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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.

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.

- Applied Minds, Inc. is Danny Hillis’ company that leads the design of the Clock;
- The Long Now Foundation is a non-profit foundation that was established to foster long-term thinking and focuses a tremendous amount of its energy on the Clock. Special thanks here most especially to Alexander Rose and Stewart Brand;
- Penguin Automated Systems, Inc. has provided guidance on the underground site development;
- Swaggart Brothers, Inc. continues to lead the construction aspects of the project;
- Seattle Solstice are masters of custom-design stone objects and have developed a saw that will cut the spiral staircase out of stone in the Clock chamber;
-Machinists, Inc. are metal fabrication specialists who have delivered many of the Clock parts.”

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