向只有稳态极限位置的机械二进制架构。 - [32:21](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nphxoUxSvgY&t=1941s) 在材料科学层面，常规润滑剂干涸会引发微冷焊与电偶腐蚀，团队全面引入耐磨且电绝缘的高性能特种陶瓷轴承。 - [33:25](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nphxoUxSvgY&t=2005s) 万年钟显示轮运用基于柔性铰链形变的“行走轴承”，利用金属弹性弯曲交替承托，实现一万年仅转动一圈且完全无滑动磨损。 - [41:06](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nphxoUxSvgY&t=2466s) 罗塞塔语言档案研究表明，图形象形文字在缺乏文化语境时极难破解，表音文字体系反而更有利于千年后的跨代破译。 - [48:23](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nphxoUxSvgY&t=2903s) 时钟的擒纵机构设计为极为轻柔的完全无声运转，以避免机械冲击自毁；为了人类心理感知，团队特意加装独立共振轮来模拟制造“滴答”声。 - [53:03](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nphxoUxSvgY&t=3183s) 面对万年尺度的自然氧化，团队在关键传动链条中放宽至高达半英寸的宏观运行容差，并结合蓝宝石、陶瓷与钛合金防止硬咬合损伤。 - [50:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nphxoUxSvgY&t=3000s) 万年钟必须实体落成于地球并对公众开放，其存在意义在于提供一个人类能肉身前往并亲手触碰的长远文明图腾，而非仅仅漂浮在太空中。 ## Detailed walkthrough ### [00:10](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nphxoUxSvgY&t=10s) 讲者介绍：亚历山大·罗斯与今日长远基金会 SETI 每周系列研讨会迎来了一位特别的演讲嘉宾——来自旧金山今日长远基金会（The Long Now Foundation）的执行总监兼万年钟项目总监亚历山大·罗斯（Alexander Rose）。罗斯在 1997 年成为今日长远基金会的第一位正式员工。在此之前，他曾在硅谷图形公司（Silicon Graphics, SGI）担任驻场艺术家，毕业于艺术中心设计学院（Art Center College of Design），并获得了卡内基梅隆大学工业设计专业的文学学士学位。在基金会任职期间，他参与并开创了多个具有深远影响的项目，包括旨在保护濒危语言的罗塞塔项目（Rosetta Project）、预测未来的长期赌注项目（Long Bets Project），以及备受好评的“长远思考”（Long-Term Thinking）系列研讨会。 除了作为长远思考的践行者，罗斯还是一位资深的机器人技术发烧友。他的机械创作曾亮相于火人节（Burning Man），他也多次参与竞技机器人格斗赛事《机器人大讲堂》（BattleBots），并且是机器人格斗联盟（Robot Fighting League）的创立者之一。本次讲座中，罗斯将聚焦于基金会最具代表性的核心工程——建造一座能持续运转一万年的巨型机械钟（The 10,000-Year Clock），分享其背后的设计哲学与工程进展。 - 亚历山大·罗斯（Alexander Rose）：今日长远基金会第一位员工（1997年入职）、执行总监兼万年钟项目总监。 - 学术与艺术背景：卡内基梅隆大学工业设计学士、艺术中心设计学院、SGI 驻场艺术家。 - 参与及发起的项目：罗塞塔项目（Rosetta Project）、长期赌注（Long Bets）、长远思考系列研讨会。 - 业余跨界：火人节机械装置、BattleBots 参赛选手、机器人格斗联盟（Robot Fighting League）创始人。 --- ### [02:15](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nphxoUxSvgY&t=135s) 牛津大学新学院的橡木梁：被遗忘的长远眼光 罗斯以一个在基金会流传已久的经典故事开启了演讲。虽然关于这个故事的真实性有不同考据，但它所揭示的真理始终如一。这个故事最初由人类学家格雷戈里·贝特森（Gregory Bateson）讲述给《全球概览》（Whole Earth Catalog）创办人斯图尔特·布兰德（Stewart Brand），随后布兰德又将其转述给了计算机科学家丹尼·希利斯（Danny Hillis）。 故事发生在牛津大学新学院（New College, Oxford）。该学院的大厅建于 14 世纪（1300 年代），其屋顶由横跨中央大厅的巨大橡木梁支撑。到了 19 世纪（1800 年代），历经 500 年的岁月侵蚀，这些橡木梁逐渐腐烂并遭到了甲虫的蛀蚀。校方面临着前所未有的危机：在当时工业化时期的欧洲，市面上已经根本找不到体量如此庞大、年份如此悠久的橡木来替换梁木。正当大家一筹莫展时，学校的林务官却给出了出人意料的回答：“我们有你们种的树。”原来，在 500 年前大厅落成之时，当时的人们就遵循着古老的林业传统，种下了一整片橡树林，目的就是为了确保数百年后后人需要更换大梁时有材可用。罗斯指出，正是这种跨越数个世纪的远见与规划，在当今短视的现代社会中彻底消失了。 --- ### [04:05](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nphxoUxSvgY&t=245s) 从并行计算到万年钟：今日长远理念的诞生 作为一名顶尖的计算机科学家兼博学发明家，丹尼·希利斯曾与理查德·费曼（Richard Feynman）合作研发出“思维机器”（Thinking Machines）公司的连接机（Connection Machine），推动了大规模并行处理计算的前沿进展。然而，当希利斯在微秒与纳秒级越来越快的计算领域不断深耕时，他愈发意识到，人类社会正系统性地忽视那些发展极其缓慢的领域。 罗斯引述希利斯的洞察强调，世界上许多最关键的挑战根本无法在选举周期的短时间框架内解决：教育问题、气候变化、环境危机、监狱制度改革以及消除饥饿，都需要以 50 年、100 年乃至更长的时间尺度来应对。“there's while there's a lot of things that need to happen very fast there's actually a lot of problems in the world that can only be solved if you operate on a much slower time frame things like education climate change environmental issues uh prison systems hunger none of these things can be solved in a next election Horizon kind of time time frame and in fact you have to attack them on a 50 to 100 or more year time frame in order to have any uh hope of solving them,” 罗斯转述道。 为了打破这种短视思维，希利斯构想了一座宏伟的纪念碑式机械钟：它每年滴答跳动一次，每个世纪敲钟鸣响一次，每个千年布谷鸟报时装置才弹出一次，以此作为人类“长远思考”的文化象征。布兰德得知后进一步提出，单有引人注目的象征物还不够，必须配套建立某种信息服务体系，帮助人类文明在相同的宏大时间轴上认识自身。随后，英国音乐家兼艺术家布莱恩·伊诺（Brian Eno）提出了“长远当下”（The Long Now）这一核心概念——他发现从英国搬到纽约后，纽约人口中的“现在”与英国人所指的大相径庭，现实中存在着只顾眼前的“短暂当下”（Short Now）与着眼深远的“长远当下”（Long Now）。随后，未来学家彼得·施瓦茨（Peter Schwartz）在探讨中确立了万年钟的时间跨度：以人类走出末次冰期、农业在世界各地萌芽、人类文明成型的过去 10,000 年为参照，万年钟应向前走动一万年。 ```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: 万年钟项目起源与思维演变架构 accDescr: 展示从牛津橡木梁启示到希利斯提出万年钟构想，再到布兰德、伊诺与施瓦茨确立“今日长远”理念的演进流程 subgraph Origin["历史启示与技术反思"] A["牛津新学院橡木梁故事<br/>（500年林业长远规划）"] --> B["丹尼·希利斯反思<br/>（并行计算越快，社会思考越短视）"] end subgraph Proposal["核心构想提出"] B --> C["纪念碑式机械万年钟<br/>年滴、世纪敲、千年报时"] end subgraph Expansion["理念扩展与定型"] C --> D["斯图尔特·布兰德<br/>文明信息配套服务"] C --> E["布莱恩·伊诺<br/>提出概念：Long Now（长远当下）"] C --> F["彼得·施瓦茨<br/>确立标尺：10,000年文明跨度"] end Expansion --> G["全机械 10,000 年钟工程目标<br/>跨越约 400 代人的社会叙事"] ``` - 核心矛盾：计算技术日益提速（纳秒级） vs. 社会关键问题需要极其缓慢的时间轴（50至100年以上）。 - 万年钟初衷参数：每年走动一次（tick）、每百年报时一次（bong）、每千年布谷鸟报鸣一次。 - 尺度定位：不同于 SETI 面向的百亿年天文尺度或百万年地质尺度，万年钟锁定在人类世代的“人类世”（Anthropocene）尺度。 - 世代传达：以当前人类代际繁衍计算，10,000 年约等于 400 代人；项目的本质是探索如何让一个故事在口口相传 400 次之后，依然能够保持原貌与意义。 --- ### [07:51](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nphxoUxSvgY&t=471s) 超越时间的生存策略：古代遗存的技术启示 为了让万年钟在物理与文化层面存续一万年，罗斯及其团队深入研究了历史上古老造物能够留存至今的先例与法则，并总结出几种截然不同的生存策略： 第一种策略是“遗忘与巧合发现”（Being Lost）。古希腊的安提基特拉机械装置（Antikythera Mechanism）距今已有 2,000 多年历史，是罗斯最钟爱的例证。打捞出水之初，学者们虽知道它是一台钟表装置，但仅意识到它将人类已知发明差速齿轮等技术的时间点向前推进了 500 到 1,000 年。直到近年高精度 X 射线断层扫描技术的出现，人们才彻底复原并证实它是一台精密复杂的全天文钟。这种物品能留存至今，核心策略反而是“被人类彻底遗忘”——它必须沉睡在恰到好处的化学物理环境中，并在数千年后被具备解读能力的人重新发掘与认知。罗塞塔石碑（Rosetta Stone）亦是如此，虽然拿破仑的士兵敏锐地辨认出了其价值，但人类仍花费了半个世纪的技术攻关才破译其文字内容。 第二种策略是“烧蚀性装甲”（Ablative Armor）与超大体量。埃及金字塔虽然外层精美的饰面石在过去五个世纪被剥去作为建材，内部随葬品在建成一个世纪内就被洗劫一空，但由于其无比庞大的体量与牺牲外层的机制，其核心金字塔结构得以永久存续。同样的逻辑出现在泰姬陵（Taj Mahal）上：泰姬陵通体镶嵌着宝石，历史上多次遭到洗劫，最后英殖民者花费了漫长时间逐一撬下墙上的名贵宝石（许多后来成为英国王室王冠珠宝）。正是因为盗劫者耗费巨量精力去掠夺这些超高价值的“外层附着物”，建筑主体反而免遭摧毁，并在洗劫完成后被整体保留下来。罗斯将这种把可剥夺的高价值物品暴露在外、从而保护主体不被毁灭的机制称为“烧蚀性防御技术”。 第三种策略是“漫长建造与持续维护”（Endless Construction & Maintenance）。德国科隆大教堂（Cologne Cathedral）始建于 1248 年，直至 1880 年代才大致完工，至今已有七百余年，脚手架依然林立，处于永无休止的修缮维护之中。西班牙巴塞罗那的高迪圣家堂（Sagrada Família）也展现了同样的模式——开工已逾百年，距离彻底完工可能还需要数十年乃至上百年。这种将建造过程融入社会机能、让一代代人不断接力修缮的方式，构成了建筑对抗时间侵蚀的另一条有效路径。 - 长期留存模式一：**遗忘后重现（Accidental Preservation）**——如安提基特拉机械（沉船缺氧环境）、罗塞塔石碑。 - 长期留存模式二：**巨大体量与烧蚀性装甲（Sheer Mass & Ablative Armor）**——如金字塔、泰姬陵用外层珍宝吸引并延缓掠夺者，保全核心主体。 - 长期留存模式三：**超长工期与持续维护（Continuous Lifecycle）**——如科隆大教堂（1248年动工至今仍在修缮）、圣家堂。 ### [11:09](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nphxoUxSvgY&t=669s) 跨越“过时之壑”：长期物件最脆弱的一代 建造一个能够留存一万年的物件，最危险的阶段并非千百年后，而是刚刚完工后的一代人时间。在这一窗口期内，建筑或造物会从崭新、风光沦为“过时（unfashionable）”，极易遭遇人为拆毁。以旧金山的维多利亚式建筑为例，它们原本精美华丽，但在20世纪50至60年代的现代主义风潮中，大量建筑被判定为老旧俗气而惨遭推土机拆解，取而代之的是平平板板的预制倾斜混凝土楼房。许多当时被毁掉的维多利亚建筑如今令人深感痛惜。 对万年钟而言，最险峻的考验同样是距今50到100年后的阶段。那时第一代缔造者已离世，而该物件又尚未熬成公认的古董或珍贵文化遗产，极易落入审美的“中间夹缝”。要跨越这种“过时之壑”，人类历史上演过因意外而幸存的案例：巴黎的埃菲尔铁塔最初是为世博会临时搭建的，落成时被全城文化精英和市民抨击为“工业怪物”，原计划不久后便要拆除；然而恰逢无线电通讯和后来的电视广播技术兴起，埃菲尔铁塔意外地成为整个巴黎接收和发射信号的最佳高塔天线。凭借这种阴差阳错的实用价值，铁塔才得以一年又一年地免于拆除，熬过了最易被淘汰的审美厌恶期。 > “I think it's going to be the most dangerous time if we're going to build a clock that's going to last for 10,000 years is 50 to 100 years from now before it's become an antique and a valuable cultural artifact uh and when it's just the the first generation of people who built it are gone there's that middle generation that is very difficult to pass through…” —— Alexander Rose - **危险周期定义**：完工后50至100年（一代人的更迭期）。 - **历史拆毁教训**：旧金山20世纪50-60年代现代主义浪潮中大规模拆除维多利亚风格住宅。 - **意外生存机制（埃菲尔铁塔）**：从饱受批评的临时展品，变为巴黎不可替代的无线电与电视发射塔，依靠偶发功能跨越淘汰危机。 --- ### [13:26](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nphxoUxSvgY&t=806s) 意想不到的千载材料与制度性维护 谈及万年工程，人们脑海中浮现的通常是石材、特种陶瓷、不锈钢或钛合金。然而，若辅以良好的日常呵护和能够长存的组织机构，原本脆弱的有机材料也能延续千载。英国伊利（Ely）大教堂内部离地约八层楼高的穹顶木梁已存在超过700年；尽管英格兰气候潮湿不利于防腐，只要屋顶排水维持完好，木材便能跨越数百年。在日本，甚至有保存完好、结构沿用逾1600年的连续木构古建。这表明木材在妥善照管下同样可以成为“千年材料”。 另一种对抗岁月流逝的策略是“通过制度化的解构与重构来实现永存”。日本的伊势神宫（Ise Shrine）便是这一模式的极致范例：每隔20年，人们就会在旁边严格建造一座一模一样的全新神殿，随后将旧神殿拆解。在拆建交替的过程中，工匠大师手把手向学徒传授建造规制与技艺。这是一种代代相传的周期性仪式，不仅维系了建筑形制，更让神道教的信仰组织历经一两千年依然生机勃勃。 ```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: 物质长存与制度长存的两种路径对比 accDescr: 对比单纯依靠物理材料耐久与依靠人类机构代代维护延续的两种长期保存逻辑 subgraph PhysicalDurability["路径一：被动物理耐久与制度维护"] P1["挑选优质木材等耐用材料"] --> P2["保障外部环境隔离（如维护屋顶）"] P2 --> P3["构件静默承重逾数百年（如英国伊利大教堂）"] end subgraph RitualRenewal["路径二：周期性重构与技艺代际传承"] R1["每20年建造孪生新殿"] --> R2["大师向学徒传授工艺细节"] R2 --> R3["拆解旧殿完成形制更替（如伊势神宫式神迁宫）"] R3 --> R4["制度、技艺与精神跨越上千年"] end ``` > “…strangely wood can be a millennial material if it's maintained properly.” —— Alexander Rose - **伊利大教堂木梁**：悬空跨度大，在英格兰潮湿恶劣的环境中完好服役700多年。 - **日本古木建**：拥有超过1600年历史的连续木结构范例。 - **伊势神宫（式年迁宫）**：每20年完全拆毁并在毗连地皮上依原样重建一次（例如筹备2013年完工的新神殿），通过持续的造物实践让组织延续一至两千年。 --- ### [15:51](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nphxoUxSvgY&t=951s) 核废料库与极端工程的万年材料启示 在美国本土，尤卡山核废料储存库（Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository）是一座依法律要求必须安全封存一万年以上的工程。虽然目前已被封存搁置，但工程团队曾为之进行了极其扎实的万年工程学研究。该项目的核心结论首先是设施必须深入地下且依托稳固岩体；其次，为了抵抗漫长岁月的侵蚀，项目团队针对特种镍合金以及耐久混凝土开展了详尽实验。 古罗马利用维苏威火山（Mount Vesuvius）灰与石灰混合，配制出了历经两千年不坏的混凝土结构。尤卡山科研人员在全球范围内勘探此类高耐久天然混凝土矿物成分时，发现全美极少数拥有天然匹配矿脉的地点之一，竟然正好位于德克萨斯州西部——也就是如今万年钟实际建造工地的视野范围内。与此同时，斯堪的纳维亚半岛（芬兰赫尔辛基郊外）正在兴建设计寿命长达十万年的核废料库。另一重长寿设计逻辑则是“抵御万年一遇的极端天灾”：面对北冰洋与北大西洋风暴，荷兰耗费5亿欧元修筑了马仕朗防风暴大坝（Maeslant barrier），这是地球上最大的人造可动机械结构，旨在阻击万年一遇的超级风暴潮。与美国面对卡特里娜飓风时偏重灾后保险理赔的态度相比，荷兰人展现出了以预防为先的万年工程思维。 > “…they always assume that they can keep the water out and they're always wrong um you have to assume the water will get in and you have to you have to plan for that and Route the water not try and stop the water…” —— Alexander Rose - **尤卡山万寿法律**：美国联邦法律明文要求核废料储存设施必须确保一万年跨度的安全性。 - **巧合的混凝土矿源**：全美罕见的天然万年耐久混凝土原料地，与万年钟在西德克萨斯的安装现场隔空相望。 - **马仕朗防暴大坝**：造价约5亿欧元，全球最大可动机械结构，设计抵御等级为万年一遇（1/10,000年事件）。 - **芬兰奥恩卡洛（Onkalo）**：位于赫尔辛基郊外的十万年级深地质核废料处置库。 --- ### [19:05](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nphxoUxSvgY&t=1145s) 斯瓦尔巴全球种子库的治水盲区与符号意义 为考察极端长久设施的现实运行状况，Alexander Rose 亲赴挪威斯瓦尔巴群岛（Svalbard）造访著名的“全球种子库”。该设施设计寿命为一千年，深挖在北极冻土层之中，充当全球各大国家级种子库的终极容灾备份；在未加人工干预的情况下，当地永久冻土便足以让作物种子存活数十年，而在人工辅助制冷下，种子寿命可延续数百年乃至千年。令人惊讶的是，这个构思始于2005年、2008年便闪电建成的设施，实际上并不对公众开放（每年仅开启两次）。 实地探访暴露出了长久地下工程的一个典型通病：渗水与结冰。设计者将入口隧道修成了向内向下的倾斜走势，导致坑道壁面结霜后融化的冰水直接向设施内部低洼处倒灌，运营方不得不紧急加装抽水泵以防被淹。Rose 指出，诸多号称长久运转的地下工程都傲慢地假设自己“能将水完全挡在门外”，但现实无一例外会被水入侵；正确的长寿工程设计必须承认水终将渗入，转而规划如何安全导水排干，而非幻想彻底阻水。然而，尽管存在建造缺陷，种子库的签到簿上却赫然留下了吉米·卡特（Jimmy Carter）、联合国秘书长潘基文（Ban Ki-moon）以及多批美国国会代表团的亲笔签名，展现出跨越党派与国界的巨大象征号召力。 - **斯瓦尔巴种子库定位**：1000年设计寿命，为全球农业提供终极冗余。 - **建造周期异常迅速**：2005年构想立项，2008年即告落成。 - **治水设计缺陷**：隧道呈下坡倾斜，侧壁结霜化冻产生径流倒灌，迫使运维方在早期进行抽水泵回装。 - **核心工程铁律**：万年地下建筑不可假设“绝对防水”，必须转为“假定渗水并预先规划排水路径”。 ### [20:56](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nphxoUxSvgY&t=1256s) 斯瓦尔巴全球种子库的启示与人流挑战 在斯瓦尔巴全球种子库的考察中，Alexander Rose 亲身体验到了所谓“偏远”的相对性。即便身处地球最北端的人类永久定居点，依然有大量访客慕名而来。这种现象让他意识到一个根本性的人类行为规律：只要在一个极度奇特的地方建造一件极度奇特的东西，人们就一定会千里迢迢前去探访。因此，设计此类设施时绝不能一厢情愿地假设“无人打扰”，而必须从一开始就为应对访客做好准备。种子库当初并未针对公众参观进行专门规划，以至于每一次开启地下金库厚重的保温大门，都会干扰内部的制冷平衡。 种子库内部的地下拱顶长廊中，最引人瞩目的是正中那扇结满白霜的大门。管道不断注入冷气，将拱顶内的温度从天然冻土层的零下 5 摄氏度进一步骤降并维持在零下 18 摄氏度。推门而入，馆藏的各类植物种子被整齐封存在标准化的塑料储藏箱内。唯一打破这种规整模式的是美国农业部（USDA），他们不知出于何种特殊缘由，唯独执意使用瓦楞纸箱运送种子。 > “The one thing I realized that, you know, you build a really weird thing in a really weird place and people will come and visit it; don't think that they won't, and make sure you design it for visiting because this place was not.” —— Alexander Rose ### [21:50](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nphxoUxSvgY&t=1310s) 犹他州花岗岩山档案库：核防护与地下渗水的矛盾 另一处典型的千禧级工程是位于犹他州盐湖城郊外、通往阿尔塔（Alta）与雪鸟（Snowbird）滑雪场途中小三叶杨峡谷（Little Cottonwood Canyon）的花岗岩山档案库（Granite Mountain Vault）。这是摩门教（耶稣基督后期圣徒教会）保存家谱微缩胶片的地下绝密基地。Alexander Rose 花费了整整 9 年时间不断申请，才终于获批进入参观，而馆方在没收他的相机之前，仅仅允许他拍下了最后一张入口照片。该设施建于 20 世纪 60 年代冷战高峰期，由当时负责教会所有学校建设的建筑师操刀，其初衷是建立一个足以抵御核打击的坚固堡垒，以防盐湖城及其家谱档案沦为苏联核导弹的首要目标。 然而，在这座坚固的花岗岩核防护金库内部，最具破坏性的敌人并非核战争，而是地下水渗漏。尽管建成仅四五十年，整个设施却已经遭遇了三次严重水浸。为了防止馆藏损毁，底部抽屉如今完全不敢存放任何微缩胶片。工程人员不得不在地面切凿出一条条导流明沟，这些排水凹槽甚至直接从厚重的防核爆金库大门下方穿过引流。曾经旨在抵御核打击的严密屏障，最终不得不向地底不断渗漏的水流彻底妥协。 - **建筑背景**：建于 1960 年代冷战时期，深入坚固的花岗岩山体，旨在防御苏联潜在的核武袭击。 - **存储介质**：海量记录人类家族谱系信息的微缩胶片（Microfiche）。 - **现实危机**：服役仅 40 至 50 年间发生 3 次水灾，迫使底层储物空间全数清空，改凿排水暗道穿过防护门泄水。 ### [23:18](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nphxoUxSvgY&t=1398s) 巴米扬大佛的教训：意识形态冲突是万年设施的最大死敌 如果说工程老化与水患是技术问题，那么巴米扬大佛的毁坏则是万年工程面临的最严峻反面教材。Alexander Rose 展示了两张极具冲击力的对比照片：左侧拍摄于 1963 年，大佛巍然耸立在悬崖壁龛中；右侧拍摄于 2003 年，原址只剩下一个空荡破碎的岩坑，这是塔利班动用炸药与重型武器连续轰炸数周后的残局。从宗教象征的角度而言，巴米扬大佛本身的意象十分平和无害，但它依然因其所代表的文化与信仰符号，被塔利班视为无法容忍的异端，并不惜耗费巨大财力与人力将其有组织地从地表抹去。 这一毁灭事件向万年钟团队敲响了警钟：在长达万年的时间尺度上，任何带有鲜明宗教或意识形态标签的造物，都极易在未来的某一个政治或文化周期中沦为被摧毁的靶子。更为棘手的是，没有任何人能够预测自己所在的机构或创造的符号，在数千年后的世人眼中会演变成何种性质的意识形态象征。 > “This danger of getting involved in the wrong ideology is a huge one, and it's hard to—you never know what your ideology of an organization you are part of may become over this kind of time frame.” —— Alexander Rose ```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: 极端长周期工程的威胁演变模型 accDescr: 展示从自然环境破坏到不可预测的人类意识形态冲突的三种威胁层级 subgraph ENV["环境与地质威胁"] E1["地下水渗透与洪涝（如摩门教档案库）"] E2["金属氧化与严酷气候腐蚀"] end subgraph HUM["人类利用与物理盗伐"] H1["猎奇人潮对受控环境的被动破坏"] H2["金属资源匮乏时代的采矿拆卸行为"] end subgraph IDE["意识形态与文化覆灭"] I1["政权演变与宗教极端主义"] I2["巴米扬大佛式的主动定向爆破毁灭"] end ENV --> HUM HUM --> IDE ``` ### [24:15](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nphxoUxSvgY&t=1455s) 万年工程的建造法则与丹尼·希利斯的五项核心原则 综合考量了历史上各类遗迹的存亡经验后，团队总结出一系列关键结论，并由丹尼·希利斯（Danny Hillis）确立了万年钟的五项核心设计原则。首先是选址必须足够偏远：城市的更迭和建筑更新速度极快，而荒芜原野具备更高的地质稳定性；更重要的是，前往遥远之地的漫长旅程本身就是一种承诺，能让同行者在此过程中展开严肃深入的对话。其次是绝不尝试“完全防水”，而是顺应水流规律进行定向疏导；极其精密的部件必须密封防氧化；在防盗方面，团队采取了“瓶中造船”的设计——外侧通道极为狭窄，而内部机械组件极其庞大，以此消除后人把钟体当成高价值金属矿山进行暴力拆卸的经济动机。甚至有人提出设置某种“牺牲层”，故意放置少量容易带走的小财宝，让掠夺者自以为得手而放过核心机械。 在制度层面上，世界上至今没有任何组织能维持一万年。虽然历史上存在存续了三千至五千年的林业传统、葡萄酒酿造（Viticulture）、武术宗派、宗教以及神话故事，但人类对于如何构建一个万年组织仍缺乏成熟方案。为了应对这些未解难题，Danny Hillis 奠定了指导钟体研发的五大设计原则： - **长寿性（Longevity）**：钟体结构与材料必须能自然抵御万年尺度的老化。 - **可维护性（Maintainability）**：结构易于检修，后人可在无现代文明支援下维持其运转。 - **透明性（Transparency）**：运作机制完全直观外露，任何人看一眼就能理解其力学传递原理。 - **可演化性（Evolvability）**：设计允许升级更换，例如日历系统绝不可能一成不变地沿用万年，必须容纳未来的历法变迁。 - **可扩展性（Scalability）**：允许工程团队先制造小型功能原型机，再平滑过渡并放大至巨型山体全尺寸结构。 ### [27:15](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nphxoUxSvgY&t=1635s) 1999 年首台原型机：日行迹、三维凸轮与气候变暖带来的误差校准 1999 年，团队制造出了万年钟的第一台工作原型机，目前陈列于伦敦科学博物馆的“现代世界的塑造”（Making of the Modern World）展区末端。这台原型机展示了万年钟如何解决长周期天文校准问题：利用太阳光进行正午自动校准。如果在一整年的时间里定期于正午拍摄太阳，其在天空中呈现的轨迹并非固定点，而是一个“8”字形的几何轨迹，即日行迹（Analemma），它体现了由地球轨道偏心率与地轴倾角共同导致的“均时差”（Equation of Time），使得视太阳时与平太阳时之间产生多达正负 15 分钟的年度偏差。 而在万年跨度下，预测均时差变得极其复杂：它不仅要代入每 26,000 年发生一次的地轴岁差，还需计算地球自转每世纪慢上一两秒的潮汐减速。更不可预测的变数是气候变化——极地冰盖若融化，水流汇入赤道洋区会增大地球转动惯量导致自转减速；反之极地冰冻则会加速自转。根据美国国家航空航天局喷气推进实验室（JPL）为该项目进行的模拟计算，在最极端的情况下，地表预测太阳正午位置的累积漂移偏差可达整整正负 23 天。 为了在纯机械层面解决这一难题，团队设计了一具复杂的三维凸轮。该凸轮是为万年运转特别加工的计算构件，其后方的凸轮从动件在整整一万年内只会沿着凸轮表面平移上升一次。同时，采光系统配备了基于热力学机械特性的自适应对日追踪机构，使光学窗口拥有足够宽的动态范围来“捕获”发生偏移的正午日光。此外，在显示界面上，为了解决未来一万年面临的纪年溢出问题，团队为年份刻度额外增加了一个零（例如“02000”），幽默地宣称提前解决了“万年虫”（Deca-millennium Bug）。 > “JPL did the calculations for us and said that effectively the worst-case scenario is about 23 days off of where you think the sun would be, plus or minus, so we have a pretty fairly large window that we have to capture looking for the sun in the sky.” —— Alexander Rose ### [29:52](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nphxoUxSvgY&t=1792s) 摒弃传统模拟齿轮：二进制机械计算架构 这台高约 8.5 英尺（约 2.6 米）的 1999 年原型机在底层计算系统上彻底颠覆了数百年来的钟表学传统。在传统机械钟表中，时间的换算与显示完全依赖一套由相互啮合的模拟齿轮组成的齿轮系（Gear Train）。然而，在长达一万年的超大数字连续运算中，模拟齿轮需要极其高速且无数次地反复转动，齿面之间的干磨损将不可避免地刮除材料；一旦齿轮发生物理磨损，间隙与回程差会导致不可逆的“累积误差”（Additive Error）呈指数级攀升，根本无法维持万年尺度的精确计算。 为了从根本上消除累积磨损造成的计算漂移，钟体下半部分采用了一套全新的“机械二进制系统”（Binary Mechanical System）。系统不再依赖齿轮连续滚动的接触面来代表数值，而是利用机械杠杆物理上的“0”与“1”两个稳态极限位置来进行离散加法运算。通过层叠的数位编码盘与机械逻辑门，万年钟以数字逻辑的准确性彻底替代了模拟齿轮的渐进误差，使得万年尺度的数学运算在物理材料发生轻微磨耗的情况下依然能保持严谨精准。 ### [30:41](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nphxoUxSvgY&t=1841s) 原型迭代：行星显示器与万年鸣钟计算器 Alexander Rose 阐述了钟表从小型原型向巨型纪念碑级装置跨越的设计演变。团队在保留早期设计精髓的同时，不断扩充功能与尺寸。在梅森堡（Fort Mason）办公室陈列着一台高约 8.5 英尺的装置，它底部采用相同的二进制机械加法盘算层，能够精准计算并实时显示肉眼可见的六大行星运转轨迹，观众可随时前往参观。 ```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: 万年鸣钟系统层级结构 accDescr: 描绘从算法逻辑到机械执行的钟鸣系统结构 subgraph Logic["算法与逻辑层"] A["Brian Eno 编排算法<br/>(350万+ 序列组合)"] --> B["日更鸣钟序列<br/>(连续 10,000 年不重样)"] end subgraph Mechanics["机械执行层"] B --> C["20 层日内瓦轮盘组<br/>(直径约 12 英寸)"] C --> D["316 不锈钢与自研陶瓷轴承"] end subgraph Acoustics["末端发声"] D --> E["10 口鸣钟机械驱动机构"] end ``` 为了实现未来一万年内“每天敲响 10 口钟且音序绝不重复”的设想，团队开发了一台独特的机械计算器。这套系统由知名氛围音乐大师 Brian Eno 参与编写，可推导出超过 350 万种钟鸣组合。其核心计算单元是一组直径约 12 英寸的日内瓦轮（Geneva wheels）。就在演讲前一周，团队收到了首批采用 316 不锈钢精密加工的实物零件，它被安放在自研的精密陶瓷轴承上；未来，将有整整 20 层这样的日内瓦轮垂直叠放于地下深处空间中。 - 办公室原型：高约 8.5 英尺，实时显示水星、金星、火星、木星、土星等肉眼可见行星的位置。 - 鸣钟系统：驱动 10 口钟，包含逾 3,500,000 种各不相同的敲击序列。 - 制造材质：采用耐腐蚀的 316 不锈钢，底座结合定制无润滑陶瓷轴承。 --- ### [32:21](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nphxoUxSvgY&t=1941s) 材料科学：无润滑陶瓷轴承与超慢速“行走轴承” 在万年时间尺度下，常规润滑方案彻底失效。润滑脂不仅会吸附环境灰尘形成磨料，还会随着岁月流逝干涸或流淌殆尽。卫星与航空航天工业虽早已发明用于轻载无润滑工况的陶瓷轴承（例如在整个寿命期内仅展开一次太阳能电池板，或偶尔微调喷气阀门），但万年钟要求其承受 350 万至 600 万次的循环运转。此外，长期重载静置的金属部件会发生“微区冷焊”（microweld），微小震动也能使不锈钢轴与套圈粘接焊死；而不同金属材质（如 A286 不锈钢轴与 316 不锈钢外壁）接触产生的电位差还会引发严重的电偶腐蚀（galvanic corrosion）。陶瓷轴承作为优良的电绝缘体，彻底化解了微冷焊与电偶腐蚀双重致命难题。 面对转动极慢、质量极大的巨型构件，团队采用了另一种突破传统的机械结构。钟表上设有一面直径达 15 英尺的巨型石轮，用于展示整整一万年的流逝历程，其每年仅行进数毫米，在整整一万年的设计寿命中只旋转一圈。支持这种庞然大物的并不是传统滚珠，而是一种基于柔性铰链（flexure）的“行走轴承”（walking bearing）： > “...there's no rolling friction in this at all it's just metal bending back and forth and it's passing it one to it's passing one from one bearing to the next one on that outer wheel and that outer wheel only turns once in its entire design life so it's not going to wear out...” > —— Alexander Rose 解释行走轴承的零磨损几何逻辑。 该机构完全没有滚动摩擦，依靠金属在屈服极限内的反复弹性弯曲来传递载荷，从一个柔性支座步进式递交给下一个，真正做到了“无滚动元件的滚动轴承”。 --- ### [34:56](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nphxoUxSvgY&t=2096s) 动力核心：三维摆线伞齿轮与竖井掘进 Alexander Rose 坦言团队并不打算公布整座地下设施的全部图纸，因为他们更希望人们未来亲自走入深邃的洞穴，去亲历那种奇特的地下空间体验，过早放出全貌设计图反而削弱了这种建筑诗意。他展示了动力系统的核心切片：地底最深处悬吊着巨大的驱动重锤，并咬合着由 316 不锈钢铣削而成的 8 英尺巨型主齿轮。 该齿轮为极为罕见的三维轮廓摆线伞齿轮（cycloidal bevel gear）。齿面上每个齿廓都经过严格的三维空间曲面加工，与陶瓷滚子接触时能将相对滑动摩擦彻底降低为理想的纯滚动摩擦。为了容纳这套庞大的重力驱动系统，必须在基岩中垂直打出一根直径达 12 英尺 7 英寸的贯通竖井。团队采购并改装了曾用于智利矿难救援的同款反井钻机（raise borer），准备在地下深处实施大口径拉削。 - 竖井尺寸：由反井钻机向下钻取导孔后反向扩拉出直径 12 英尺 7 英寸的基岩垂直竖井。 - 齿轮规格：直径 8 英尺，材质为 316 不锈钢，采用全三维啮合齿形。 - 减摩机制：与陶瓷滚子配合消除表面刮擦滑动，完全转化为滚动接触。 --- ### [36:36](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nphxoUxSvgY&t=2196s) 地下建造：8 吨数控链锯机器人与螺旋步道 ```mermaid flowchart LR accTitle: 竖井开挖与机器人石雕工序 accDescr: 展示反井钻机掘进到工业链锯机器人精雕螺旋楼梯的完整施工路径 subgraph ShaftDrill["第一阶段：垂直竖井贯通"] D1["钻探下行导孔<br/>(约 20-25 英寸口径)"] --> D2["底部接驳扩孔钻头"] D2 --> D3["反向向上拉拔<br/>(成型 12'7'' 竖井)"] end subgraph CNCChainsaw["第二阶段：三维数控机器人雕刻"] D3 --> S1["引入 8 吨多轴机器人"] S1 --> S2["9 英尺金刚石湿式链锯切削<br/>(每级台阶切三刀)"] S2 --> S3["阶梯剔打成型<br/>(长达 250 英尺连续螺旋步道)"] end ``` 地下主体结构无法采用传统的爆破开挖，因为爆炸冲击波会严重破坏岩体结构的完整性，无法在井壁上构筑环绕钟体而上的精细螺旋阶梯。团队构想让探访者沿着开凿在岩壁上的螺旋阶梯盘旋漫步，将整台巨钟当作一座巨型建筑物来穿行感知。为了实现外壁带有透视拉伸感的微锥度异形断面，工程人员结合了采矿技术与石材开采技术。 他们从意大利卡拉拉（Carrara）大理石矿山引进金刚石链锯技术，并制造了一台重达 8 吨、可在三维空间中高精度运动的巨型工业机器人。机器人装载有一根长达 9 英尺的金刚石镶嵌链锯臂，其金刚石磨料脱落速率完全根据工地岩石的物理化学特性进行了配方定制。为了测试机器，团队浇筑了 5 英尺厚、力学与化学成分完全等同于目标岩体的混凝土块进行切削试验： > “...it looks like it's going to take us about a year of solid cutting to cut that staircase...” > —— Alexander Rose 在展示机器人切削测试缩时摄影时估算工期。 整条螺旋阶梯垂直高度达 250 英尺，每一级台阶都需要精密定位切出三刀，随后再将切缝间的石料剥离，形成平滑与自然粗糙相交替的石质肌理。仅这一项切削作业，就需要一名操作员坐在地下连续施工近整整一年。 --- ### [39:56](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nphxoUxSvgY&t=2396s) 分布式装配、不设工期与 Rosetta 跨时空交汇 目前，全尺寸巨钟的构件制造网络已全面铺开，西雅图、洛杉矶以及旧金山湾区各顶级机械车间分工制造，随后运往加州圣拉菲尔（San Rafael）的装配基地进行试拼装。完成部装测试后，系统被尽量以大部件形式拆卸装入标准集装箱，最终通过陆路运送至西得克萨斯的深山洞穴内总装。 面对公众最关心的成本与完工时间问题，Alexander Rose 坦陈他们与主要出资人杰夫·贝索斯（Jeff Bezos）保持着非常特殊的项目协作模式： > “...the first question is going to be when are you going to be done we don't have a schedule for when we're going to be done we don't have a budget for how much it's going to cost we do it on a quarterly basis we review it with Jeff and we just do it as fast as appropriate and as efficiently as appropriate...” > —— Alexander Rose 谈及项目管理哲学与资金计划。 工程进度遵循“在适当节奏下尽可能高效地推进”。在介绍完机械层面的进展后，Alexander 将话题转向了该计划的另一核心——罗塞塔语言与信息存档项目（Rosetta Project）。他强调，向极其遥远的万年未来发送文明讯息，在本质逻辑上与 SETI 跨越浩瀚光年寻找外星智慧文明的探索完全相通。 ### [41:06](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nphxoUxSvgY&t=2466s) 跨越时间的语言鸿沟与现代罗塞塔石碑（Rosetta Project） 当人类文明试图跨越漫长的时间深渊时，语言与信息的流失是一个严峻的问题。随着全球使用的语言种类急剧缩减，来自过去的知识极难传递给未来。为了解决这一断层，人类需要一块现代版的“罗塞塔石碑”（Rosetta Stone）。Alexander Rose 展示了费斯托斯圆盘（Phaistos Disc）的图片，指出这是一个至今未被广泛公认破译的古代遗物。以此为例，他打破了一个普遍的认知误区：许多人认为象形文字或图形符号（pictograms）是不带文化偏见的最佳沟通方式，但“它实际上是最糟糕的方式，因为每一个象形符号……比如这个小幽灵人影，这到底是一个小幽灵，还是代表阴间的某个人？或者代表当时穿着白床单的祭司？还是说当时的石匠穿着床单？我们根本无从得知”。相比之下，表音文字（phonetic alphabets）反而更容易破译。即便在历史上的罗塞塔石碑上，最难破译的也是古埃及象形文字，学者们借助另外两种书写系统整整花费了半个世纪才将其破解。 ```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: 现代罗塞塔磁盘制作与读取流程 accDescr: 展示从语言数据收集、微米离子束刻蚀到无设备光学读取的完整流程 subgraph Collection["1. 数据收集"] A["收集全球濒危与通用语言样本"] --> B["精选10项核心要素<br>(创世纪译本、语言分布、音标等)"] end subgraph Manufacturing["2. 微米刻蚀与制造"] B --> C["镓离子束（Gallium Ion Beam）<br>刻入硅晶圆"] C --> D["电镀至镍合金磁盘<br>(直径约 2.8 英寸，容纳 13,500 页)"] end subgraph Preservation["3. 长期保存与读取"] D --> E["搭载于欧洲空间局 Rosetta 探测器"] D --> F["地表与深地长期保存"] E & F --> G["纯光学放大读取<br>(无需电子设备/DVD播放器)"] end ``` 为了给未来留下语言对照基准，今日永存基金会（The Long Now Foundation）发起了“罗塞塔计划”（The Rosetta Project），收集成千上万种语言的微缩档案。这些档案包含约十个核心要素，其中包括《创世纪》的翻译文本——因为这是全球翻译语种最多、覆盖最广的单一文本，此外还包括语言的地理分布及字母发音规则。 - **高密度微缩技术**：利用镓离子束（Gallium ion beam）在硅晶圆上精确雕刻，随后电镀成直径约 2.8 英寸的镍金属磁盘，单张磁盘容纳了 13,500 页微缩文本。 - **航天级保存**：该磁盘的早期原型已搭载在欧洲空间局（ESA）的“罗塞塔号”（Rosetta）彗星探测器上，预计将于 2014 年底抵达目标彗星，成为该飞行器上极少数代表人类文明的内容之一。 - **模拟读取设计**：该磁盘不依赖任何像 DVD 播放机那样的技术解码设备，只需借助普通光学放大镜即可阅读；盘面文本设计成由外向内呈螺旋状逐渐缩小，从肉眼可辨的字体开始，自然引导发现者去使用更高倍率的放大镜深入观察。 --- ### [43:41](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nphxoUxSvgY&t=2621s) 地外文明搜寻（SETI）与万年尺度的文明警示 Alexander Rose 回忆起今日永存基金会的系列演讲，提到 SETI 科学家 Jill Tarter 曾是早期演讲嘉宾之一。他借用了 Tarter 当年的演讲幻灯片，指出 SETI 事业与今日永存基金会的核心使命高度重合：两者都极度依赖文明的连续性。如果人类遭遇严重的技术灾难或社会中断，寻找地外智慧生命的努力就会化为泡影。正如物理学家 Philip Morrison 所言，“SETI 是面向未来的考古学”（SETI is the archaeology of the future）。如果地外文明确实存在，它们必须拥有远高于我们的技术水准才可能被我们捕获；而如果人类文明的技术无法持续向上发展，跨越星际的彼此发现便绝无可能。 Alexander Rose 随后展示了一张在日本拍摄的古老海啸警告石碑照片。面对这类千年一遇的自然灾害，古代先祖在石碑上刻下警告：“高处居所，子孙安康；常思大海啸之灾，勿在此线下方建房。”关于这座石碑的实际效果，外界流传着两种截然相反的说法：有人称当地居民严格遵守祖训，未在石碑下方建房因而幸免于难；也有人说现代人早已无视祖训在下方建房并遭遇了海啸。这一争议引出了一个深具 SETI 意味的哲学问题：“如果另一个文明发现了我们的星球，只找到了这样的警告，或者我们从遥远外星收到的信号本身就是一段警告，我们究竟能否听得进去？” --- ### [45:53](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nphxoUxSvgY&t=2753s) 动力系统、人机交互与排水工程哲学 在演讲后的问答环节，现场观众首先询问万年钟的动力是否仅靠一块下落 10,000 年的重石维持。Alexander Rose 澄清了钟表的能源层级设计。驱动报时和编钟机构是最耗能的部分，这套配重石系统目前大约能储存一个世纪的机械动力，这部分能量是由访客手动上条或者定期维护充能的；而钟表日夜不休走时的核心系统——擒纵机构与摆锤，则完全依赖山顶昼夜温差所收集的微弱热能驱动。 ```mermaid flowchart LR accTitle: 万年钟能量分配与访客交互逻辑 accDescr: 解释昼夜温差自然能量与访客手动上条能量的不同走向 subgraph NaturalEnergy["自然能源（持续走时）"] A["山顶昼夜温差"] --> B["热能转换储存"] B --> C["摆锤与专利擒纵机构<br>(时刻保持内部时间连续)"] end subgraph HumanInteraction["访客能量（激活显示）"] D["访客转动上条机构"] --> E["重石配重提升<br>(可存约一世纪报时动力)"] D --> F["表盘指针物理转动<br>(快进至当前真实时间)"] E --> G["鸣钟与乐音系统"] end ``` 这种设计巧妙地解决了能耗危机，并转化为一种极具震撼力的交互体验： - **时间的定格与追赶**：钟表内部始终精准记录着“当下”，但表盘平日处于静止状态，指针停留在上一次有人到访的时刻。如果上一位访客是昨天来的，新访客只需转几下就能让指针追上现在；但如果是千年无人到访，来访者就必须进行大量的手动上条，才能让表盘一路转到当代。 - **人与物的连接**：基金会在伦敦科学博物馆陈列第一台原型钟时发现，将其关在玻璃罩中剥夺了观众的互动渴望；实体上条不仅省去了用工程手段维持高耗能表盘的麻烦，更让每位访客在万年尺度上留下属于自己的印记。 - **地底防排水方案**：针对地下水侵蚀的疑问，Alexander Rose 表示所有地下硐室均设计了向外倾斜的自然坡度。甚至在用于切割岩壁螺旋阶梯的特制锯机上，工程师故意保留了刀片的下垂倾角（droop angle），使渗入主竖井的水流顺着阶梯外边缘呈螺旋状导流至最下层的通风排水隧道，确保水分始终远离精密机械。 --- ### [48:23](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nphxoUxSvgY&t=2903s) 外部天灾防御、无声擒纵的力学困境与选址考量 现场观众提出了关于地面设施受损、擒纵结构以及选址的尖锐问题： **发射场坠物风险**：考虑到选址附近有 Jeff Bezos 投资的商业航天发射设施，观众询问是否有防范坠物的措施。Alexander Rose 幽默地回答道：“只有收集阳光以触发正午校准和采集热能的部分暴露在外，如果那里被砸中，那真的太糟糕了。”目前山顶采光亭（cupola）的外观设计尚未最终确定，正在“高辨识度”与“融入自然地貌”之间权衡。但根据火箭发射事故的蒙特卡洛（Monte Carlo）概率预测，残骸击中该微小区域的几率极低，不足以为此投入复杂的装甲工程。 **擒纵机构的“滴答”声与材料寿命**： - **声学穹顶的失落**：团队最初将终极表盘室设计成蛋形穹顶，并计算出声学焦点，以便让走时的“滴答”声能精准反射到访客站立更新表盘的区域。 - **无声与自毁的矛盾**：当他们完善了自主研发并已获专利的全新擒纵机构后，却惊讶地发现它完全不发声。Alexander Rose 解释道：“‘滴答’声从本质上讲会摧毁钟表。你听到的声音其实是擒纵机构的锤击动作——那是全钟运转速度最快的部件。” - **机械负荷与人工造声**：万年钟的擒纵机构每 10 秒跳动一次，在一万年内将承受大约 150 亿次循环。作为对比，劳力士手表在 20 年内大约跳动 50 亿次，因此 150 亿次仍在现代先进材料的承受范围内。但为了保证材料寿命，机械碰撞被设计得极其轻柔。由于完全没有声响，团队最终不得不专门额外工程化地加入了一个共振鼓轮，让它在运转时主动敲击发声，把象征时间的“滴答”声重新造了回来。 **太空或真空环境选址探讨**：有观众询问，既然为了防止万年间的氧化、洪水和破坏，为何不把钟表建造在完全没有大气层的外星球或太空中？Alexander Rose 强调：“这个项目的真正意义在于唤起人类的想象力。”无论世人最终是否会亲自前往偏远山区探访，大家在精神上必须确信“那是一座人类可以肉身前往并亲手触碰的丰碑”。留在地球并对公众开放，是万年钟作为文明图腾不可妥协的根本属性。 ### [51:25](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nphxoUxSvgY&t=3085s) 太空发射构想与地质选址考量 当被问及是否考虑过将时钟送入太空时，亚历山大·罗斯（Alexander Rose）回应道，在地外开展任务在技术上虽越来越具可行性，但发射方案会带来极其悬殊的经济代价。他半开玩笑地解释道：“the idea is well a it's it changes your budget by about three zeros right and and you need a launch vehicle and all those things so we've I mean there certainly been talk about it we certainly like the idea of launching certain parts of of the uh information Around the Clock like the Rosetta desk um and welcome more opportunities to get on launch vehicles for the parts that I think uh we could do that with that are light and easy to get into orbit at this point yeah”（发射的想法嘛，首先它会让你的预算凭空多出大约三个零，而且你还得弄到运载火箭等一系列配套，虽然团队内部确实讨论过，也非常乐意将围绕时钟的部分轻量化信息载体，比如罗塞塔圆盘发射到轨道上，但目前阶段仅限于那些轻巧易入轨的部件）。 随后现场观众问及选址山体的岩石成分以及该地区的地震历史。罗斯介绍，目前的安装地点主要由白云质灰岩（Dolomite Limestone）构成。根据山脉不同区域的分布，部分岩层可能富含水镁石（brucite），而时钟选址则稍有距离，临近一座开采“万年混凝土”的大理石矿，该区域的地质是由古代极早期的一次火山喷发超高温灼烧形成的。