10.000 year "Clock of the Long Now"

[Heritage-Clocks]

Would make a good movie. Found 10,000 year old clock.

H/C

[shutterbug]

Would make a good movie. Found 10,000 year old clock.

H/C

Still running!

[Heritage-Clocks]

A company here in AZ is helping build this clock. I have a friend that I went to HS with that works for the company here in AZ. She told me that some of the faces that you see on this web page work out of the office here in AZ.

H/C

[John Hubby]

I have been following this development since the beginning of the Long Now Foundation. In the late 1990's I worked with the present ED Alexander Rose on formulae for torsion pendulum suspension springs, and he gave the James Arthur lecture at the 2003 NAWCC Ward Francillon Time Symposium that featured torsion pendulum clocks. Yes, it uses a torsion pendulum like a gigantic anniversary clock. Depending on the prototype design the pendulum period has ranged from 10 beats per hour to four beats per hour. Discussions regarding the design for the actual clock have included beat rates as some multiple of the earth's daily rotation and adjusted by the period of the earth's orbit around the sun. All that was to ensure sidereal time accuracy over very long periods to minimize any need for human intervention to adjust the rate.

One feature of the clock that might drive the oil discussion threads bonkers is that it is designed to operate with no external lubrication whatever, but to rely on the lubricity of the materials from which the pivots and bearings are made, taking a hint from Harrison's use of lignum vitae. That is essential, as there is no known lubricant that could last and remain in its original state for more than a few decades at best.

A truly fascinating project, that changes the paradigm of long duration precision timekeeping.

[Heritage-Clocks]

I found this really interesting.
"Lignum vitae" is Latin for "wood of life", and derives from its medicinal uses; lignum vitae resin has been used to treat a variety of medical conditions from coughs to arthritis, and chips of the wood can also be used to brew a tea. Other names for lignum vitae include palo santo (Spanish for "holy wood") and greenheart; lignum vitae is also one of the numerous hard, dense woods referred to as ironwood.

Who would ever thing HUH. Maybe we need to look into wood bushing for clocks (Ironwood)

H/C

[Tinker Dwight]

Hi
Just about the hardest wood I know of is dried
eucalyptus. A chain saw just bounces off the stuff.
It is just like rock.
It needs to be slow cured or it cracks and has a
lot of water in it when first cut.
Tinker Dwight

[zepernick]

Ten-thousand years here, ten-thousand there, I like the casual concern expressed by Mike McCann (via the BBC News today):

Big Ben is leaning to one side and may eventually become unstable - but only in thousands of years, according to a newly revealed report.

The tower leans 0.26 degrees to the north-west, putting it out of alignment by about 0.5m at its highest point.

The lean was discovered when Transport for London commissioned a report, because the extension of the Jubilee Line passes under Parliament.

Experts are unsure what is causing the lean.

But one theory is that the London clay on which the tower was built is drying out.

Mike McCann, keeper of the great clock, told BBC London: "We have been monitoring it since 1999, so we've got some pretty good data.

"Our resident expert believes it will be between 4,000 and 10,000 years before it becomes a problem.

"So it's not significant today, but we do need to keep an eye on it."

[shutterbug]

The 'iron wood' that I grew up with is from a quite unpleasant tree that is covered with thorns, even the trunk. Very hard wood, as you'd expect

[Burkhard Rasch]

let´s see how the Strassbourgh munster clock copes with the demonstration of "Platon´s year" 25.700-25800 years ahead (the indication is provided in that clock afaik).If it works I´ll be optimistic about the clock of Long Now.Anyway I like the project!
Burkhard

[Heritage-Clocks]

The Munster clock was made by Isaac Habrecht; the scientific supervisors were Conradus Dasypodius and David Wolckenstein.
It was built in 1571-1574 (the clock is dated in the print 1573), replacing an earlier monumental clock. And it's still around. But who is to say what 10,000 years will bring.

H/C

[Bill Ward]

The Strasbourg clock has been rebuilt several times; the current mechanism dates from the 1840's (though it was designed earlier). It's a real marvel, but not that ancient. Of course, it gets regular loving care.
The Long Now model on display at the Science Museum in London had, unfortunately, stopped working within about a year of its installation; on my last visit (about 2 years ago) I was not able to find it.
Those visiting San Francisco shouldn't miss a vist to the Long Now Foundation museum, where many models of the ingenious mechanisms are on display. The chiming train, using cascaded Geneva mechanisms as a digital counter, is really a jaw-dropper!

[bajaddict]

I wasn't quite sure where to post this, or if it had been covered before, but I read an interesting newspaper article about The Long Now 10,000 Year Clock. There is a website that can provide a better description than I am able to: http://longnow.org/clock/

[John Hubby]

bajaddict, thanks for posting the link to the Long Now site. Since there have been several previous threads regarding this same subject, I've consolidated all of them into a single thread in the Horological Miscellaneous Forum.

Have a good read, it's an extremely interesting concept that I've been following since its inception. NAWCC has had some involvement as well, the Long Now Foundation Executive Director Alexander Rose gave the Jame Arthur lecture at the 2003 Ward Francillon Time Symposium that focused on torsion pendulum clocks. The Clock of the Long Now is arguably the largest and most complex torsion pendulum clock ever conceived, even the two prototypes that have already been completed each warrant that designation.