Jan. 2, 2026
The Clock of the Long Now (GT Mini)
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An unstoppable clock resides mountainside in West Texas.
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WEBVTT
00:00.031 --> 00:01.601
[SPEAKER_00]: The final countdown.
00:02.004 --> 00:02.768
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm Jason Horton.
00:03.050 --> 00:05.687
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm Rebecca Leib, and this is Ghost Town.
00:20.534 --> 00:25.611
[SPEAKER_00]: You begin at the entrance of a tunnel situated 1500 feet above the Texan High Desert.
00:26.374 --> 00:30.528
[SPEAKER_00]: Once you enter the underground space, you encounter a set of metal doors.
00:31.190 --> 00:32.856
[SPEAKER_00]: Through these doors is darkness.
00:34.051 --> 00:38.678
[SPEAKER_00]: But through the darkness down along ominous tunnel, you see a flicker of light.
00:39.499 --> 00:42.063
[SPEAKER_00]: Walking towards the light, it gets brighter and brighter.
00:42.844 --> 00:45.027
[SPEAKER_00]: Then, in the light, you look up.
00:45.788 --> 00:49.574
[SPEAKER_00]: Above you are giant gears illuminating a spiral staircase.
00:50.215 --> 00:52.418
[SPEAKER_00]: You climb the staircase 100 feet up.
00:53.079 --> 00:55.082
[SPEAKER_00]: There, you reach a clock.
00:55.903 --> 01:02.573
[SPEAKER_00]: It is a huge mechanical computer set to run for over 10,000 years.
01:02.553 --> 01:08.500
[SPEAKER_00]: It is, just in time for 2026, the clock of the long now.
01:09.982 --> 01:21.156
[SPEAKER_00]: According to the clock's website, the clock of the long now is, quote, an immense mechanical monument, installed in a mountain, designed to keep accurate time for the next 10 millennia.
01:22.057 --> 01:32.070
[SPEAKER_00]: The 10,000-year-old clock is hundreds of feet tall, engineered to require
01:32.050 --> 01:44.831
[SPEAKER_00]: And it is just that, an entirely mechanical subtraining clock made of titanium, ceramics, quartz, sapphire, and stainless steel, with an engine that's 10,000 pounds and the size of a small car.
01:45.532 --> 01:48.917
[SPEAKER_00]: It has a giant winding station that gets consistently wound.
01:49.318 --> 01:54.987
[SPEAKER_00]: Giant gears, some over 8 feet in diameter, and weighing themselves over 1,000 pounds each.
01:54.967 --> 02:07.414
[SPEAKER_00]: and pass those as the time generator, a mechanical computer using a progressive algorithm to determine which of the millions of possible sequences the times will play on any given day.
02:08.296 --> 02:12.705
[SPEAKER_00]: The times themselves will not repeat for over 10,000 years.
02:12.685 --> 02:20.067
[SPEAKER_00]: Even the most accurate mechanical clocks eventually drift off the correct time, so this clocks synchronizes with the new time's sun.
02:20.830 --> 02:25.885
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a trip to say the least, a kind of contraption that you'd read about in a Jewel's varn novel.
02:26.287 --> 02:31.560
[SPEAKER_00]: or encounter on acreage owned by Jeff Bezos this year a Diablo Mountains of Texas.
02:32.522 --> 02:43.148
[SPEAKER_00]: The whole concept of the clock of the long now began with American inventor, entrepreneur, and computer scientist and Walt Disney Imagineer, Danny Hillis back in 1989.
02:43.128 --> 02:51.080
[SPEAKER_00]: The first prototype of the clock began working on December 31, 1999, just in time to display the transition to the year 2000.
02:51.841 --> 02:59.232
[SPEAKER_00]: At midnight a New Year's Eve, the date indicator changed from 0, 1, 9, 9, 9, 9, 2, 0, 2, 0, 0.
02:59.773 --> 03:02.757
[SPEAKER_00]: And at that point, the chime struck twice.
03:02.737 --> 03:15.859
[SPEAKER_00]: This 2-meter high prototype is in London right now, with the second prototype, a full-scale one, constructed in 2009, with a $42 million grant by Jeff Baso's investment firm Baso's expeditions.
03:16.521 --> 03:20.628
[SPEAKER_00]: And is on land which Baso's himself owns in the Sierra Diablo Mountains in Texas.
03:20.648 --> 03:23.613
[SPEAKER_00]: This is the one that we consider the clock of the long now.
03:24.234 --> 03:25.015
[SPEAKER_00]: For now.
03:24.995 --> 03:36.812
[SPEAKER_00]: But of course, this clock is just another test for what Hillis hopes to build with his foundation, the Long Now Foundation, on land that he himself purchased on the top of Mount Washington near Eli Navada.
03:37.693 --> 03:48.268
[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, musician Brian Eno gave the clock of the Long Now its name, and even coined the term the Long Now, helping his friend Hillis on writing the music for the Chimes for the Navada Clock.