关于地震活动，他坦承当地即便在近代记忆中也有过地震记录，但整体稳定性远胜于美国西部的绝大多数地方。 罗斯进一步探讨了全球范围内的理想地质环境。虽然像澳大利亚的艾尔斯岩（Ayers Rock，即乌鲁鲁）地层几乎完全没有地震记录，在纯地质学上可能更稳固，但目前的德克萨斯州选址附带了至关重要的资助者支持以及落地的现实机缘。他强调，周边天然洞穴历经漫长地质岁月的完好留存已经证明，只要工程设计与建造方式得当，结构完全能够在万年尺度上屹立不倒。 - **岩体构成**：主要为白云质灰岩（Dolomite Limestone），临近经受古代火山超高温地热形成的大理石矿脉。 - **地震安全性**：历史上虽有小震记录，但相比美国西部整体断裂带稳定得多；相较于澳洲内陆等地质极稳定区，此选址在资金与建设可行性上达成了最佳平衡。 --- ### [53:03](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nphxoUxSvgY&t=3183s) 岁差天象盘与万年材料腐蚀的工程应对 现场观众探讨了天文对准与岁差现象：地轴北极目前正对勾陈一（北极星 Polaris），而在大约一万至一万三千年后将指向天琴座的织女星（Vega），这一天象变迁是否已纳入此前展示的多维凸轮与天象盘中。罗斯对此给出了肯定回答。他解释称，时钟显示屏中的整片星空安装在一个略微倾斜偏轴的半球体上，该半球体在机构驱动下以极其缓慢的速度旋转，能够在约 13,000 年之后精准地将织女星旋转推移至北极星的对应位置。 随后，话题转向了材料科学在万年尺度上的严苛考验。有观众质疑：当前的氧化腐蚀与湿度数据即便对不锈钢也无法确保免疫，团队究竟有多大把握将这些数据外推至一万年？罗斯坦言不锈钢绝非无懈可击，并引用了一句发人深省的行业洞见：“I mean basically I think that the best comment I got from our kind of Material Science Guru is everything is burning and you know in our atmosphere everything is effectively burning in oxygen and so the question is is what rate”（我认为从我们的材料科学导师那里听到的最精辟见解就是：一切都在燃烧，在我们的地球大气中，万物实际上都在氧气里燃烧，唯一的区别只在于燃烧的速率快慢）。他列举了自然界的参照样本，例如有些木材跨越数千年未腐，亚美尼亚近期出土的 5000 年前皮鞋因为深埋地下缺氧而保存完好；工程团队也大量参考了尤卡山核废料处置库（Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository）历经漫长论证所建立的高精度腐蚀数据库。 在工程策略上，团队采取了“极端冗余容差”与“特种耐磨材质”相结合的防护设计。尽管现代加工设备具备千分之五英寸（0.005 英寸）的高精密制造能力，但时钟整体机械系统（例如报时钟琴等传动部件）被刻意放宽为高达半英寸（0.5 英寸）的超大运行容差，以容纳数千年间可能累积的氧化层或表面剥落。至于擒纵机构等要求极高啮合精度的微观核心节点，则改用人造蓝宝石、工程陶瓷等不会氧化的耐磨硬质材料；在大齿数齿轮系统中使用钛金属配合较软的托盘部件，防止硬碰硬互相损伤。罗斯坦率总结，虽然自然界的金属在天然岩层中存在数百万年，但其暴露在空气中的万年氧化规律缺乏完整的绝对数据，目前团队完全是在已知最高水准的科学实验数据与工程裕量下推进设计。 ```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: 万年机械时钟材料与耐久性工程架构 accDescr: 展示时钟针对万年氧化与磨损问题所采用的材料与容差设计组合策略 subgraph DesignStrategy["设计与材料策略"] A["高精度制造<br/>(0.005英寸数控精度)"] --> B["大运行容差设计<br/>(关键传动预留约0.5英寸间隙)"] C["陶瓷与蓝宝石<br/>(彻底免疫常温氧化)"] --> D["无摩擦/超耐磨擒纵机构"] E["钛合金轮系与柔性托盘"] --> F["避免传动齿牙硬磨损"] end subgraph DataReference["科学与考古参照"] G["尤卡山核废料库腐蚀数据库"] --> H["万年氧化速率模型"] I["万年陶瓷/亚美尼亚5000年皮革文物"] --> H end B --> J["万年持续运行机构"] D --> J F --> J H --> J ``` --- ### [55:33](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nphxoUxSvgY&t=3333s) 备份时钟构想、备选场地与总结致谢 鉴于万年时间跨度的极端风险，有观众提出“复制备份”是否也是确保时钟存续 10,000 年的合理策略，并询问基金会是否计划制造第二座万年钟。罗斯赞许这一构想，并指出机械钟绝非实现万年计时的唯一路径。他感叹道：“this is one there's only one way to make a 10,000 year clock a big ridiculous mechanical object I mean you could plant a forest of bristle cone Pines you could uh make an erosion based thing in a river you can um you know there's all kinds of great ideas that you could do for a 10,000 year clock um”（制造万年钟绝非只有造一个荒谬庞大的机械巨物这一种方式；你完全可以种植一片刺果松森林，可以在河流中利用侵蚀作用做记录，有各种各样构思精妙的万年时钟设想）。 罗斯随后透露了基金会关于多时钟与备用场地的布局规划： - **现存原型钟**：已建造的各版工作原型本身就具备在受控环境中运行万年的潜力。 - **城市版时钟倡议**：基金会收到来自全球多个城市在市政环境中建造“城市版万年钟”的邀请，未来可能进一步推进。 - **内华达州东部备选场地**：今日钟（Long Now）基金会早年在内华达东部购置过整片土地，原本作为纪念碑级万年钟的首选地。该场地长满耐寒长寿的刺果松（bristlecone pines），地质同属石灰岩，但由于该地地震活动更频繁，目前作为潜在的后续或备份基地。 - **家用迷你钟**：团队甚至构想过制造能够走进千家万户的案头小型版本，将长远思维日常化。然而多项目并进高度受限于资金预算与团队精力的分配。 讲座尾声，主持人代表 SETI 研究所登台主持收尾，并以幽默串联了讲座中提及的历史典故。主持人调侃称：“Alexander you mentioned that the Taj Maha was covered in uh in crusted jewels to discourage people from Wrecking the building maybe this artifact might be something that people would be interested in uh 10,000 years hence we offer you a set mug”（亚历山大，你之前提到泰姬陵外表镶嵌着宝石，本意是阻止人们破坏建筑；或许一万年后的人类也会对这件人造文物充满兴趣——我们在此赠予你一个 SETI 马克杯）。全场在笑声与热烈掌声中圆满结束。 ## Notable quotes > [20:56](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nphxoUxSvgY&t=1256s) The one thing I realized that, you know, you build a really weird thing in a really weird place and people will come and visit it; don't think that they won't, and make sure you design it for visiting because this place was not. — Alexander Rose > [23:18](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nphxoUxSvgY&t=1398s) This danger of getting involved in the wrong ideology is a huge one, and it's hard to—you never know what your ideology of an organization you are part of may become over this kind of time frame. — Alexander Rose > [15:51](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nphxoUxSvgY&t=951s) they always assume that they can keep the water out and they're always wrong um you have to assume the water will get in and you have to you have to plan for that and Route the water not try and stop the water… — Alexander Rose > [53:03](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nphxoUxSvgY&t=3183s) everything is burning and you know in our atmosphere everything is effectively burning in oxygen and so the question is is what rate — Alexander Rose > [13:26](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nphxoUxSvgY&t=806s) …strangely wood can be a millennial material if it's maintained properly. — Alexander Rose ## Mentioned Alexander Rose, Danny Hillis, Stewart Brand, Brian Eno, Peter Schwartz, Jeff Bezos, Jill Tarter, Philip Morrison, Gregory Bateson, Richard Feynman, The Long Now Foundation, SETI Institute, Science Museum of London, Silicon Graphics (SGI), Art Center College of Design, Carnegie Mellon University, Thinking Machines, Connection Machine, Rosetta Project, Long Bets Project, Burning Man, BattleBots, Robot Fighting League, New College, Oxford, Antikythera Mechanism, Rosetta Stone, Phaistos Disc, Cologne Cathedral, Sagrada Família, Eiffel Tower, Ely Cathedral, Ise Shrine, Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, Maeslant barrier, Svalbard Global Seed Vault, Granite Mountain Vault, European Space Agency (ESA), NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) ## Video description 20 years ago computer scientist Danny Hillis thought up a monument scale slow moving mechanical clock to serve as an icon to long-term thinking. 10 years ago a first prototype was completed and put into the Science Museum of London. 5 years ago the full size clock project began design. A few months ago that project began construction. Project manager Alexander Rose will discuss the process and methods underway in the Clock of the Long Now. [Source](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nphxoUxSvgY)

[20:56] Alexander Rose: The one thing I realized that, you know, you build a really weird thing in a really weird place and people will come and visit it; don't think that they won't, and make sure you design it for visiting because this place was not. [23:18] Alexander Rose: This danger of getting involved in the wrong ideology is a huge one, and it's hard to—you never know what your ideology of an organization you are part of may become over this kind of time frame. [15:51] Alexander Rose: they always assume that they can keep the water out and they're always wrong um you have to assume the water will get in and you have to you have to plan for that and Route the water not try and stop the water… [53:03] Alexander Rose: everything is burning and you know in our atmosphere everything is effectively burning in oxygen and so the question is is what rate [13:26] Alexander Rose: …strangely wood can be a millennial material if it's maintained properly.

[7:51] Alexander Rose: And this is an interesting way of getting something to last for a long time: you can lose it. [20:56] Alexander Rose: You know, you build a really weird thing in a really weird place and people will come and visit it. [13:26] Alexander Rose: And so strangely wood can be a millennial material if it's maintained properly.

[0:10] [Music] [0:21] [Music] [0:34] welcome along ladies and gentlemen to [0:35] your weekly SEI seminar series uh today [0:38] we're joined by Alexander Rose who's [0:41] come to us from the long now Foundation [0:43] up in San Francisco uh where he is the [0:46] executive director and uh the Project [0:48] Director for the 10,000-year clock he [0:51] was the first employee in 1997 of the [0:54] long now foundation and before that he [0:57] has been an artist in Residence at [0:59] silicon [1:00] Graphics uh and uh he was at the Art [1:03] Center College of design and he got a [1:06] Bachelor of Arts at uh Cari M uh in [1:10] industrial [1:11] design uh Alexander has worked on uh and [1:14] started several projects with the long [1:17] now Foundation including the Rosetta [1:20] project and long bets project and they [1:24] also have a very successful seminar [1:26] series on long-term thinking [1:30] uh Alexander is also a uh robotic [1:33] Enthusiast his projects have uh starred [1:37] up at Burning Man uh and he has [1:40] participated in many BattleBots [1:42] sequences and has also founded the uh [1:46] robotic uh excuse me [1:51] robotic fighting League excuse me so [1:55] you'll have to probably check those out [1:57] on uh YouTube and uh and coming soon to [2:00] a channel uh near you but today [2:02] Alexander is going to talk to us about [2:04] uh the 10,000 year clock project so if [2:07] you'll join me in welcoming [2:15] Alexander uh thank you all for coming [2:18] out today at lunchtime [2:22] um I'm going to start today with a story [2:25] that I'm sure some of you have heard uh [2:27] possibly associated with this project um [2:28] I think I spoke at SEI when I very first [2:31] started maybe back in '98 or 99 you guys [2:33] were in a different location um and I [2:36] see Doug here who was one of our [2:37] advisers on our uh Rosetta project um [2:41] and [2:43] uh we've come a long way since then uh [2:46] both with the Rosetta project and with [2:47] the clock project and I'll be I'll be [2:49] updating you on that process [2:53] the this whole project really got [2:56] started uh with this story and is a [2:58] story of these these Oak be beams at new [3:00] College Oxford which um at least is [3:03] partially true as near as we can tell [3:04] but the the story holds either way um it [3:08] was a story that Gregory Bateson told [3:10] Stuart brand and Stuart brand then told [3:12] Danny Hillis and [3:16] um when this Hall was built in the 1300s [3:20] it was built with these giant Oak beams [3:22] that crossed the center section and 500 [3:25] years later in the 1800s when they had [3:27] to replace these beams they had become a [3:30] bit rotted and The Beetles had infested [3:32] them and they didn't know quite what to [3:33] do at this point they uh you couldn't [3:36] just buy trees like this or Lumber like [3:38] this in uh in Europe anymore and it [3:42] wasn't until they spoke to the school [3:43] Forester who said oh well we have the [3:45] trees that you planted and it turns out [3:47] that uh at least the basic forestry [3:49] practices of the times were that you [3:51] would plant a Grove of trees to replace [3:53] the large Oak beams that you needed uh [3:56] 500 years or several hundred years later [3:58] and it was clearly this type of thinking [4:01] that was not really going on uh nowadays [4:05] and Danny Hillis uh was a computer [4:08] scientist or is still a computer [4:09] scientist and general kind of polymath [4:11] inventor um I believe he was on your [4:13] science board here at CI I don't know if [4:15] he still is I forget um but uh he uh he [4:19] had done some of the the best work in [4:21] parallel processing um and developed uh [4:24] machines like the connection machine [4:26] with Richard feineman um to do massively [4:29] parallel processing um and he had been [4:32] working in this faster and faster space [4:34] and he kept realizing as he did that [4:36] that there was a slower and slower space [4:38] that was being ignored and that um that [4:42] there's while there's a lot of things [4:43] that need to happen very fast there's [4:45] actually a lot of problems in the world [4:46] that can only be solved if you operate [4:48] on a much slower time frame things like [4:50] education climate change environmental [4:53] issues uh prison systems hunger none of [4:56] these things can be solved in a next [4:58] election Horizon kind of time time frame [5:00] and in fact you have to attack them on a [5:02] 50 to 100 or more year time frame in [5:05] order to have any uh hope of solving [5:07] them and his idea was to do one project [5:10] on a on a very long time scale and his [5:12] idea was to build this this clock and [5:14] and his original idea was a monument [5:16] scale clock that uh would tick once a [5:19] year bong once a century and the cuckoo [5:22] would come out once a [5:23] millennium and this