We are building a 10,000 Year Clock. It's a special Clock, designed to be a symbol, an icon for long-term thinking. It's of monumental scale inside a mountain in West Texas. The father of the Clock is Danny Hillis. He's been thinking about and working on the Clock since 1989. He wanted to build a Clock that ticks once a year, where the century hand advances once every 100 years, and the cuckoo comes out on the millennium. The vision was, and still is, to build a Clock that will keep time for the next 10,000 years. I've been helping Danny with the project for the last half dozen years. As I see it, humans are now technologically advanced enough that we can create not only extraordinary wonders but also civilization-scale problems. We're likely to need more long-term thinking.
Visiting the Clock will take a commitment. The nearest airport is several hours away by car, and the foot trail to the Clock is rugged, rising almost 2,000 feet above the valley floor.
Building a Clock inside a remote mountain is a big task. Construction is under way, and we're making progress every day.
This is the way you'll initially enter the series of tunnels and chambers that we're creating within the mountain.
After many years of hard work and creative thinking, the final design and engineering of the Clock is nearly complete, and fabrication of the full-size Clock parts has begun.
The Clock's chime generator creates a different bell ringing sequence each day for 10,000 years.
Carved into the mountain are five room-sized anniversary chambers: 1 year, 10 year, 100 year, 1,000 year, and 10,000 year anniversaries. The one year anniversary chamber is a special orrery. In addition to the planets and the Earth's moon, it includes the interplanetary probes launched during the 20th century. The Clock will activate and run the orrery once a year on a pre-determined date at solar noon. We aren't planning to build the animations for the 100, 1,000, and 10,000 year anniversary chambers, but will instead leave those to future generations. We are providing a mechanical interface into those chambers that provides those future builders with power and the correct Clock triggering events. We do intend to build the animation for the 10 year anniversary chamber, but haven't decided what it will be yet. If you have an interesting idea for the 10 year anniversary chamber, please feel free to email it to 10-year-chamber@10000yearclock.net, and we'll add it to the mix of ideas.
This is a really big project in multiple ways, and there are many partners who are helping make it a reality. Here's a list of some of the organizations that are key to the project.
If you are interested in visiting the Clock when it is complete (many years into the future), please subscribe to Clock Interest by emailing a blank message to clockinterest@10000yearclock.net.
Thanks for your interest in the Clock!
Sincerely,
Jeff Bezos