May 6, 2017 • 47 mins
In this week's SYSK Select episode, in a desert in Texas a 200-feet-tall clock is being constructed deep inside a mountain. Once completed, it will keep time for the next 10,000 years, even if there are no humans around to use it. Tune in as Chuck and Josh get to the bottom of the Long Now.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, everybody, it's me Josh, and my pick for s
Y s K Selects this week is the one we
did on the ten thousand year Clock. Uh. Just looking back,
I think it's probably one of the coolest episodes we've
ever done. And it's just kind of me and Chuck
operating on all cylinders talking about something we're super jazzed about.
So we hope you enjoy it. And my apologies for
(00:21):
being sick in this one. It's still good. Welcome to
stuff you should know from house Stuff Works dot com. Hey,
and welcome to the podcast, Josh Clark. There's Charles W.
W Chuck Bright and that makes this stuff you should
(00:43):
That's right. How are you, sir? I said, it's a
little under the weather. Other than that, I'll find I've
got that. Remember the Happiness audio book. We talked to
it guy David Pierced and trans humanist about separating a
susception pain, like the physical experience of pain, from suffering,
(01:05):
like just getting rid of suffering, like I've reached that
point and being sick where like I see how intertwined
the two are. Like I just keep saying, like woe
is me? Like I am suffering. It's pretty bad. So
do you feel bad, like in a flu sense or
is it just the head full of stuff it makes
(01:25):
it unbearable. Uh? No, Luckily I don't have any flu
symtom because that's what puts me under this when you
literally feel those eggs in your skin is really sensitive.
Was just what I had before you. We're taking turns.
I don't know if I got it from you or not.
Air air travel often will do that, so yeah, I
(01:49):
got I got mine after air travel too. Stupid air travel.
It's two thousand and twelve, you know you don't. Can
we do better with the recirculated air on a plane? Maybe? Yeah,
just like surely you can crack a window a little
bit or something, right, get some fresh air in there.
There's gotta be something there, right, So um, I guess
(02:09):
we should do this one. No, we're not, you know why,
because we got all the time in the world. Man,
slow down, That's what I was saying. Yeah, and I'm
just reiterating, well, thank you. There's no hurry, Josh. Well,
let's just stay here for a little while. We're in
the foundation of the long now. Uh, you're misreading. It's
(02:33):
the long now foundation. I like the foundation of the
Long Now you Longer? Yeah it is. It's a couple
of extra wards there named by Brian Eno. Yeah, the
great musical composer, father maybe of techno producer. I think
he's called a rock musician in this article. Well the
(02:53):
guy I watched a Setti talk from Alexander Rose, who
you said is the project manager of the Long Nail
Foundation's um clock of the Longmail project, which we're going
to talk about, And when he was doing his presentation,
he said mentioned Brian Eno and he said, who was
an ambient music guy? Is that what he called him? Yeah?
(03:15):
I was like, this is Brian Eno? Come on? What
did he write? Um? What was his album music for Spaceports? Uh?
Something like that? That was a solo thing after Roxy Music.
Yeah wait, Brian you know was in Roxy Music? Yeah?
I know, Brian Ferry was. They were, and they famously
butted heads and Brian Eno left I think after one
(03:35):
album did solo work until he hooked up with you
two and the Talking Heads and as an uber producer.
Cool man, where you go, Chuck. Thanks, that was a
great explanation. Okay, Mr Brian the ambient music guy? Right?
But yeah, you're right, He's the one who coined the
the name the long now Um. And uh, this whole foundation,
(03:58):
this group of people, the long now Foundation or the
foundation of the long now Um, are dedicated to forcing
um hoisting upon humanity. Like you were saying, like just
the idea of slowing down, of taking a longer view
of everything, the long now. Yeah, And I think the
(04:20):
way they put it was to try and think in
the terms of if you live to be one thousand
years old, so long term thinking for the world is
better than short term thinking, although I would argue you
need both. You know what I'm saying, Yeah, because it's like,
because exactly when should I get out of the way
of the speeding car? We don't live to be a
(04:42):
thousand that is, but I do like you hear it
behind it, I have a question for you. Would you
want to live to be a thousand years old if
we aged like normally and would be like you don't
turn into the dungeon Master from the from the cartoon. Uh,
you mean if it was like a thousand years old
would be the equivalent of like a hundred Heck, yeah,
(05:05):
would you really? Why not? Well? I can think of
a lot of reasons why not name one, Um, boredom
you'd be worried about boredom. Boredom. I mean, think about
all the stuff you can do in a century. Now,
multiply that by ten. There's an amount of stuff to
(05:26):
do on this planet. Well, if you I think everybody
would end up with huge, massive drug problems by age four,
you might be right, but hey, four year old should
be able to handle his h So okay, despite how
(05:46):
you feel about living, do a thousand long now foundation
is Um, they're kind of into that way of thinking.