would be an icon to [5:26] long-term thinking and he told this idea [5:28] uh to steuart who had started the whole [5:30] earth catalog and and was uh very much a [5:34] person who is interested in changing the [5:35] way Society thinks about various things [5:38] uh and Stuart thought well that's that's [5:40] great if you um if you get everyone's [5:42] attention to think longer term but then [5:44] what do you do with it and his idea was [5:45] that there should be some kind of [5:46] information service uh that goes along [5:48] with this that helps society and [5:50] civilization understand itself on the [5:52] same kind of time scale and Brian Eno [5:55] who um also became part of this [5:58] conversation who was a musician from the [6:00] UK and uh an artist in general also [6:03] coined this term the long now when he [6:05] first moved from England to New York he [6:07] realized that when people said now in [6:09] New York they meant a very different [6:10] thing than what they said now in in the [6:12] UK and and uh that there was a short now [6:16] version of that versus a long now [6:18] version we took that to and ex and [6:20] extrapolated it and it was uh Peter [6:22] Schwarz on our who be was part of this [6:24] email conversation and eventually became [6:26] uh part of the founding board he said [6:28] well the real kind of human moment is [6:30] the last 10,000 years and this became [6:33] the uh the time frame that the clock was [6:35] going to work in this is when the last [6:37] ice age really receded agriculture began [6:39] in different places around the world and [6:41] this is as far back as we can look in uh [6:44] in humanity and Technology um and [6:47] civilization really beginning as we know [6:49] it so this is how far we should look [6:50] forward as well and so the idea was that [6:53] we would uh build a 10,000 Year all [6:55] mechanical clock [6:57] and just [7:01] in contrast to the scale that I think [7:03] SEI works at constantly um you know we [7:06] are not working on a billion-year [7:08] astronomic scale um we're not even [7:11] working on a million-year geologic scale [7:14] it is this 10,000-year kind of [7:17] anthropos uh moment uh and um this is [7:24] uh about 400 Generations at current [7:27] generational rates uh if so you if you [7:30] had to tell a story 400 times that's [7:32] kind of the problem that we have to [7:33] solve on a on a societal level um and [7:37] have that story be right at the end of [7:39] the or at least vaguely right at the end [7:40] of the of the chain so that's the kind [7:42] of problem that we're trying to solve by [7:45] um by going at uh this clock project and [7:48] other projects around long-term thinking [7:51] um I'll go over a few of the places that [7:54] we started and and I continue to uh [7:57] research in terms of Precedence and [7:59] lessons that we have from our own [8:01] history uh one of them is is this object [8:03] the antia device which is kind of a [8:05] favorite of mine because it it itself is [8:08] a clock and it is uh over 2,000 years [8:12] old it was found um off of antia grease [8:16] and um once they pulled it up um they [8:19] knew it was a clock but they didn't know [8:20] too much about it they definitely knew [8:22] it set back the the known date of when [8:25] things like differential gearing had [8:26] been invented by quite a bit by 500 to [8:28] 1,000 years [8:30] and um it wasn't until recent studies [8:31] where they x-rayed the thing and were [8:33] able to Do complete reconstructions of [8:35] it that they know that it was actually a [8:37] full astronomical clock um there's no [8:39] other example in the world but it [8:41] certainly shows from the expertise and [8:43] its and its construction that it was not [8:45] the only one in the world um that had [8:47] ever been built uh but we have no other [8:50] examples of it except for this one and [8:52] this is an interesting way of getting [8:54] something to last for a long time you [8:55] can lose it um now of course it has to [8:58] be found and it has to be found by the [8:59] the right people and it has to be lost [9:00] in the right kind of chemical [9:02] environment and and found again and and [9:05] uh and contextualized and in this case [9:07] it took 50 years or more and uh the [9:09] Rosetta Stone was kind of like this it [9:11] was found by one of Napoleon soldiers [9:13] but he actually recognized that it was [9:15] valuable and it still took another half [9:17] a century of decoding effort to [9:18] understand what it was um there's other [9:21] strategies for getting things to last a [9:23] really long time you can be really [9:25] massive um and there's another [9:26] interesting strategy that happened uh [9:28] with the pyramids and it's this kind of [9:30] ablative armor technique where uh where [9:34] the outer casing Stones were were taken [9:36] uh from the pyramids uh in just the last [9:39] few or last maybe five centuries the [9:42] insides of them were looted probably [9:43] within a century of of them uh being put [9:46] in there but the basic pyramid of them [9:49] has remained so one possible technique [9:51] is this idea of of putting uh putting [9:54] valuable things into a space that people [9:58] can take but they don't actually take [9:59] the True Value away from it and this is [10:02] another uh example of that technique [10:04] where the Taj Mahal was encrusted with [10:06] jewels all the way throughout and it was [10:08] uh looted several times and finally by [10:10] the English um who spent a long time [10:12] prying the uh the gems from the walls [10:15] and instead of destroying the whole [10:16] building as they many other buildings [10:18] were destroyed during that time uh by [10:21] the time they had finished pulling out [10:22] which are now the crown jewels um the uh [10:26] they decided to preserve the building [10:28] and it's unknown if they would have [10:29] really decided to preserve the building [10:31] if they hadn't been slowed down by those [10:33] hyper valuable items um so this is the [10:35] kind of ablative way of armoring [10:37] something to last through a long [10:40] period now the other one is to take a [10:42] really long time to build it uh this is [10:44] the Cathedral at cologne uh this was was [10:47] started in 1248 and uh was sort of [10:51] finished around 1880 but it's still [10:53] under repair you can see there's a [10:54] scaffold on it right now and it will be [10:56] continually uh under repair and um [10:58] there's other buildings that are doing [11:00] this as we speak there's G cathedral in [11:02] Barcelona um and it's 10 and something [11:05] years into construction and probably is [11:07] going to take another hundred to finish [11:09] the design that gudy set forth um so [11:12] this this is an interesting way of [11:14] solving a very real problem that I think [11:16] we have with building a 10,000-year [11:18] object which is that there's a the most [11:21] dangerous time for something that's you [11:23] want to last for a very long time is the [11:26] one generation after you finish it and [11:28] this is the time when it becomes [11:30] unfashionable and so you know we saw [11:32] this here in San Francisco when uh there [11:35] were uh victorians that were built and [11:38] they were all beautiful and then uh the [11:40] 50s and 60s came around this modernist [11:42] era and everyone tore down tons of [11:43] victorians because they were old and [11:45] unfashionable and put up tilt up [11:47] concrete uh things that I think may not [11:49] hold up to the the stand of uh of time [11:52] uh as well as the victorians maybe they [11:54] will maybe they will become the new [11:56] valuable thing some some will but um I [11:59] think [11:59] to a large extent we regret the loss of [12:01] a lot of those Victorian buildings um [12:03] that were taken down at that time and uh [12:08] that is that is the most dangerous time [12:09] and I think it's going to be the most [12:10] dangerous time if we're going to build a [12:11] clock that's going to last for 10,000 [12:13] years is 50 to 100 years from now before [12:16] it's become an antique and a valuable [12:18] cultural artifact uh and when it's just [12:23] the the first generation of people who [12:24] built it are gone there's that middle [12:26] generation that is very difficult to [12:28] pass through um there's other techniques [12:31] for passing through this kind of Chasm [12:33] of of obsolescence and unfashionable uh [12:35] there's the Eiffel Tower and this was [12:37] this was extremely unfashionable uh it [12:40] was built for a World's fair it was [12:42] supposed to come down not long after and [12:45] uh the only thing that saved it uh [12:47] people thought it was a monstrosity [12:48] every critic and you can imagine [12:49] parisians you know any change at all [12:51] right um but um the thing that saved [12:55] this was that it was an unlikely radio [12:58] antenna and then it became a TV antenna [13:00] then it became all these things and so [13:02] uh it was the it was the best way to get [13:05] uh reception in Paris of all these new [13:07] technologies that happen to be coming [13:08] out around the same time so it was saved [13:11] um on a kind of yearly basis just for [13:13] that reason and so it was accidentally [13:16] useful and that's another way to have [13:18] something last for through that time of [13:20] uh of dangerous non fashionability [13:26] um there's also some unlikely materials [13:30] that um that have come up and and [13:31] methods and and I think that uh when we [13:34] all think about making a 10,000-year [13:36] object you immediately think of stone [13:38] and Ceramics and uh stainless steel and [13:40] titanium as the only ways that you could [13:42] possibly do this however we have in our [13:45] own in our own history um things that [13:48] are lasting very long time that uh that [13:50] have just been well cared for and so you [13:52] can just you can actually design an [13:53] institution that will last alongside of [13:56] your object to maintain it and this uh [13:59] this is a shot that I took I'm about [14:01] eight stories up in a cathedral in elely [14:04] England and that beam is over 700 years [14:06] old and is and is vaulting a huge [14:08] cathedral ceiling and has been basically [14:11] unmaintained except for they maintain [14:13] the roof so um but it's this is in a an [14:16] awful preservation environment it's in [14:18] England uh and uh yet wood has lasted [14:21] over 700 years old and if you actually [14:24] look into the history there's um there's [14:26] Japanese buildings that are over 1600 [14:28] years old with the same continuous uh [14:31] wooden structure and so strangely wood [14:34] can be a millennial material if it's [14:36] maintained properly now another uh way [14:38] of making a wood or femoral material [14:40] building last is again keeping the [14:42] institution going through a different [14:44] maintenance process in this case this is [14:46] EA [14:47] Shrine and EA Shrine is uh considered [14:51] one of the most important temples in [14:52] Japan and it is rebuilt every 20 years [14:54] an exact replica of it so the this is a [14:56] rare shot this was taken uh almost uh 20 [14:59] years ago now cuz their new one is going [15:01] to be finished in 2013 but uh the one [15:03] down below is the new one and the one [15:05] above is just starting to be [15:07] deconstructed you can see uh the roof of [15:09] one of the Cross structures um coming [15:11] down so every 20 years they Recon [15:14] deconstruct and reconstruct and a master [15:16] teaches an apprentice it's basically a [15:17] once a generation reminder of of why [15:20] they're doing what they're doing and you [15:21] get um there's even arguments that this [15:24] type of practice has allowed Shintoism [15:26] to move to move along in par with [15:29] Buddhism as it came [15:31] across the Sea of Japan and so this uh [15:35] you know everyone is a Shinto and some [15:38] people are Buddhists and some people are [15:39] other things but you this uh this [15:41] constant reminder