These Webpages are no longer maintained. We are keeping the pages here to preserve some of the early years of ProjectDragonfly, to honor the students who created the interactives in the early days of the Web, and because many of the activities are fun and people are still using them. For current Project Dragonfly work, go to:www.ProjectDragonfly.org
Thanks!
The ProjectDragonflyteam.
The Idea
Sometimes an idea is big enough to bring lots of people
together to make sure it happens. Thatās how it is with the Millennium
Clock. Danny Hillis had this idea for a clock that would last 10,000 years.
It would tick once a year and bong once every 100 years. The cuckoo would
come out once every millennium.
Danny had helped design one of the fastest computers
in the world. He worries that the world is changing so fast that most people
donāt think past tomorrow. Many of us feel this way. We have trouble imagining
the future, even a future just five years away, because it will be so different.
I have been working with Danny for the last three
years to build this clock. We hope that it will help people slow down and
think more deeply about the future, a future that goes far beyond our own
lifetimes.
The Clock
These are the goals for the design of the Millennium
Clock:
The clock has to last. It must display the correct
time for the next 10,000 years.
It should be easy to maintain.
People should be able to figure out how the clock
works just by looking closely at it.
People should be able to interact with the clock.
The same clock design should work at different clock
sizes, small or large.
The three main parts necessary for any clock are power,
timing, and a display. Danny and his friends brainstormed a list of all
the different ways these three parts could work. Next, they compared these
lists to the design goals above. If an idea for the power, timing, or display
did not meet the guidelines, it was thrown out.
What was left were several ideas that we are now using
to build a complete, working clock about 2.44 meters tall (about 8 feet).
This clock will serve as a model for a giant clock that will be carved
into a mountain of solid rock.
The Power
Visitors to the Millennium Clock will create the power.
They will wind a huge weight so that it rises to the top of a tower. This
weight will slowly descend on a screw that turns and powers the clock.
We want people to interact with the clock, and we want the clock to need
people for it to work.
The Timing
The timing source will come from two places. The first
source, called a torsional pendulum, is a special kind of pendulum that
twists instead of swings. The second timing source will be the sun. The
clock will use the sun to reset itself. The noontime sunlight will heat
up a piece of metal so it expands and flips a latch, resetting the clock.
The Display
We wanted to display natural events, like the sunset
and moonrise, while also showing the date as it is seen on a calendar.
We had to build a type of computer to keep track of both natural time and
calendar time.
Most clocks use gears to track time. We realized that
gears would not work because we needed so many large calculations.
So Danny designed a mechanical computer that works
like electronic computers. But instead of using electricity passing through
microscopic chips, it uses actual levers and wheels. These levers and wheels
add numbers each time the clock ticks so the dials on the clock will turn
correctly.
If this idea does its job (for it is the idea,
even more than the clock), you may now be wondering: How will the world
be 1,000 years from now, or 1,000 years after that, or 1,000 years after
that?
Challenge
A Timely Idea
During our design process, we came up with many different
ideas for the 10,000-year clock. Some are as simple as predicting how fast
a mountain will erode and marking it so that each year can be seen as it
washes away. One idea was to have a family pass down the knowledge of the
clock from generation to generation.
What are your ideas for a 10,000-year clock? Send
ideas and drawings to The Long Now Foundation, P.O. Box 29462, San Francisco,
California 94129. We may publish them on our Web site!
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
Millennium Clock | Predictions | Corn Emergency Story | Dragonfly Home |
This document has been accessed 2,003 times since
1/31/00 to May 29, 2002 on the MIAVX1 Server. It has been accessed a total of 1 times.
This document was last modified on Tuesday, September 30, 2008 at 11:51:34.
Please send comments and suggestions to