Like you said that long term thinking can lead to
short term gain and a good example of this is
climb it change, right, So, UM, I think one of
the people who are on the side of who are
(06:07):
in favor of taking great action against climate change would
would say that, Um, if we can take steps now,
if we can think further out, then you know, we'd
be able to mitigate this. But we're not. We're thinking
about very immediate concerns, which some are are reasonable, like
(06:27):
economic concerns, that kind of thing. But it's just two
schools of thought exactly. So, UM, you can kind of
understand where the long Now Foundation UH would side or
sit on that. UM, debate. But what they figured out
is that we basically we humans to think like this,
we need something to um lead our minds in that direction,
(06:52):
because just saying like, man, what's it gonna be like
ten thousand years from now? It's like who cares? You know,
I'm thinking about food, like I am literally right now.
I just pose the question, and I'm thinking about food
already long term, right. But if they were saying, like
a two ft clock in front of me that I
knew was designed to tick off ten thousand years, I
(07:16):
might take a much longer view of things. A beacon,
if you will, a beacon. Indeed, so the long Now
Foundation has undertaken its flagship projects and there's a bunch
of other projects to UM called the Clock of the
long Now a k a. The ten thousand year clock.
Very cool, Yeah, and I think it's pretty awesome. I
can tell you're a fan. Well, but if for no
(07:37):
other reason than to uh get attention for for their
foundation and their their school of thought, you know, right,
And that's the whole point. Like, and it's gotten some
pretty good attention, I think, Um, A lot of people
have heard of the ten thousand year clock already. UM,
But it's actually being created. One's already done a tabletop version. Yeah,
(08:02):
tabletop meaning eight ft. But the well, the prototype, um,
and the whole thing was proposed by a guy named
Danny Hillis. Um back in UH wrote in a like
a Wired magazine scenarios article, the idea for this, the
concept behind it, and um, there's been coome this kind
(08:24):
of rallying cry that he wants a cuckoo to come
out every millennium. Everybody that shows up in every article
I've read on it, that's what they say. That's his thing, like,
he wants a cuckoo to come out on the millennium.
What's crazy is I don't see anywhere in here that
there actually will be a cuckoo. Yeah. I didn't see
that either. So poor Danny Hillis will have to wait.
(08:45):
But he's he's the guy behind the Long Nail Foundation, right. Yeah.
The first thing that I noticed when I look at
any of the writings about them and the long now
clock is the zero that they just placed in front
of the current year. So in when he wrote that article,
he proposed, you know, not that they actually change it,
(09:06):
but the way they look at things is zero one, nine,
nine five and Just seeing a date written in that
way kind of makes me breathe a little relief, because
all of a sudden, twenty twelve doesn't look like the future.
Oh to one two looks like, oh well, we got
a long way to go, like we're backwater Yokel's time wise.
(09:28):
Yeah does that make sense? Oh yeah, totally, because I
think they said we've been around, like civilization has been
around for ten thousand years or so. So essentially this
clock would represent our entire past. Well yeah, moving forward. Yeah,
it would place us directly in the middle of two,
which I love so which I was curious about. Why
(09:49):
they're not starting over then? Why not started zero years?