has helped the [15:42] institution itself uh last and this [15:45] process has been going on for at least a [15:46] millennium and there's arguments that [15:47] it's been going on for over two [15:51] Millennium now moving back over to this [15:54] country and some more modern projects of [15:56] uh projects that have been intended to [15:58] last for 10 thousand years this is uh [16:00] yua Mountain nuclear waste repository [16:02] now uh moth Bal um but we went to go [16:06] visit this uh when it was still under [16:10] construction and they have done a a [16:13] fantastic amount of really great science [16:15] in how to make something last for 10,000 [16:18] years and of course the first thing they [16:19] realize is it has to be underground has [16:20] to be in good rock um and uh this is a [16:25] map of what they're doing and um at the [16:27] time they had only Built those access [16:28] ramps when we went to go visit it but [16:30] they're going to do this crisscross or [16:31] we're going to do this crisscross [16:32] sections of uh underground storage [16:35] facilities and the the great thing about [16:36] this project because there was actually [16:38] a there's a law there's a 10,000 year [16:40] law on the books that the United States [16:41] has to maintain this this uh nuclear [16:44] waste for 10,000 years um they had to do [16:47] research that that um that correlated [16:50] with this and very [16:52] interestingly um some of that research [16:54] cross over our current clock site um in [16:57] that the you know they learned about [16:59] different type of nickel Alloys and [17:00] materials that we're now using and we [17:02] get to use that research but they also [17:03] did Research into concrete a lot of [17:05] research into concrete um there's a few [17:07] places in the world we have very old [17:09] concrete in some cases naturally [17:11] occurring concrete um there's obviously [17:13] there's 2,000-year old concrete in Rome [17:15] and that was created by the ash uh from [17:19] uh the lime and Ash from Mount [17:21] vvus and um other places in Jerusalem [17:24] and they looked all over the world for [17:26] places where this type same type of [17:27] chemical compound of concrete was [17:30] naturally mined and one of the only [17:32] places in the United States happened to [17:33] be within view of our site in West Texas [17:37] which you'll see um later on which is a [17:39] very strange coincidence that the the [17:41] only 10,000 year concrete known that [17:43] happened to be right near where we're [17:44] building our clock um this is another [17:46] site in uh nuclear waste site this is a [17:48] 100,000 year nuclear waste repository [17:50] being built in uh [17:52] Scandinavia and outside of Finland or [17:55] outside of Helsinki in Finland and I I'm [17:58] hoping that I I'm going to go visit [18:00] there actually very soon I just got an [18:01] invite to do that um and then the other [18:05] way to build things to last for 10,000 [18:07] years it's not really you build don't [18:08] build them to last for 10,000 years but [18:09] you build them for once in 10,000 Year [18:11] events and so when the Dutch were faced [18:13] with the same problem actually a much uh [18:16] a much rarer problem than the folks in [18:19] the Southeast seab board were faced with [18:21] when uh basically doing nothing to [18:23] prevent Katrina uh the damage of Katrina [18:26] they spent um half a billion building [18:29] the Meson barrier the largest man-made [18:31] moving structure on the planet and um [18:34] the design is for it to uh stop a once [18:37] in 10,000 year event which would be a [18:39] hurricane effectively uh in the North [18:41] Atlantic and they've already closed it [18:43] many times and saved uh minor flooding [18:46] just uh in the time that it's been built [18:50] um and so we'll see if the folks of the [18:52] South uh Southeast start taking this [18:55] type of thing more seriously um I think [18:58] in the United States we tend to think [18:59] more about insurance and less about [19:01] prevention but we'll [19:03] see [19:05] um a place that I I'll show a few more [19:08] slides of just because I uh I was just [19:10] there I I just traveled to spard to um [19:13] the international seed Vault now this is [19:15] designed as a 1,000-year facility the [19:18] idea is to provide a backup to all the [19:21] world's uh seed [19:23] vaults and uh so if all the national [19:26] seed vaults send copies of all the seeds [19:28] that they have have there and um they [19:31] put it into the permafrost where it can [19:34] um just the permafrost temperature alone [19:37] there will keep the seeds at a viable [19:39] temperature for at least decades and [19:40] then they chill it down even further so [19:42] it can last uh some seeds can last [19:44] hundreds and if not a thousand years uh [19:47] this is what it looks like as you fly [19:48] into spard um that's the airport there [19:51] on the left and this is what the [19:53] underground facility was designed as [19:55] they built this extremely fast uh it was [19:58] received in 2005 and finished by 2008 [20:01] and I was really shocked to find that [20:03] out and so when I got a chance to to go [20:06] in they only open it two times a year [20:08] and they didn't really design it for [20:09] visitors um I I wanted to go see how [20:13] they built it now one of the first [20:14] things that I found uh when I got there [20:16] is they've already done retrofits and [20:17] that's already flooding um that the way [20:20] they designed it so it slopes downhill [20:23] um the frost builds up on the walls and [20:24] then when it melts it runs down and so [20:27] they've already had to put in pumps and [20:29] things like this and this is a recurring [20:30] theme that I found in a lot of [20:31] underground facilities that have been [20:33] designed for a long time is they always [20:35] assume that they can keep the water out [20:36] and they're always wrong um you have to [20:39] assume the water will get in and you [20:41] have to you have to plan for that and [20:42] Route the water not try and stop the [20:45] water but the most interesting thing [20:46] about visiting this site to me was this [20:48] book um I signed into this visitor book [20:50] and as I flipped through it there was [20:51] Jimmy Carter Banky Moon um you know [20:54] whole delegations of Congress and I was [20:56] on I was in the northernmost inhabited [20:58] permanently inhabited place on the [21:00] planet um and yet all these people were [21:03] coming and the one thing I realized that [21:05] you know you build a really weird thing [21:06] in a really weird place and people will [21:08] come and visit it don't think that they [21:10] won and make sure you design it for [21:13] visiting cuz this place was not and they [21:14] you know they don't want to open the [21:15] vault doors because it messes with their [21:17] cooling system and and all of that this [21:20] is what the underground Vault uh hallway [21:23] looks like that one door in the middle [21:25] that's covered in Frost and you can see [21:26] the chilling pipes going into it um [21:29] chilling it down to8 C from the NB at5 C [21:34] and uh that's what that door looks like [21:37] and then inside are all the seeds um all [21:40] the seeds are put into these very normal [21:42] uh normalized boxes these plastic boxes [21:43] except for the USDA which will only send [21:45] them cardboard there on the left for [21:47] some [21:47] reason [21:50] um another 1,000-year facility that I [21:53] visited uh this took about 9 years of [21:55] asking to get an invitation into this [21:57] one and this was the last picture they [21:58] let me took before they took my pict my [22:00] camera away this is the genealogical [22:03] vault in that the Mormons have in uh [22:07] outside of Salt Lake City on your way up [22:10] to um one of the ski resorts there in [22:14] little yeah it's up ala and snowb up [22:16] that way and it's in a Little Cottonwood [22:17] Canyon yeah and uh it's in great granite [22:20] rock um they had it built by a guy who [22:24] was their architect who had built all [22:25] their schools at the time this they [22:27] built it in the' 60s as a [22:29] kind of a reaction to the Cold War [22:30] worrying that um Salt Lake City and [22:33] their Mormon archives were of course [22:34] going to be a major Target of the [22:36] Russians um and so they built this vault [22:38] as a kind of nuclear hardened Vault for [22:39] all their um all their uh microfish of [22:44] of genealogical information that they [22:45] didn't want to lose um and it was a it's [22:48] a it's a pretty interestingly designed [22:50] facility and they also had this problem [22:52] of flooding um in say it was it's only [22:54] about 40 or 50 years old and it's [22:56] already flooded three times they they [22:58] don't any of the lower drawers uh filled [23:01] with any microfish at all uh because of [23:03] the flooding they've had to cut trenches [23:04] in and these trenches now go right under [23:06] these you know nuclear hardened doors [23:08] Vault doors um to allow the water out so [23:11] that they don't flood um so they're [23:13] obviously a lot more worried about water [23:14] than they are about the nuclear thread [23:16] at this [23:18] point um and the last example that I'll [23:21] show is this one this is kind of the [23:22] counter example and probably the largest [23:24] challenge that a project like ours has [23:26] to face this is these are the Buddhas [23:27] aaman [23:29] um or at least one of them is a before [23:30] and an after picture uh the picture on [23:33] the left was taken in 1963 the picture [23:36] on the rot was taken in 2003 after the [23:39] Taliban spent many weeks destroying it [23:42] um and as as symbols of religion go this [23:46] the ab Buddha is a pretty innocuous one [23:47] but it was still enough of a a symbol of [23:51] religion that the Taliban didn't want to [23:54] uh to espouse that they spent money and [23:56] time destroying it on purpose to to so [23:58] this this danger of getting involved in [24:00] the wrong ideology uh is a is a huge one [24:03] and it's hard to you never know what [24:05] your ideology of an organization you are [24:07] part of may become over this kind of [24:10] time [24:11] frame so there's several conclusions [24:15] that we've drawn from from very from [24:17] looking at all these uh historic [24:18] examples um one is that you should make [24:21] it fairly remote cities churn a lot [24:23] faster than rural areas um but the PE [24:27] and the people will still come if if [24:28] you're trying to make something that [24:29] that you want people to visit and in our [24:30] case we we are um we also want to make [24:34] it remote for another reason which is [24:35] that part of it is when you make that [24:37] journey to go there you're having a [24:39] conversation with the people that you're [24:40] going there with um you're making this [24:43] commitment to go um and I think that [24:45] that conversation is very important uh [24:48] water will get in and so you have to [24:51] divert it instead of trying to stop it [24:53] um the oxidization control is an [24:55] interesting problem and I I'll talk a [24:57] little bit about how we solve that some [24:58] of the materials um choices that we used [25:03] but some of the very delicate Parts [25:04] we're going to have to ENC case um [25:06] design it to be both lost and found so [25:08] to be able to you know if this clock is [25:10] keeping time um it may be lost for a [25:13] some amount of time and then it may be [25:15] found and and how do you address that [25:19] problem how do you want people to find [25:21] it if it hasn't been maintained for a [25:22] 100 years what are the fallback [25:24] scenarios in the way it's designed and [25:26] maintained um make it difficult to dis [25:28] assemble basically we're building a ship [25:30] in a bottle we're building a a space [25:32] that has very narrow ends and really big [25:33] Parts in the middle um and uh that you [25:38] know helps to reduce