Jeff Bezos began installing a 150-meter mechanical watch that will last 10,000 years.

One of the richest people in the history of mankind, the founder of Amazon, Jeff Bezos ( worth about $ 0.1 trillion ), began installing fully mechanical 152-meter hours in the impregnable mountains that should show a relatively accurate time of day for at least the next 10,000 years. The 10,000 Year Clock mechanism works on day and night thermal cycles (something like a Stirling engine on temperature differences) with synchronization across the Sun at noon.

For Bezos, this project worth $ 42 million is not just a matter of prestige. This is a peculiar symbol of long-term planning, when you think not about the present day and consider time not as days and years, or even decades - but ages, millennia. Jeff Bezos hopes that the 10,000-year-old clock will help people realize that their lives are only a fleeting moment in history, that they need to think about the future. The distant future. Leave a fuss and do the work that matters, which is more important than money .

“During the operation of these hours, the United States will cease to exist,” says Bezos. - Entire civilizations will appear and disappear. Invent new systems of government. You can not imagine the world - no one can - in which this watch will work. ”

For hours the network of tunnels and caves is drilled. The work took about seven years, and now the installation of the giant clock has finally begun.

The site 10,000 Year Clock says that getting to the clock is not easy: the nearest airport is a few hours drive. To get to the installation site, you need to have climbing equipment and know the exact route.


The road to the construction site. Photo: 10,000 Year Clock

In addition to the main cave, there are five additional “anniversary” caves the size of the room. These are unique museums dedicated to the achievements of mankind at the given moment of time. The room for the 1-year anniversary was turned into a planetarium: here are the planets of the solar system and the earth's moon, as well as all interplanetary probes launched from Earth in the 20th century. At the set hour after exactly the year of its work, the clock is activated and will start the movement of objects in the planetarium.

The caves for the 100th, 1000th and 10,000th anniversary anniversaries are not yet decorated. Jeff Bezos left this task for future generations. For them, a special mechanism for the descent of the clock and the interface mechanics are left, so that when future generations equip these cameras, they can connect them to the clock for activation at the programmed hour.

There are no ideas for animation for the ten-year anniversary (if you have it, send it to 10-year-chamber@10000yearclock.net).


The pinging machine produces a new tune every 24 hours over 10,000 years.

The watch is built by the Long Time Foundation , to which Jeff Bezos transferred $ 42 million for these purposes. The main contractor is Swaggart Brothers Cementation Inc.

In one of the interviews, the visionary asked how this project relates to what he is doing at Amazon: “It fits my worldview,” Bezos replied. “If everything you work on requires a planning horizon of three years, you are competing with a bunch of other people.” But if you invest in a horizon of seven years, you start to compete with only a few, because few people want to do it. By expanding the planning horizon, you will be able to engage in projects that you would never otherwise get into. At Amazon, we love working with horizons from five to seven years. We want to plant seeds, let them grow, and in this we are persistent. We are persistent in approaching and flexible in details. ”

This idea of ​​long-term planning is shared by the activists of The Long Now Foundation.


“In 4000, someone will find this watch and think: for the sake of all the saints, why did they build it?” Says Jeff Bezos. Surely many people ask this question now. According to a simple man in the street, $ 42 million can be spent in a much better way: for example, buy a beautiful house, a yacht or at least a private plane for your dog. It is difficult to imagine that such a complex and long-term engineering project has one single task - to inspire people.

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A little more detail about this watch, see the article "How and why Bezos builds a clock for 10,000 years . "