Clark's clock, um starts you want to name it a
Clark it's a millennium yea, uh maybe because they just
they don't want to disrespect you know, time served if
you will. But also so, what they've come up with
(10:10):
is a clock then that will run until the year
twelve thousand, twelve thousand, twelve twelve thousand and fifteen, depending
on how how fast they can get this thing built. Um,
but that's their idea, is to come up with a
ten thousand year clock, the clock that will run without
human intervention for ten thousand years one um that can
(10:33):
be easily understood by anybody. Um, which I think that
they could have done something slightly different with the design,
Like my eyes crossed when I look at like the face. Yeah, um,
I feel like I'm living in zero two one two um.
But there there's some challenges to all this, right, Like
there's humans haven't really made too many things, um that
(10:57):
have lasted ten thousand years yet. Yeah, why should this
be any different? Well, you you outlined a couple of
the base. I think they have the five basic principles
they were aiming for, and you outlined a couple of them.
There to work relatively free of regular maintenance? Was one? Uh,
simple enough to maintain that if all of a sudden
we go into some post apocalyptic world where there's no technology,
(11:21):
we could still maintain it. Right, They were saying they
estimate it couldn't go back prior to the Bronze Age.
But as long as we have Bronze Age technology, which
begin and the hallmark of the Bronze Ages metallurgy and
um in black magic and of metal or separating ores
from metal and um uh metal alloys. Okay, Well if dude,
(11:45):
if we're sent back beyond the Bronze Age, then this
clock is not gonna matter very much. You know what
I'm saying. Uh, A close inspection of the operational principles
should reveal the principles behind its operation. It's a little
bit of word play there that sounds like Danny hillis
and then uh what else? No matter when someone comes
(12:05):
upon it, it should be able to be improved upon.
And finally it should be able to be constructed small
enough to fit on a table. That's what the prototype.
So success, Yeah, success, And then for the rest of them,
they're they're kind of abandoning that because, like we said,
this thing is going to be the one that's being
constructed right now, is going to be two ft tall. Yes, um,
(12:27):
but looks like it I have ourselves, um powering such
a clock. There's if you're looking at ten thousand years,
I think it seems kind of likely that civilization will
suffer at least one collapse, if not several, And we
have no idea how far back humans will be set,
(12:48):
hopefully not for the Bronze Age. But um, so this
clock needs to somehow gain power from the environment, and
Danny hillis came up with a bunch of different ideas, right,
like atomic power. Yeah, most of that, Uh, that's poor
manageability and transparency. Most of these are scalability Like they
(13:10):
may have been good ideas, but they're just what too
large to fit their their needs either that there either
they're too big or they there already like they're perfect
for this clock, but you can't use that to power
Maybe if if something need if something's added on that
(13:30):
requires more power, t s. You already are using all
the power you can, or you can't scale it up
and it wouldn't work the same maybe exactly so that
would be chemical pre stored potential, geothermal, tidal, gravitational changes,
and seismic and plate tectonics. Those all had poor scalability,
(13:50):
so says Hill us Um, you can't use pressure change
because you would need like a bellows or a seal.
You want this thing to be as um simple as possable,
because as any engineer knows, the more moving parts you have,
the more parts you have that can break down. Um.
And the flow of water. That's a good one, right,
there should be water on the on the planet for
(14:13):
ten thousand years. Sorry, you're exposing the clock to water,
so inherently waters is self defeating energy source. Wind. Yeah,
any kind of exposure to weather. That's why this thing
is buried inside of a mountain, right, So what did
he come up with? He came up with two ideas
to power this humans. That's one. Yeah, human winding, that's one,
(14:34):
a novel idea. The other is temperature change, that's right,
but yeah, he wanted He said his favorite was human
winding because it fosters responsibility for the clock, which is
a great, great idea, I think, because ultimately the clock
is for humans, even though it's sequestered in a mountain
and it can run by itself for ten thousand years,
if no human ever lays eyes on it, it's for humans.
(14:56):
And we'll explain on that. If it sounds like we're
talking out above side to our amounts, will explain on
that by saying doesn't need humans. Yet, it doesn't need humans.
I bet people can't wait. I could just feel attention.
The hairs in the back of their necks bristly. All right.
So for the prototype, um, it's sort of like an
(15:16):
old school clock in a way. Uh. They used to
helical weights, Uh, similar to the weight gravity systems just
like clock towers, old clock towers, and they drive the
energy going up and down these tubes which will drive
the pendulum, right yeah, um. And ultimately the prototype, the
(15:36):
drive assembly as you'd call it, Um, it served its purpose.