the uh enticement [25:41] of uh using the site as a mine for the [25:43] metals that we've put into the the [25:45] mountain um and you the other one is you [25:48] designed a long-term institution and um [25:50] so far no one's designed a 10,000 year [25:52] institution there's a few [25:53] multi-millennial Traditions religions [25:56] martial arts wood Woodland practices [25:59] viticulture uh stories that have lasted [26:02] 3,000 4,000 5,000 years um so we're [26:06] we're in that zone but still no one [26:08] knows how to solve the problem that that [26:09] we would have to in order to actually [26:11] maintain and contextualize this forever [26:14] um and the last one is the one I don't [26:15] really know what to do with and how we [26:16] would do it but we could do something [26:19] like this a blade of layers something [26:20] where we actually uh put some valuables [26:23] to be stolen so that people think that [26:25] they have walked away with the the most [26:27] valuable part of our in station and not [26:29] without destroying it and so as we [26:33] started to design this uh this clock uh [26:36] we set forth a set of design principles [26:38] that uh that Danny helis worked on very [26:40] hard which was um these five here [26:43] longevity maintainability transparency [26:45] evolvability and scalability most of [26:47] those are are fairly uh self-explanatory [26:50] but the idea is that people will be able [26:51] to maintain it they'll be able to evolve [26:53] it they'll be able to you know if we [26:54] show a certain calendar system for [26:56] instance maybe you know there's no [26:57] calendar system that has lasted for [26:59] 10,000 years so we want to be sure that [27:01] that can be changed over time um that [27:03] can represent an ideology that will um [27:06] that will certainly have to evolve along [27:08] along with it um the scalability allows [27:11] us to build small prototypes and work [27:12] our way up towards large ones the first [27:15] prototype that we finished in [27:18] 1999 um had this dial on it this [27:21] prototype is now at the science museum [27:24] in London uh at the end of the their [27:27] making of the modern world exhibit um [27:29] and I'll just show kind of one of the [27:32] types of problems that we solved as we [27:35] worked on this and the the clock we [27:37] designed to synchronize itself to the [27:40] sun on any sunny day and I'm sure many [27:42] of the planetary scientists in the room [27:44] would would know what this strange [27:45] figure eight is this is the analemma [27:47] this is a picture of the sun taken uh at [27:51] uh noon every day through the not every [27:53] day in this case but maybe every uh week [27:55] or so through the course of a year and [27:57] it creates this figure H shape and this [28:00] is representing the what is called the [28:02] equation of time right so there's a [28:03] difference of solar n that's about plus [28:05] or minus 15 minutes uh through the [28:07] course of the year now the the funny [28:10] thing about that equation is that if you [28:12] want to predict that equation at a [28:15] 10,000 year time frame you also have to [28:17] account for the fact that the Earth is [28:18] processing on its Pole every 26,000 [28:21] years with the equinoxes you also have [28:23] to account for the fact that it's [28:24] slowing its rotational rate uh by you [28:27] know a second a century or two and so um [28:31] it turns out that there's there's also a [28:33] whole other element here which is [28:35] climate change as well um which were is [28:37] the uncertainty factor of this equation [28:40] but the the the most certain part of [28:43] this equation was filtered down into [28:44] this three-dimensional cam which is a [28:46] effectively a disposable item for every [28:48] 10,000 years the clock operates um this [28:51] is the equation of time as it evolves uh [28:53] over 10,000 years and that follower [28:56] that's kind of coming in from the back [28:57] there would go up it once in that 10,000 [29:00] years now we have to the part of the [29:02] clock that focuses on the sun actually [29:04] has to kind of Servo in on the sun using [29:07] thermomechanical properties uh because [29:10] of climate change and it turns out that [29:12] as the poles melt the water's going to [29:15] can sling out to the outside slowing [29:16] down the Earth and if the poles freeze [29:19] that's going to change the rotational [29:20] rate and uh JPL did the calculations for [29:23] us and said that effectively the the [29:26] worst case scenario is about 23 days off [29:28] of where you think the sun would be um [29:31] plus or minus so we have a pretty fairly [29:33] large window that we have to capture [29:35] looking for the Sun in the sky uh and of [29:39] course uh if you're making a 10,000 year [29:41] clock one of the first things we [29:42] discovered about doing kendric is that [29:44] we have to add an extra zero to the date [29:47] um solving the DECA millennium bug a [29:50] little ahead of some other [29:52] people so this was the the very first [29:55] prototype as I said it was finished in [29:56] 1999 it also used used a t the lower uh [30:00] part of it there that you see also uses [30:02] a different type of calculation system [30:04] that any clock had used uh up to that [30:06] point um it's a binary mechanical system [30:09] so the idea that you use analog gears to [30:12] do all your math when you're starting to [30:14] calculate with really large numbers the [30:16] number of times some of those gears [30:17] would have to go around and rub Material [30:19] off of themselves and then the next time [30:20] they come around you have this additive [30:22] error that starts building up in your [30:24] system to have something that's going to [30:26] be accurate enough for 10,000 years is [30:27] difficult so um you use binary mechanics [30:30] which is just a lever that's in a one or [30:32] zero position and you do addition with [30:34] that and so it's a each one of the [30:35] plates below as a a dial the scale the [30:38] scale of that is about 8 and 1 12 ft [30:41] tall this is a small prototype and [30:46] um since that time we've been scaling up [30:49] Andor doing designs of things that we [30:51] hadn't done in that one um as we scale [30:53] up towards the monument scale version um [30:55] this is another type of display that [30:57] uses that same binary mechanical [31:00] addition uh at the bottom those are [31:01] those bottom plates there but it's [31:03] calculating uh the human eye visible [31:06] planets um so this keeps up to date the [31:09] um the the first six planets basically [31:12] and uh this artifact is also about 8 and [31:15] 1 half ft tall this is in our offices in [31:17] Fort Mason you can come by and take a [31:19] look at it anytime it's kept up to date [31:22] um and now we're scaling up uh to full [31:27] scale to the monum scale and this [31:30] particular um prototype was the first um [31:35] the first prototype of a system of [31:38] ringing a series of 10 bells in a [31:40] different sequence each day for 10,000 [31:42] years so another type of mechanical [31:43] computer this one can generate over [31:45] three and a half million combinations of [31:47] bell ringing sequences that uh were [31:50] worked out uh by Brian Eno and an [31:53] ambient music guy and so this one is has [31:56] about 12in diameter or what are called [31:58] Geneva wheels that do that calculation [32:00] and this is uh just last week we got one [32:03] of the first ones back this is all done [32:05] in 316 stainless steel this can actually [32:07] last for 10,000 years it's sitting on a [32:10] ceramic [32:11] bearing uh that we made inhouse and um [32:15] and this is the first of what will be 20 [32:17] of these genevas stacked in a big [32:19] vertical underground space which I'll be [32:21] showing you uh and as I said we're using [32:24] uh ceramic bearings throughout and um [32:27] some of you have worked in satellite and [32:28] Aerospace industry know that the the the [32:31] ceramic bearings were invented really [32:33] for satellites to operate without [32:35] lubrication but for the most part they [32:36] were designed to be used in very very [32:39] light duty where they may they may open [32:41] up a solar uh panel once in their whole [32:44] operational life and um or maybe go back [32:47] and forth a few times with some Jets or [32:48] something like that but we needed them [32:51] to operate on uh about 3 and2 million to [32:54] 6 million Cycles with no lubrication we [32:56] decided that lubrication always attracts [32:58] too much dirt and um and always can flow [33:02] out of the bearing so it's it's too [33:04] difficult to keep something lubricated [33:05] the other advantage of using ceramic [33:06] bearings is that uh they can't uh [33:10] microweld like steel bearings do or [33:12] stainless steel bearings if you [33:14] stainless steel bearings if they have a [33:15] lot of weight on them they just sit [33:16] there and micro vibrations will [33:18] eventually weld them together the other [33:20] thing that it stops is this problem of [33:22] corrosion that I talked about earlier [33:24] which is called galvanic corrosion and [33:26] so when you have two dissimilar Metals [33:28] which generally the shaft and the [33:29] outside material reasing like a286 [33:31] stainless steel and 316 stainless steel [33:34] that slight difference in in chemistry [33:36] on the galvanic scale will eventually [33:38] cause corrosion between the elements [33:39] that you really want to be moving not [33:41] frozen together so um the ceramic [33:43] bearings give you an isolator for that [33:45] which is [33:47] great the other uh type of bearing um [33:51] that we're using for some of the very [33:53] very slowest moving Parts this is a [33:55] small prototype this is only about a 4T [33:57] diameter but we ought to there's one [33:59] wheel on the clock that will have uh the [34:03] the um show all 10,000 years in it it [34:06] only [34:07] moves millimeters per year basically [34:10] it's 15 ft in diameter It's Made of [34:12] Stone um and how do you how do you make [34:15] something that moves so slowly and is so [34:17] massive um how do you allow it to um to [34:21] turn and this bearing was built it's a [34:24] walking bearing basically and each one [34:26] of those little wheels that were at the [34:28] bottom that you saw flipping back and [34:29] forth are actually flexors so there's no [34:31] rolling friction in this at all it's [34:33] just metal bending back and forth and [34:36] it's passing it one to it's passing one [34:38] from one bearing to the next one on that [34:40] outer wheel and that outer wheel only [34:42] turns once in its entire design life so [34:44] it's not going to wear out um and the [34:47] flexors um are kept well within their [34:49] flexing modulus so they don't wear out [34:52] so um a rolling bearing with no rolling [34:56] elements the um what we're working on [34:58] now is the main power system and I I [35:01] apologize that I'm not going to show you [35:03] the entire design of the of the clock [35:05] and the underground facility we're [35:06] actually um we're not sure if we're [35:08] going to show that we kind of want [35:09] people to come see it um and to show the [35:12] weird kind of view of an underground [35:14] facility that no one ever gets to see as [35:15] opposed to the way we've designed it to [35:16] be experienced um seems a little odd to [35:19] us so I'm showing you little kind of pin [35:21] holes into this process um and uh what [35:26] you what you see here is uh the design [35:28] of the whole power system and that's a [35:30] big huge weight that's at the bottom of [35:32] it and these really large gears here [35:37] um that works these really large gears [35:39] here so the scale of this is this is [35:42] being held in a 12T s uh diameter [35:45] vertical shaft that's going to be cut [35:47] into the Rock with a thing called a rais [35:49] Bo um same kind of drill that was used [35:51] to rescue the Chile and miners in fact [35:53] the