03:49.160 --> 03:56.436
[SPEAKER_00]: So why exactly would anyone build a clock inside a mountain that's set to continue for the next 10,000 years at least?
03:57.344 --> 04:06.012
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, according to the clock of the Long Nows website, quote, the clock provides a rare invitation to think and engineer at the time scale of civilization.
04:06.052 --> 04:11.057
[SPEAKER_00]: It offers an enduring symbol of our personal connection to the distant future.
04:11.097 --> 04:24.769
[SPEAKER_00]: The website goes on to say that they created the clock so that, in essence, people will ask this exact question, and quote, having asked it, prompt themselves to conjure with notions of generations and millennia.
04:25.559 --> 04:32.188
[SPEAKER_00]: If you have a clock ticking for 10,000 years, what kinds of generational scale questions and projects will it suggest?
04:32.909 --> 04:37.736
[SPEAKER_00]: If a clock can keep going for 10 millennia, should we make sure our civilization does as well?
04:38.617 --> 04:46.808
[SPEAKER_00]: If the clock keeps going after we are personally long dead, why not attempt other projects that require future generations to finish?
04:46.788 --> 04:52.395
[SPEAKER_00]: Namoe of the clock brine, you know, appreciates, quote, the expanded sense of time the clock provokes.
04:52.916 --> 04:59.123
[SPEAKER_00]: Not the short now of the next quarter, next week, or the next five minutes, but the long now of centuries.
05:00.265 --> 05:10.838
[SPEAKER_00]: Hillis himself considers the clock his most important work, saying in a 2011 interview with Wired, quote, I think this is the most important thing I can work on, more than cancer.
05:11.105 --> 05:16.915
[SPEAKER_00]: Over the long run, I think this will make more difference to more people, a bold statement to be sure.
05:17.396 --> 05:19.360
[SPEAKER_00]: But the clock is not without its dissenters.
05:19.921 --> 05:27.274
[SPEAKER_00]: In his 2020 wired piece about the clock of the long now, writer David Carp calls it, quote, Gilded Age Distraction.
05:27.254 --> 05:33.942
[SPEAKER_00]: Going on to say, quote, The clock of the long now doesn't just invite visitors to ponder the geologic passage of time.
05:34.623 --> 05:39.809
[SPEAKER_00]: It also offers a pleasant distraction from the dangerous trajectory of the world we occupy today.
05:39.869 --> 05:45.616
[SPEAKER_00]: Dangerous distraction or provocative work of engineering, you be the judge.
05:45.636 --> 05:53.245
[SPEAKER_00]: The clock of the long now doesn't discriminate, and keeps ticking away from the longest right now into the unknown of the new millennia.
00:00.031 --> 00:01.601
[SPEAKER_00]: The final countdown.
00:02.004 --> 00:02.768
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm Jason Horton.
00:03.050 --> 00:05.687
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm Rebecca Leib, and this is Ghost Town.
00:20.534 --> 00:25.611
[SPEAKER_00]: You begin at the entrance of a tunnel situated 1500 feet above the Texan High Desert.
00:26.374 --> 00:30.528
[SPEAKER_00]: Once you enter the underground space, you encounter a set of metal doors.
00:31.190 --> 00:32.856
[SPEAKER_00]: Through these doors is darkness.
00:34.051 --> 00:38.678
[SPEAKER_00]: But through the darkness down along ominous tunnel, you see a flicker of light.
00:39.499 --> 00:42.063
[SPEAKER_00]: Walking towards the light, it gets brighter and brighter.
00:42.844 --> 00:45.027
[SPEAKER_00]: Then, in the light, you look up.
00:45.788 --> 00:49.574
[SPEAKER_00]: Above you are giant gears illuminating a spiral staircase.
00:50.215 --> 00:52.418
[SPEAKER_00]: You climb the staircase 100 feet up.
00:53.079 --> 00:55.082
[SPEAKER_00]: There, you reach a clock.
00:55.903 --> 01:02.573
[SPEAKER_00]: It is a huge mechanical computer set to run for over 10,000 years.
01:02.553 --> 01:08.500
[SPEAKER_00]: It is, just in time for 2026, the clock of the long now.
01:09.982 --> 01:21.156
[SPEAKER_00]: According to the clock's website, the clock of the long now is, quote, an immense mechanical monument, installed in a mountain, designed to keep accurate time for the next 10 millennia.
01:22.057 --> 01:32.070
[SPEAKER_00]: The 10,000-year-old clock is hundreds of feet tall, engineered to require
01:32.050 --> 01:44.831
[SPEAKER_00]: And it is just that, an entirely mechanical subtraining clock made of titanium, ceramics, quartz, sapphire, and stainless steel, with an engine that's 10,000 pounds and the size of a small car.
01:45.532 --> 01:48.917
[SPEAKER_00]: It has a giant winding station that gets consistently wound.
01:49.318 --> 01:54.987
[SPEAKER_00]: Giant gears, some over 8 feet in diameter, and weighing themselves over 1,000 pounds each.