There was a prototype and that it said, okay, we
need to do something different, and they have. But for
the prototype, Yeah, there's helical weights we're not familiar with,
are you okay? Um, But the the prototype also still
(15:57):
had like a solar synchronizer, which we'll talk about later, um,
and a pendulum, which will also get a little more
into But the pendulum is kind of key to keeping
the time. We should do that now you want to Yeah, yeah, okay.
So back in the six D people were trying to
figure out how to keep time better than they have
(16:20):
him more accurately. UM. And somebody a Dutch astronomer. Back
in the day the best astronomers were Dutch Christian holligans.
He said, hey, why don't you try using a pendulum
because a pendulum has pretty cool property and that the
only two um things that affect the swing of a pendulum.
(16:43):
Nothing else affects the swinging of a Pendlum, not changes
in temperature, not humidity, not anything else except the force
of gravity and the length of the pendulum. I didn't
know this well I didn't either. Um, if you take
a pendulum and put it just about anywhere on Earth,
you're gonna find that the gravitational field is is so
(17:05):
close to the same that a pendulum will swing the
same way anywhere on Earth. So the same rate to right, right,
So what affects that rate The period, which is the
amount of time it takes for a pendulum to swing
all the way from one side to the other. So
not just one side, it's it's both. That's a pendulum period.
So really the only thing that affects it is um,
(17:27):
the length of the pendulum. Right. The shorter the pendulum,
the faster uh they go. The longer the pendulum usually uh,
the um the longer it takes. And once you get
a pendulum going, which doesn't require a lot, it will
keep going. Yes, it takes a very small amount of
energy input to keep it going, right, yeah, which is
perfect for something like a ten year clock. Right. So
(17:49):
if you put a pendulum and attached it to something
called an escapement, right, Yeah, this is a part I
got confused on. Okay, we'll check this out. So you
have a pendulum, and you've figured out the exact length
you need for a pendulumce period to take one second
to tick off one second on on a second hand.
That's exactly right. So you can attach the pendulum to
(18:10):
this thing called an escapement. An escapement is just like
a wheel with some gears to it, right, And these
gears are attached to the second hand, Okay, and the
escapement is always wanting to go forward, but it's being
held in place by the pendulum, which is attached to
an anchor. But we'll just call it the pendulum, right,
So as the pendulum swings one way, the escapement gear
(18:31):
is being held in place, and it's when it swings
the other way, which is the end of a second,
the pendulum opens up, allowing the escapement gear to take
forward one tooth, thus moving the second hand forward one
movement in a second. So that's how you do it.
And if you're very, very clever, you can design the
(18:53):
escapement gear so that as it moves, as it escapes,
it also nudges that anchor that's a touched to the pendulum,
transferring energy back to the pendulum to keep it swinging
and that's basically the basics of a clock, mechanical clock, right,
and that's what they use for the ten thousand year
clock too, very smartly inappropriately to Yeah. I love how
(19:14):
when they do design something to work ten thousand years
they go back to bronze age and well this wasn't
bronze age, but a lot of just old mechanical technology.
Well yeah, I mean it's I think we've advanced in
a lot. I mean, if you're gonna make a digital clock,
yeah we know what we're doing, but how are you
going to power it? And you want to just use
(19:34):
some really old, perfect technology exactly? That's called long thinking, Josh.
So we've got winding and temperature changes, differences in temperature
changes that are powering this clock, now right, that's right, um.
And then those are the two principles that are powering
the clock. And there are different parts of the clock
(19:55):
that need to be powered, like your favorite the Geneva wheels,
right Yeah, Aneva wheel sounds intimidating a Geneva drive until
you look it up on YouTube and see what it is,
and it's really just um. And it can come in
all kinds of shapes and in this case, it's sort
of the shape of a star, and it's imagine each
(20:15):
point of a star has a notch cut in it,
and sitting underneath that is a is a wheel, a
drive wheel that spins with a peg coming out of it,
and it slips into the little slot on the star,
advancing it one little click, keeps turning and and spins
out of it and then by the time it comes
back around, it slips back into the next one. So
it's just a slow ticking around in a circle. Right,
(20:39):
And so there's I think twenty of these for the
big clock. But they're designed with a bunch of holes
in a pins and holes system basically, which essentially is
making a mechanical Babbage Babbage difference engine like an early computer,
like a punch hole computer. Yeah. Right, they use before calculators.