drill we have is one of the ones [35:54] that was there in Chile um but the um [35:58] so this is about an 8ft gear and not [35:59] only is that an 8ft gear but that gear [36:02] um is is a special gear it's a cycloidal [36:05] bevel gear where every single one of the [36:07] teeth is cut in a three-dimensional way [36:09] so that um as the uh ceramic rollers [36:12] that come in contact with it uh touch it [36:15] they actually don't um they never have [36:19] scrubbing type of friction it's always [36:21] roller friction and most gears are kind [36:23] of idealized this way but very rarely [36:25] are they cut in that fully [36:26] three-dimensional way for every single [36:28] gear Toth especially at this scale so [36:29] this is a 316 stainless steel gear uh [36:33] with all threedimensional gear [36:36] teeth now we're working uh at the site [36:38] we have uh full-time staff at the site [36:41] the um this is a aerial shot that was [36:43] shot by a friend of ours from a plane [36:44] just recently it's kind of low RZ with [36:46] his BlackBerry I think but [36:49] um um as I said the tool that we're [36:52] using for doing the main excavation is [36:54] this tool called a raise boore and uh if [36:56] you uh follow the rescue of the Chilean [36:59] miners they use one of these to do the [37:00] downward drilling they can only drill [37:02] that about 25 in in diameter uh maximum [37:06] in our case they'll be doing it about 20 [37:08] in in diameter and that was what they [37:10] had to get those guys up in that capsule [37:12] um but normally the way these tools are [37:13] used is they drill that pilot hole down [37:15] and they drill it down to a tunnel [37:16] that's been excavated and they hook up a [37:18] really large bit and they pull that up [37:19] through uh to the top and that's um [37:22] that's what the tunnel is we're doing [37:24] down below is to meet that and then this [37:26] raise B will come in and it will pull [37:28] our 12' 7 in uh main excavation and from [37:33] there we actually have a pretty complex [37:34] Underground Construction that actually [37:36] can't be done with drill and Blasting we [37:38] want to build a spiral staircase that [37:40] allows people to walk up and around all [37:43] the Clock Works the idea is that it's [37:44] kind of architectural in scale and that [37:46] people can walk through the workings of [37:47] the clock itself um and that we may even [37:50] uh flare the tunnel out to kind of force [37:52] perspective as you can see this kind of [37:53] a a uh a conical shape on the outside [37:56] there so there's not really very many [37:58] methods that allow you to do that and we [38:00] had to start combining technology from [38:03] both the mining industry as well as the [38:05] stone cutting and um and uh coring [38:10] Industries this is an underground uh [38:12] marble mine in corar Italy that's cut [38:14] with these uh Diamond toothed chainsaws [38:17] that are normally run with um with uh [38:20] with Just Hydraulics and don't have any [38:22] computer controls to them so we took one [38:24] of those blades and um and put it and [38:27] built a an 8 ton robot that can [38:31] manipulate it in three-dimensional space [38:34] and this is a test that was just done [38:35] literally last week where we uh tested [38:38] it this is going through 5T of [38:40] concrete that was specially formulated [38:42] to be the same density and chemical [38:44] mixture of R [38:48] Stone and so that's a 9t uh blade that's [38:54] uh impregnated with uh diamonds that [38:57] come off at a certain rate just for this [38:59] material um and we'll be able to do a [39:01] lot of our Underground Construction [39:03] using uh basically CNC process where you [39:07] cut you do a cut and then you break away [39:09] in between the cut and um and then [39:12] you're left with a a nice at least a [39:15] reasonably smooth shape uh afterwards [39:17] you can cut everything but I think [39:19] there's an interesting pattern to this [39:20] smooth rough smooth rough that we'll be [39:22] able to get uh out of [39:25] this that was an hour that time lapse um [39:29] so in order to cut the whole [39:32] staircase we have about 250 ft of [39:36] staircase to cut um and it's three Cuts [39:39] per [39:41] stair and it looks like it's going to [39:43] take us about a year of solid cutting to [39:46] cut that [39:49] staircase and that guy has to sit there [39:51] for the whole [39:54] thing so that's the um that's the clock [39:57] that's basically the current state of [39:59] the clock project we are now building uh [40:01] these full scale parts of the clock um [40:03] they're all coming they're being built [40:05] in shops in Seattle LA and the Bay Area [40:07] they're all coming together in our [40:08] assembly facility in San Rafel uh not [40:11] far from here where we assemble [40:12] subassemblies take them back apart as [40:14] little as possible put them into [40:16] shipping containers they go out to Texas [40:17] and they're going to go into the [40:18] underground facility once that's all [40:20] done and sealed up um and uh the first [40:24] question is going to be when are you [40:25] going to be done uh we don't have a [40:27] schedule for when we're going to be done [40:28] we don't have a budget for how much it's [40:30] going to cost uh we do it on a quarterly [40:33] basis we review it with uh Jeff and um [40:36] we just do it as fast as appropriate and [40:39] uh as efficiently as appropriate the [40:44] um the other side of this project is an [40:47] information based project and I wanted [40:48] to touch on the Rosetta project uh [40:50] because I'm here and I think it has a [40:52] lot of relevance to to SEI and it was uh [40:55] how we uh contacted uh V here and [41:01] um talking across huge chasms of space [41:04] obviously is very much like talking [41:06] across huge chasms of time and uh we [41:09] realize that if we're going to help [41:11] civilization through any chasms of time [41:14] or understand uh what is now a [41:17] increasingly smaller and smaller set of [41:19] languages in the world and the data that [41:21] comes from the past into the future from [41:23] those smaller subset of languages uh [41:26] they need what is basically a modern [41:28] Rosetta Stone to avoid this problem this [41:30] is the festos disc this is a still un [41:33] well there's some people who claim to [41:34] have decoded it but there's no widely [41:36] accepted version of of what this says [41:39] and it's also a good example of why uh [41:41] pictograms which are often thought of as [41:43] the the way to um to communicate without [41:48] uh cultural bias it's actually the worst [41:50] way because each one of these pictograms [41:52] you know let's say you know this little [41:54] ghost figure here I mean is that a [41:56] little ghost fig figure or is that does [41:58] that mean somebody from the afterlife [41:59] does that mean there's some guys some [42:01] priests who wore sheets does that mean [42:02] that's a you know the Masons at the time [42:04] wore sheets we don't know but actually [42:06] phonetic alphabets are vastly easier to [42:08] decode um and um it was again it was the [42:12] hieroglyphics on the Rosetta Stone that [42:14] were the hardest thing to decode and it [42:15] took um it took the other two scripts to [42:18] decode that uh after 50 years um and so [42:22] we created we started collecting [42:24] languages just little sketches of [42:26] languages uh basically 10 different [42:28] elements including a translation of uh [42:31] Genesis because it was the only thing [42:33] that has translations on this uh [42:35] anywhere near this number um and uh um [42:40] where the language is spoken um the [42:43] phonetics of the alphabet and things [42:44] like that and we were able to micro etch [42:47] them onto a dis about 2.8 in in diameter [42:51] that uh that has 13,000 13 and half [42:55] th000 pages on it it was written with a [42:57] Gallum ion beam into silicon and then [42:59] and then plated onto nickel um so that [43:01] it could last on the same time scale one [43:03] of these discs the earlier prototypes [43:05] was launched on the European space [43:07] agency's Rosetta Mission which um I [43:10] think gets to the comet that it's [43:13] heading towards in 2014 November I think [43:16] um and so but it'll be kind of one of [43:18] the only pieces of human content on [43:20] there but you don't need a you don't [43:22] need to build a DVD player for instance [43:24] to to read this thing it's just uh pure [43:26] Optics you can just zoom down into it [43:27] with Optics and you saw that one design [43:30] of the one of the human eye readable [43:31] side allows you to see that and it [43:33] spirals down smaller and smaller so it [43:34] would kind of hopefully encourage uh [43:37] Tighter and Tighter [43:39] inspection um [43:41] and Adrian mentioned we have a speaking [43:44] series uh and one of the very first [43:46] speakers in that speaking series was [43:47] Jill and I uh was looking at her talk as [43:50] I prepared for this one and so I stole a [43:53] couple of her slides uh from almost I [43:56] think 10 years ago almost and um this [44:00] was one of them and I thought it was an [44:01] interesting one where um obviously SEI [44:03] and the long now Foundation cross over [44:05] um if if there is uh if there's [44:09] technological disaster if Society [44:11] doesn't have [44:12] continuity then the SEI the idea of seti [44:16] doesn't work you know we need we need [44:17] civilizations to have a higher level of [44:19] Technology most likely for you guys to [44:21] detect them at least from what I [44:23] understand of the process um and uh so [44:26] if our level of technology doesn't keep [44:27] increasing then there is no uh way to [44:30] detect each other uh and the [44:35] um this idea that CI is the archaeology [44:38] of the future as F Morrison said um I [44:42] think is is a really important idea and [44:44] I think it's one that that resonates [44:46] well uh with a 10,000-year project and I [44:50] was reminded of that when I saw this [44:54] picture now I've seen this this picture [44:57] referred to is both a very a positive [44:59] story and a negative story and it's hard [45:00] to know um which one it is but it's a [45:02] once again it was a once in 10,000 year [45:04] event story and this was a a a monument [45:07] that was put up in Japan and on it it [45:11] said High dwellings are the peace in [45:13] harmony of our descendants remember the [45:14] Calamity of the great tsunamis do not [45:16] build any homes below this [45:18] point um and I've heard this I've now [45:21] seen this referred to as homes were [45:23] built below this point I've seen it [45:24] referred to as no homes were built below [45:25] this point so I have yet to truth this [45:27] out um but I think it's an interesting [45:29] one and and if another civilization were [45:32] to find our planet and just find that [45:34] warning or if one of the things we [45:35] receive as a signal from another place [45:38] is a warning how well will we heed it is [45:41] a really interesting question to me [45:43] thank you very [45:45] [Applause] [45:53] much the power source is just a a heavy [45:56] Stone it's going to take 10,000 years to [45:58] drop um no it can store uh it can store [46:03] as as it's currently calculated um about [46:05] a Century's worth of power um that's for [46:09] that power is all the all the chime [46:11] mechanism that's kind of the most power [46:13] hungry part of the clock um the dials [46:15] themselves are actually powered by the [46:16] visitors when they wind it as and that [46:19] stone is also powered by the visitors [46:21] but the clock keeps Time by a [46:23] temperature difference uh from day to [46:25] night that's collected up at the top of [46:26] the map mountain and so the only the uh [46:30] escapement and um the the and the [46:33] Pendulum are kept powered by this [46:36] temperature difference so we conserve a [46:37] lot of power and then when people arrive [46:39] they wind it to make all the dials and [46:41] the the Chimes go and the clock when it [46:43] it just stops at the right moment when [46:45] it it know it always knows when now is [46:48] but you have to wind it in order for it [46:49] to show you and this this is also um [46:52] part of that uh you know design it to be [46:54] lost and the the interesting piece of [46:56] information you get from this process is [46:59] when the last person was there so when [47:00] you when you arrive the date and the [47:02] time that's shown is the time of the [47:04] last visitors it could have been [47:05] yesterday it could have been a thousand [47:07] years ago and so now and if it was a [47:09] thousand years ago you have a lot of [47:10] winding to do um and if it was yesterday [47:12] you have a very small amount of winding [47:13] to do so the idea is to both encourage [47:15] that interaction which we realized with [47:16] our first prototype in London behind a [47:19] glass case that not having that [47:20] interaction is a bad thing people want [47:23] to kind of leave their Mark and have [47:24] their moment with it um [47:27] and it also gets us out of the [47:28] engineering problem of engineering power [47:30] source for all these really power hungry [47:32] uh parts of display and and [47:35] Chimes Alexander you mentioned the uh [47:38] water problem uh but you didn't mention [47:41] your solution uh is that because that's [47:44] still in the future or no no no it's uh [47:46] it's in our underground design basically [47:48] all of our underground spaces drain [47:49] outward and so um and even the way that [47:53] that saw is designed to cut those stairs [47:56] it has it has a droop angle in the blade [47:58] which we left in instead of trying to [48:00] compensate for it so it keeps a kind of [48:02] a a an angle that even water that gets [48:05] into the main vertical shaft it will [48:07] come to the outside of the stairs and [48:08] spiral out and then come out the lower [48:10] tunnel the entrance tunnel to the top [48:12] drains out through all of that so [48:14] there's the idea is that we know we're [48:15] going to get water in and we just keep [48:17] it to the outsides of the walls away [48:18] from the machine and let it drain [48:23] out I have a a kind of a silly question [48:27] um you mentioned that it's next to the a [48:30] space thing that that he's interested in [48:33] building um what kind of protection do [48:35] you have of stuff falling on top of your [48:39] clock um the only exposed uh part is the [48:44] part that collects sunlight for the [48:45] solar noon trigger and the power so it [48:47] would really suck if that got hit um uh [48:51] we don't have protection from that word [48:53] we haven't finalized the design of what [48:54] that little Koopa might look like I [48:56] think it's to be that a a trade-off of [49:00] uh how attention grabbing we want it to [49:03] be and uh and or how natural we want it [49:06] to look um but uh at least from my [49:11] understanding of the um the Monte Carlo [49:15] predictions of launches uh it doesn't [49:18] sound like there's going to be enough to [49:19] Warrant any [49:21] serious engineering around that problem [49:24] but yeah uh what type of a escapement do [49:27] you use and will it [49:29] tick so this was an interesting problem [49:31] is that we had designed that final dial [49:33] chamber where the uh the main dials and [49:36] the escapement and the Pendulum are is [49:39] this egg shaped and we designed it so [49:41] that it would we put it in exactly this [49:43] kind of nodal point so that it would [49:44] Echo a tick to where you stand to update [49:46] all the dials and then uh as we refin [49:49] the escapement design which is actually [49:51] a novel one that we've patented um we [49:55] realized it doesn't take [49:57] um and Ticking destroys clocks [50:00] effectively so ticking is the thing that [50:02] hammers down on the it's that's what [50:04] you're hearing is this Hammer action on [50:06] the escapement which is the fastest [50:07] moving part in our whole clock which [50:08] moves once every 10 seconds you know [50:11] which is uh several billion cycles in [50:13] our uh probably 15 billion cycles in our [50:16] U time frame now that's not out of the [50:18] realm of materials um 15 billion cycles [50:21] I think 5 billion cycles is about how [50:23] many times a Rolex ticks in 20 years so [50:25] this would be you know it's it's [50:27] certainly in the right realm and you [50:29] keep it very soft but we've engineered a [50:30] lot of the tick away so there's another [50:32] part of the escapement a wheel that [50:34] we've kind of made a a resonant drum on [50:36] that will hit something that actually [50:38] ticks on purpose so we we had to [50:40] engineer the tick in but if you're more [50:42] interested in the escapement design I [50:44] can show it to you in more detail it's [50:46] um we we're just now getting the the [50:48] latest version of the escapement up and [50:51] running oh sorry so if you're worried if [50:54] you're you know building it to be lost [50:56] for a long time and you're worried about [50:58] flooding and oxidation um have you [51:00] considered building it somewhere um with [51:03] little or no [51:06] atmosphere and not necessarily on this [51:08] planet right [51:11] uh the you know the point of this [51:14] project is to um is to capture the human [51:16] imagination and I think whether or not [51:18] people go and visit it uh I think they [51:21] need to know that they can go visit it [51:22] and there may be a time when uh ex [51:25] extraplanetary visit is much more [51:27] possible than it is now but um the idea [51:30] is well a it's it changes your budget by [51:32] about three zeros right [51:35] and and you need a launch vehicle and [51:37] all those things so we've I mean there [51:38] certainly been talk about it we [51:39] certainly like the idea of launching [51:41] certain parts of of the uh information [51:43] Around the Clock like the Rosetta desk [51:46] um and welcome more opportunities to get [51:48] on launch vehicles for the parts that I [51:50] think uh we could do that with that are [51:51] light and easy to get into orbit at this [51:54] point yeah what's the composition of The [51:57] Rock and where you're putting this and [51:58] also what's the seismic history [52:00] there [52:03] um it's a Dolomite [52:06] Limestone and [52:08] um depending on where in this range uh [52:12] it can be pretty brusic uh we're a [52:14] little bit ways from that where this [52:16] marble mine is where they actually mine [52:18] the uh the the 10,000 year concrete um [52:21] that was super heated from a volcanic uh [52:23] a very old volcanic eruption um the [52:27] seismic history is they they have had [52:29] earthquakes even in recent memory um but [52:31] they're I mean it's way better than the [52:34] West this part of the West uh by a long [52:37] shot I mean there's certainly you know [52:38] places like Australia would probably be [52:40] even better um people have suggested [52:43] places like A's Rock um they uh they [52:47] basically have no earthquakes but um [52:50] this was uh this site came with a funer [52:53] and a reason to do it and um I think uh [52:57] I think things like that cave certainly [52:58] show that it can things can hold up on [53:00] the time scale if we build it [53:03] right so the North Pole our North Pole [53:05] is pointing to Polaris now and will [53:07] 10,000 years from now point to Vega in [53:09] lra I think and that is in the U in the [53:13] cam that you showed multi-dimensional [53:15] cam yeah so um actually in that [53:17] Starfield that you saw that whole [53:18] Starfield is a is a hemisphere that's [53:21] slightly off axis that's that is [53:24] rotating um and brings will bring Vega [53:27] around in about 13,000 years I think [53:29] when it becomes the North [53:31] Star um how confident are you in um the [53:35] current corrosion um data on oxidation [53:39] humidity and um and how confident that [53:43] that you can extrapolate that for 10,000 [53:46] years well even though we're using um [53:50] we're using is not impervious for no [53:53] it's not no stainless is not impervious [53:55] um I mean basically I think that the [53:57] best comment I got from our kind of [53:58] material science Guru is everything is [54:01] burning and you know in our atmosphere [54:04] everything is effectively burning in [54:05] oxygen and so the question is is what [54:08] rate now as I pointed out some Woods [54:10] have lasted on a millennial scale you [54:12] know they found a 5,000-year-old leather [54:14] shoe in Armenia recently um that was [54:17] buried underground didn't have much [54:18] oxygen um to it [54:22] um you know we can we're using a lot of [54:24] the data that was developed for um [54:26] the yucka mountain nuclear waste [54:28] repository the other thing that we've [54:30] done is that basically the operational [54:32] parts of the clock are um and the [54:35] stainless parts are have huge uh [54:38] tolerances now we're using them we're [54:40] building them with modern Machining [54:42] technology that has 5,000 of an inch [54:45] tolerance but the operational tolerances [54:47] of those parts is actually like a half [54:49] an inch like for the chime mechanism to [54:51] work and things like that parts of the [54:53] escapement which are have to be much [54:55] tighter tight more tightly held are [54:57] using Sapphire ceramic and um in some of [55:01] the large wheels that have a lot of [55:02] teeth um in titanium that can um and are [55:06] have kind of soft pallets so they just [55:08] don't hurt each other but um nobody [55:10] really knows um we know uh you know we [55:13] certainly know that things like Ceramics [55:15] have lasted 10,000 20,000 years we have [55:18] examples of them um Metals we have much [55:21] sketchier data I mean the metals have [55:23] lasted uh in natural environments on [55:25] Millions of years um but how much [55:28] oxidization they got we don't know but [55:30] we're operating on the best data that we [55:33] have it would seem like another strategy [55:35] for lasting 10,000 years would be [55:37] duplication are you planning your second [55:40] one yeah well there's many ideas and I [55:43] we actually we post all the other [55:45] people's ideas for a 10,000 year clock I [55:46] mean this is one there's only one way to [55:48] make a 10,000 year clock a big [55:50] ridiculous mechanical object I mean you [55:52] could plant a forest of bristle cone [55:54] Pines you could uh make an erosion based [55:56] thing in a river you can um you know [55:59] there's all kinds of great ideas that [56:00] you could do for a 10,000 year clock um [56:04] and we have built these other prototypes [56:07] which in effect are kind of 10,000 year [56:09] clocks in and of themselves uh we have [56:12] um we've had invites from various places [56:14] in the world to build a city version of [56:16] the clock and we may follow up on those [56:18] we also have a whole another site in [56:19] eastern Nevada which we originally [56:21] purchased to build the monument scale [56:22] clock um that is covered in bristle con [56:25] Pines um and is also a limestone site [56:28] that we can use it's much more [56:29] seismically active um but uh we'll see [56:34] it's obviously a funding issue and and [56:36] how much attention we have to to keep [56:38] going on different projects at the same [56:40] time but we have certainly considered [56:41] multiple clocks and we'd love to do a [56:43] little little one for people to have in [56:45] their houses too so for those people who [56:48] I know there are a number of questions [56:50] still remaining I encourage you to come [56:52] up and talk to Alexander and after the [56:54] talk Alexander you mentioned that the [56:56] Taj Maha was covered in uh in crusted [56:59] jewels to discourage people from [57:01] Wrecking the building maybe this [57:03] artifact might be something that people [57:05] would be interested in uh 10,000 years [57:08] hence we offer you a set mug thank you [57:12] [Music] [57:32] [Music]