An enormous 10,000-year-old clock: Jeff Bezos’s extravagant project that is already being built | Technology

Inside a mountain in Texas, United States, another of Jeff Bezos’ follies is being built: the so-called 10,000 year clock.

It’s about a huge clock 150 meters high that is designed to measure time in years and centuries.

In this way, while one of its needles will move every time we change year, the other will do it at each change of century.

In turn, each time a new millennium a “cuckoo” will come out from inside and sing.

Installation has begun – 500 feet tall, all mechanical, powered by day / night thermal cycles, synchronized to solar noon, a symbol for long-term thinking – the # 10000YearClock joins thanks to the genius of Danny Hillis, Zander Rose and the entire Clock team. Enjoy the video. pic.twitter.com/FYIyaUIbdJ

– Jeff Bezos (@JeffBezos) February 20, 2018

The construction will be completely mechanical, and as Bezos explained previously, it will be driven by thermal cycles day and night.

And although the founder of Amazon hopes that once installed 100%, it can be visited by tourists, reaching the clock will not be easy at all, mainly because the nearest airport is several hours away by car. Also, to get to the location a rugged trail must be completed.

“The installation has started: 150 meters high, completely mechanical, driven by thermal cycles (which occur) between day and night, synchronized with solar noon, a symbol for long-term thinking “the mogul wrote on Twitter in February 2018, when construction began.

It should be noted that although Bezos donated the land where the construction will be located, in addition to 42 million dollars, the idea of ​​the underground clock began to take shape in 1986, when the MIT professor and businessman Danny hillis he began to imagine a 10,000-year-old clock.

In 1996 he created the Long Now Foundation in order to give life to this project. The first version of the watch, measuring two meters, was inaugurated in 1999 in the London Science Museum. Hills, who is a friend of Bezos, told the billionaire about his idea, who was interested, thus giving birth to this ambitious project.

In the words of Bezos, the watch will be a way to remind people that the distant future does not exist, but will happen to their own descendants.