(20:59):
They is mechanical summers or actors, and this is you.
But it's adding in binary ones and zeros. So it's
carrying out digital calculations through mechanical means, which is astounding.
And they're using this astounding technology to power basically what
um in this article that we're reading. It's the world's
(21:20):
slowest computer, and that computer is being used to calculate, uh,
an algorithm that will produce a different chime using ten
different chimes or two bells, um so that this thing
supposedly will never make the same chime twice. Yeah. I
think the algorithm maxes out at three point five million
(21:41):
chimes of course, designed composed by Brian Eno, the ambient
music guy, right and uh and that that doesn't have
anything to do with the powering of the clock. That's
just the chimes. No, but the dirty secret of the
Long Mouth Foundation is that three point five million different
possible chime tones uh or combinations is about ninety thousand
(22:03):
days short of ten thousand years. Oh really, yeah, it
wasn't ninety thousand days and years. I don't know, you
have a binary add we need some Geneva wheels in here.
Stat Well, they're not telling anyone that though obviously no
they did actually wired. Yeah, They're like, you know, this
(22:24):
thing's not gonna chime every day, so I'm sure it'll
be fine, Okay, But basically no one's speaking to probably
Needo right now. He's been demoted to ambient music guy
from legendary producer. Uh. So the prototype, that's the prototype.
It's eight ft tall roughly eight and a half. It
is um at the Science Museum in London. You can
(22:47):
go see it there. And it first started ticking on
December thirty first, nineteen or O one if you're a
long hour, and it worked the gong twice at the
turn of the millennium to indicate that two millenniums are
now past, which is funny because technically the millennium didn't
(23:08):
start until two one. That's true. But they don't care.
They don't care about a lot of stuff I'm finding out. Uh,
So let's talk about the real deal when this article
is written. The real deal was just proposed and it
was going to be about sixty ft tall. That was
two years ago. Well, that one is the one in Nevada.
I think that's still gonna be sixty. They just decided
(23:30):
to start on the Texas one first, gotcha because Bezos
was like, Hey, here's forty two million bucks, can we
get started? Well, go ahead and spill the means there.
I just Jeffrey Bezos, founder of Amazon dot com, UH
is heavily involved in this, to the tune of money
and UH it being built on a mountain inside a
mountain in West Texas, on his property. Yeah, so he
(23:51):
he owns it sort of kind of. I get the
impression that, yes, he definitely has This project is his,
but it's one of many that are going to be
built around the world, Like they got approval to build
one in a Smithsonian just this past year. Um and
uh also Bezos by the way, he said that the
two are unrelated. It's just a cool coincidence or whatever.
(24:13):
But he's also building a spaceport by the mountain too,
and he says that's unrelated to the clock. Yeah, he
just said, Hey, that's why not there's a space port.
There's gonna be ten thousand year clock. We'll see what happens.
But if you want to see he's um funding this,
uh this space program called Blue Origin. And you know
how like in the fifties, like science fiction rockets would
(24:34):
like land just going straight up and straight down, you know, yeah, yeah, Okay,
that's what his rockets do. And there's you can see
video of It's the most amazing thing I've ever seen that.
I'm I'm like, is this real? Like we're pretty good
at after effects these days, it's gotta be. I think
it's real. You can make it happen blue Origin dot com.
(24:57):
I will I will look that up, sir. So, like
you said, Bezo says, or the one in Texas, I
guess is what you should call it. The one that's
under construction is going to be about two hundred feet tall, um,
and it's kinda it's out in the middle of nowhere,
very purposefully. Yeah. I think it's hours from the nearest airport.
