Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and a clutch of comparable - tending folks are constructing a monumental clock that ’s contrive to last for 10,000 year . Its purpose , apparently , is to be an image of “ long - terminal figure thinking ” and exalt citizenry to dream far beyond the special ambit of a human life .

The labor is the brainchild of computer scientist Danny Hillis who first drum up the approximation in the 1980s . compose in an essay forWIRED Magazinein 1995 , Hillis explain : “ I require to build up a clock that click once a year . The century paw advances once every 100 years , and the zany comes out on the millennium … If I hurry , I should finish the clock in time to see the cuckoo arrive out for the first time . ”

His plan did n’t remain a lofty pipedream . To get the orb rolling , Hillis partnered up with Stewart Brand and founded the Long Now Foundation , a not-for-profit that aim to “ foster foresighted - term intellection . ” They ’ve received support from Bezos , who’sreportedlyinjected $ 42 million into the construction of the giant clock .

" civilisation is revving itself into a pathologically little care dyad [ … ] Some sort of balancing disciplinary to the unretentive - eyesight is needed , ” Brand say in apostexplaining the school of thought of the clock .

“ Such a clock , if sufficiently telling and well - engineered , would substantiate deep time for people . It should be charismatic to visit , interesting to think about , and famous enough to become iconic in the public discourse . Ideally , it would do for thinking about time what the photograph of Earth from blank space have done for thinking about the environment . Such icons reframe the path people think , ” he add up .

The10,000 - Year Clockwill be “ 100 of feet tall , ” although there ’s no word yet on exact measurements , and will sit late within a pot in West Texas . It will have dozens of vast dials that are built to last and a chime generator , which has been design by ambient euphony superstar Brian Eno .

Installation of the clockbegan in 2018(or the class 02018 as the Long Now Foundation like to call it ) . However , readiness work – namely excavate the site for the clock – started long before . In 2012 , Bezosreleased an updateexplaining they had just finished dig up the 152 - meter ( 500 - foundation ) deep vertical shaft for the clock .

According to the project ’s web site , no completion particular date has been sic . I pretend there ’s no haste if you think in millenary - farseeing timespans . For the time being , there is a scale - down prototype of the clock on presentation at the Science Museum in London .

The 10,000 - Year Clock has its critics . For some , the clock is a presentation ofivory tower thinking , Silicon Valley utopianism , and repulsive wealth . WIRED , which gave the clock its first public debut , print anarticle in 2020titledThe 10,000 - twelvemonth Clock Is a Waste of Time , which denounced the task as a " princely Age beguilement " .

But hey , have ’s see who ’s laughing in 10,000 long time .