Jeff Bezos spent $42million building a clock that will outlast human civilization
- Jeff Bezos is bankrolling a $42m clock to outlast human civilization
- It will run for 10 millennia
- It’s powered by Earth’s thermal cycles.
Published on Nov 28, 2023 at 9:42 PM (UTC+4)
by Amelia Jean Hershman-Jones
Last updated on Nov 29, 2023 at 5:27 PM (UTC+4)
Edited by
Amelia Jean Hershman-Jones
Billionaire, Jeff Bezos, has once again proven his super-villain credentials by building a $42m clock to outlast human civilization.
Said to be able to run for 10 millennia, it’s powered by Earth’s thermal cycles.
Jeff Bezos is one of the richest people on the planet.
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Forbes estimates he has $169.1 billion in the bank.
Cash means nothing to the Amazon founder who can afford a $79 million home on ‘Billionaire Bunker’, $75m ‘support yacht’ for his $500m ‘mega yacht’ and $78 million private jet.
Now it seems time and space are meaningless too.
Bezos announced the project back in 2018.
He invested in the idea of putting a giant, 10,000-year clock inside a mountain in West Texas.
Construction on the clock, part of The Long Now Foundation, is now well under way.
Once finished, it will stand at 500 feet (152 meters) high.
As per a statement on the clock’s official website:
“The Clock is hundreds of feet tall, engineered to require minimal maintenance, and powered by mechanical energy harvested from sunlight as well as the people that visit it.
“The Clock will mark time with astronomic and calendric displays and a chime generator designed with the help of Brian Eno that can produce over 3.5 million unique bell chime sequences — one for every day the Clock is visited for the next 10,000 years.”
Bezos is footing the bill but the idea came from a man named Danny Hillis who co-founded the foundation.
The idea is supposed to help people invest in thee long-term future of humanity – and the planet.
It’s hoped to encourage people to “conjure with notions of generations and millennia”.
“If you have a Clock ticking for 10,000 years what kinds of generational-scale questions and projects will it suggest?” the website asks.
“If a Clock can keep going for ten millennia, shouldn’t we make sure our civilization does as well?”
That idea has been labelled ‘The Clock of the Long Now’.
Hillis build an actual, working smaller version of the proposed clock.
And, while Bezos is building the full-size timepiece, Hillis is still very much involved in its design.
When completed, it will only tick once a year and its chime will only be heard once per millennium.
Now if that doesn’t make you feel insignificant I don’t know what will.
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All Supercar Blondie contributors undergo editorial review and fact-checking to ensure accuracy and authority in automotive journalism. After gaining her BA Hons in French and English at the University of Nottingham, Amelia embarked on a vocational diploma from the National Council for the Training of Journalists (NCTJ). This led to numerous opportunities, from interning at Vogue to being on the small team that launched Women’s Health magazine in the UK, which was named the PPA Consumer magazine of the year for three years running. As Health, Beauty and Fitness editor, Amelia personally received a Johnson & Johnson Award and was shortlisted for both PPA and BSME titles. Since then, Amelia has created content for numerous titles and brands, including the Telegraph, 111 Skin, Waitrose, Red magazine, Stylist, and Elle, as well as being Head of Content at Vitality and Editor in Chief at INLondon magazine. “My superpower is translating technical jargon about the mechanical workings of a supercar into a relatable story you’ll want to share with your friends after you’ve read it.” After joining the SB Media family as a senior journalist in September of 2023, Amelia’s role has evolved to see her heading up the SEO output of the editorial team. From researching the most ‘Google-able’ key terms to producing evergreen content - it’s been a time of hard work, growth, and success for the editorial team and the Supercar Blondie website. “I like to think of myself as a ‘method journalist’. In other words: I live and breathe whatever I am writing about. When writing about fitness, I trained as a personal trainer, and as a beauty editor, I completed an ‘expert’ in scent diploma with the Fragrance Foundation. “During my tenure at Supercar Blondie, however, I did something I never thought possible: I passed my driving test at the age of 36. One day I’d love to train as a mechanic to better understand what happens under the hood, too. “My sweet spot is providing readers with a ‘takeaway’ (read: something new they didn’t know before) after reading every one of my stories. While I don’t claim to be an expert in the automotive world, I know the experts and bodies in the field to rely on to provide our readers with an informative and thought-provoking story every time they visit the site.”