It requires a full days hike to reach the mouth
of the cave opening, which is like a steel door,
(25:21):
and it's a mountain rising up from the the desert,
so you have a fifteen hundred foot climb just to
get to the steel door the first door. So vandals,
not only will you be trespassing, but you need to
be a mountaineer if you want to go mess with
this thing, which we don't encourage one, but they have
they The first door is going to be jade, which
(25:42):
is pretty cool. It's gonna be hidden behind the rock face,
so like you have to, I guess you could stumble
upon it. I think that's part of the idea, the fun. Yeah. Um,
but you will know when you do stumble upon it
that there's something very cool there because it's going to
be a carved jade door in the rock face. Well,
they're gonna open it up when they finish, they said
they are. But I'm saying, like, if if this if
(26:03):
the location or the idea or anything you're having to
do with the clock, it'll still be there and people
can find it accidentally. Yeah. What really bothers me about
this is I'm not going to know the result. You know,
if you lived to a thousand, maybe you would, but
I can't live to ten thousand regardless. But does that
bother you? Yeah? Like I want to know how this ends.
(26:24):
I want to know if in ten thousand years, if
it's still running, Well, what happens if if? Okay, so
just the clock just you don't care what happens like
hundred years from now, not just the clock. Um, So,
if you want to access this thing, you go through
those two doors. It's in complete darkness. It's not all
lit up, which is kind of cool, right because I
guess any kind and they don't want any kind of
(26:45):
electricity to be needed obviously why they're building it. They're
using stuff but for a visitor later on, Yeah, exactly,
a post Bronze age visitor. It's going to be housed
in a five hundred foot tall tunnel about twelve ft
in diameter, Yeah, a vertical tunnel. Yeah, it's like a shaft. Basically,
(27:07):
it's a twelve ft diameter shaft that's five ft tall,
very tall. And um, it's got a very precise rock
staircase that was carved with a robot slicing machine. You
see video that I think it was awesome. And it
starts at the top, which is cool. Basically it starts
at the top with this just big hunk of rock
(27:29):
and just cuts in a circle, down, down, down, one
stair at a time, like the golden ratio kind of nautilus. Yeah,
very cool. Yeah, And so that's how you're gonna access
the gears. So let's go ahead and get to that.
Let's go ahead and get to the counterweights at least.
Well that's the first thing you would kind of come
upon if you walked in on this thing and it's completed.
(27:50):
And the counterweights are made up of stone discs, each
about the size of a car, each waying about ten
thousand pounds um. And we said that winding is winding
in differences in temperature change of the principles that provide
energy for this clock, but um, the weights are what
keep it running. Um. And when you come upon the weights,
(28:13):
you're gonna come upon a platform. And you know there's
like old um those old movies or whatever where there's
you know, slaves or um, somebody on a ship and
they're having to like crank a wheel. Like there's three
guys like all moving in the same direction, and each
one has like a pole that is pushing like a
horizontal wheel. Right. Yeah, they're gonna have one of those
(28:35):
for visitors to crank, and that will raise these enormous
counterweights and once they're fully raised, they'll have enough stored
potential energy to power the clock for about a century
without a single dash of sunlight or another human visitor.
So that's essentially winding the clock. I think they said
(28:55):
two or three people it takes to do this, and
um it what's it called a cap stand? I think
that that is what it's called. It's called a cap stand, right, Yeah,
that's the horizontal wheel. That's yeah. Yeah, so it's pretty cool,
like it requires human intervention. But as we said, and
let's go ahead and spill the beans how that works.
(29:16):
If no one came around ever, it would still run
because of uh differences, and it collects sun's rays. The
prism that sticks out at the top a sapphire couple
of I bet that looks nice. And that's the only
part that's visible from outside. They said, yes, And it
collects the sun's rays and then channels them down through
(29:37):
metal rods. And the difference in that was it the cave,
the interior cave temperature and the temperature that collects between
day and night. It changes okay and night, which is
pretty ingenious because you think about what they're probably still
will be over ten thousand years, there probably will still
be day and night. Yes, and that's ultimately what powers this. Well,
(29:58):
they're with no human intervention, Yeah, exactly. This dude though,
the Alexander uh what was his name? Rose? He said
that what they had to figure out there's something called
the equation of time, and it's not constant, like the
Earth is slowing its rotation by about a second every
couple of hundred years, and all this stuff sounds like
you have a big deal, but when you look on
(30:19):
a ten thousand of your timeline, it is a big deal. Um,
So the Earth is slowing by about a second every
couple of hundred years. Uh, it's also processing on its
pole every twenty six thousand years, so they have to
take that into account. And then climate change, it's gonna
if poles continue to melt, water is gonna be pushed out,
(30:41):
it's gonna rotate even slower. So what they figured out
there was a variance, Well, normally there's a variance of
about ten or fifteen minutes throughout the course of a
year from where the Sun should be. And they designed
this thing too self correct to still be able to
pick up the Sun's rays. Yeah, pretty ingenious, but they
needed to do it on a ten thousand year scale.