01:54.967 --> 02:07.414
[SPEAKER_00]: and pass those as the time generator, a mechanical computer using a progressive algorithm to determine which of the millions of possible sequences the times will play on any given day.
02:08.296 --> 02:12.705
[SPEAKER_00]: The times themselves will not repeat for over 10,000 years.
02:12.685 --> 02:20.067
[SPEAKER_00]: Even the most accurate mechanical clocks eventually drift off the correct time, so this clocks synchronizes with the new time's sun.
02:20.830 --> 02:25.885
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a trip to say the least, a kind of contraption that you'd read about in a Jewel's varn novel.
02:26.287 --> 02:31.560
[SPEAKER_00]: or encounter on acreage owned by Jeff Bezos this year a Diablo Mountains of Texas.
02:32.522 --> 02:43.148
[SPEAKER_00]: The whole concept of the clock of the long now began with American inventor, entrepreneur, and computer scientist and Walt Disney Imagineer, Danny Hillis back in 1989.
02:43.128 --> 02:51.080
[SPEAKER_00]: The first prototype of the clock began working on December 31, 1999, just in time to display the transition to the year 2000.
02:51.841 --> 02:59.232
[SPEAKER_00]: At midnight a New Year's Eve, the date indicator changed from 0, 1, 9, 9, 9, 9, 2, 0, 2, 0, 0.
02:59.773 --> 03:02.757
[SPEAKER_00]: And at that point, the chime struck twice.
03:02.737 --> 03:15.859
[SPEAKER_00]: This 2-meter high prototype is in London right now, with the second prototype, a full-scale one, constructed in 2009, with a $42 million grant by Jeff Baso's investment firm Baso's expeditions.
03:16.521 --> 03:20.628
[SPEAKER_00]: And is on land which Baso's himself owns in the Sierra Diablo Mountains in Texas.
03:20.648 --> 03:23.613
[SPEAKER_00]: This is the one that we consider the clock of the long now.
03:24.234 --> 03:25.015
[SPEAKER_00]: For now.
03:24.995 --> 03:36.812
[SPEAKER_00]: But of course, this clock is just another test for what Hillis hopes to build with his foundation, the Long Now Foundation, on land that he himself purchased on the top of Mount Washington near Eli Navada.
03:37.693 --> 03:48.268
[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, musician Brian Eno gave the clock of the Long Now its name, and even coined the term the Long Now, helping his friend Hillis on writing the music for the Chimes for the Navada Clock.
03:49.160 --> 03:56.436
[SPEAKER_00]: So why exactly would anyone build a clock inside a mountain that's set to continue for the next 10,000 years at least?
03:57.344 --> 04:06.012
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, according to the clock of the Long Nows website, quote, the clock provides a rare invitation to think and engineer at the time scale of civilization.
04:06.052 --> 04:11.057
[SPEAKER_00]: It offers an enduring symbol of our personal connection to the distant future.
04:11.097 --> 04:24.769
[SPEAKER_00]: The website goes on to say that they created the clock so that, in essence, people will ask this exact question, and quote, having asked it, prompt themselves to conjure with notions of generations and millennia.
04:25.559 --> 04:32.188
[SPEAKER_00]: If you have a clock ticking for 10,000 years, what kinds of generational scale questions and projects will it suggest?
04:32.909 --> 04:37.736
[SPEAKER_00]: If a clock can keep going for 10 millennia, should we make sure our civilization does as well?
04:38.617 --> 04:46.808
[SPEAKER_00]: If the clock keeps going after we are personally long dead, why not attempt other projects that require future generations to finish?
04:46.788 --> 04:52.395
[SPEAKER_00]: Namoe of the clock brine, you know, appreciates, quote, the expanded sense of time the clock provokes.
04:52.916 --> 04:59.123
[SPEAKER_00]: Not the short now of the next quarter, next week, or the next five minutes, but the long now of centuries.
05:00.265 --> 05:10.838
[SPEAKER_00]: Hillis himself considers the clock his most important work, saying in a 2011 interview with Wired, quote, I think this is the most important thing I can work on, more than cancer.
05:11.105 --> 05:16.915
[SPEAKER_00]: Over the long run, I think this will make more difference to more people, a bold statement to be sure.
05:17.396 --> 05:19.360
[SPEAKER_00]: But the clock is not without its dissenters.
05:19.921 --> 05:27.274
[SPEAKER_00]: In his 2020 wired piece about the clock of the long now, writer David Carp calls it, quote, Gilded Age Distraction.
05:27.254 --> 05:33.942
[SPEAKER_00]: Going on to say, quote, The clock of the long now doesn't just invite visitors to ponder the geologic passage of time.
05:34.623 --> 05:39.809
[SPEAKER_00]: It also offers a pleasant distraction from the dangerous trajectory of the world we occupy today.
05:39.869 --> 05:45.616
[SPEAKER_00]: Dangerous distraction or provocative work of engineering, you be the judge.
05:45.636 --> 05:53.245
[SPEAKER_00]: The clock of the long now doesn't discriminate, and keeps ticking away from the longest right now into the unknown of the new millennia.