(31:02):
So they basically formulated this massive equation and they figured
out how time would evolve over ten thousand years according
to all these variables, and they found out it is
a plus or minus and this worst case scenario with
climate change of twenty three days from where they think
the sun should be over ten thousand years, which means
(31:23):
that the clock is way off by the end of
the ten thousand years. Well, but they accounted for that
with this equation they did. And the way that they
accounted for it though, also is through the solar synchronizer.
So every sunny day that um. At noontime, the sun
will hit that prism. We'll heat up this little rod
(31:44):
that sends a signal to the clock center working. So
the the smart part of the clock that keeps time
all the time, no matter what um and says, hey
it's solar noon, and they the clocks readjusts itself. So
the most it's ever going to get off is say,
you know, however, many days or maybe a couple of
(32:06):
centuries without sunlight if there's some sort of horrible nuclear
winner or whatever. But let's say a couple of hundred
years without sunlight. The next time there's sunlight, it'll say, oh,
it's noon, and the clock will just readjust itself kind
of wake back up. Yeah that's crazy, but but it
will go back to Okay, it's noon now. No matter
how far it drifted, it will now know it's noon.
(32:27):
Solar nude. It is very awesome. And the timber. The
differences in temperature also, it's it's called the thermoelectric effect UM.
The electrons. If you have a thermoelectric device, electrons will
go from a hot side to the cold side. And
you know as well as I do that the flow
electrons equals electricity, that's right, So that will keep things
(32:49):
in check as well. That will keep the inner workings
powered too. They thought of everything they did, and they
also thought of ways to store energy or to keep
from using energy, saving energy. He's another way to put it, well, yeah,
I mean over time. I think they said that if
the difference in temperature is great enough, it will just
store that temperature and over a timeline. If that keeps happening,
(33:11):
it won't even have to you know, stop and catch up.
It'll just start operating fully mechanically by itself. Right. So
here in the order of winding exactly, So in the
order of um preference or of importance, the solar energy
or the diurnal temperature change energy UM goes from the
(33:31):
inner workings of the clock, yes, spills over to the weights, yes,
and then if the weights are wound, then you will
have the Geneva drive operating. Right, So it goes basically
like the clock knowing the correct time, the clock operating
and showing the correct time or whatever information that's supposed
(33:52):
to and then the clock making sounds. Those are the
levels of importance as far as energy distribution. Sure, yeah,
that makes sense because the chimes, they gotta come last
they do. It's nice and all, but they're also they're
meant for human consumption. But if enough of that diurnal
temperature difference uh energy spills over to the weights, then
(34:15):
the clock will ostensibly um be chime when nobody's there.
That's pretty cool. That's very cool. And next to his
little rocket station. Right, he's got it all. He's got
all figured out. Um So, while we mentioned the Geneva
gears on on the on the main uh the two
ft when they're building these are about eight ft in diameter,
(34:36):
each one weighing about a thousand pounds. Yeah, and it's
it's pretty remarkable. I mean, if you think if you
ever been inside a clock tower and seeing that, it's like,
imagine that times twenty. And remember the Geneva drive system
is the the mechanical computer that's come that's calculating the
algorithm to play the chimes. It's the whole reason it's there,
(34:57):
that's right, and it's being powered by winding or the weights.
Winding the weights. Uh So, if you keep climbing up
in this thing, you will get to the primary chamber,
and that is where you finally see the face of
the clock, which is the most important thing. If you're
building a clock, it's also gonna be baffling thing. Yeah,
I mean the face of this clock is uh or
(35:20):
if it's anything like the prototype, it's not like any
clock I've ever seen. It's very awesome, Like you can
clearly say, oh, I see the century, and I see
them the millennium, maybe even the year. But like when
I get to the star field, I imagine like so
the starfields being displayed, I get that. I think that
(35:40):
that means that if it were nighttime and you can
see the star field and you went outside and looked up,
you would see the same stars, right right, Okay, But
the horizons are what's throwing me off the most. The
ret r e t e. It shows horizons. I don't
understand what that, what that means, or what you're gonna
it from that fortunately, and I haven't seen it. But
(36:03):
supposedly there's going to be a manual, some sort of explanation. Yeah,
I'm sure they'll have it, some sort of uh it.
Once they open it up for people to come visit.
There'll be some like a little button you push and
it will be Morgan Freeman's boy explaining our works or
what the horizon means. Um If you want to know
the time of day, though, you have to ask the clock.
(36:25):
Chuck I thought this was one of the coolest parts
of this whole deal because they built it to to
operate at its most frugal over the years, obviously, and
one thing that you don't need is a current read
out if no one's there to read it. And so
they says, well, why don't you ask the clock, like
you said, So whatever time you see when you approach
(36:46):
the clock is the last time that it read when
someone wound not the clock itself, but the clock's face
right the display the yeah, the clocks. So there's two
ways to win. The cap stay and that raises the weights,
and then there's the there's a little hand wheel that
just one single person can do to wind the clock
(37:09):
the clocks display and it'll correct itself and say, we'll
ring it's now you know whatever time it is. And
here's the horizon, which Josh doesn't get. Here's where the
moon and sun phases are, and here's what year it
is with the zero in the front of it. It's
pretty cool. So the clock always knows what time it is.
It's just not necessarily displaying it. It's just not gonna
(37:29):
tell it's asked. Pretty cool, so chuck. Um, there's some
pretty obvious reasons to choose the inside of a mountain
to put this clock in earthquake protection, nuclear bomb protection mountains.
They're they're long lasting, yeah, um. But there's other reasons
that they chose the interior of a mountain as well, Like, um,
(37:50):
the differences in temperature between seasons and day within the
mountain um are very minimal, which means that you're not
gonna have a freeze thaw cycle, which is apparently very corrosive. Yeah,
but it's great enough to where you're gonna get the
energy out of it, right, especially at the top. So
remember like there's the mountain top that from the entrance
(38:14):
the bottom of the clock, the top is five feet,
but the clocks only two d feet, so the extra
three feet is above there is where the temperature differences
will really be noticeable. Right. Uh. So they've picked a
very good place. And also the one in Nevada has
got similar conditions, I think so, which is why they
picked that high dried desert, highdried desert. Uh. And then
(38:36):
the parts this is remarkable to me, Um, if you're
going to construct something at last for ten thousand years,
you're not gonna want to throw a bunch of thirty
weight oil in there, because oil uh has the potential
to fail and leak, and oil will attract dirt like crazy,
and little hairs in like fuzzy pieces of grit over
(38:57):
ten thousand years will stop any machine from running. So
what they did was they barring from NASA, who originally
developed ceramic bearings to use on satellites. So because you
don't want to have satellites that need oiling either, uh,
they used uh ceramic, which nowadays can be harder than diamonds.
(39:17):
Ceramic bearings, like the moving parts are ceramic. And remember
earlier I said, like humans haven't made too many things
that have lasted ten thousand years. Ceramic pot shirts are
one example of something. Boom Uh we have pot shirts
that are like seventeen thousand years old, and that's just
like from a pot. What they're making today should be
able to last way longer because these parts move so
(39:40):
slowly they don't require any lubrication. So the ceramic ball
bearings are keeping the metal parts away from one another,
because if you have to like metals that are in
contact and aren't moving really like the millennium dial um
basically won't move the whole time you or I are alive,
children are alive. Um. And if you have the same
(40:00):
kind of metal and like one gear touching the other gear, um,
they're's gonna fuse together. You know. Micro vibration. I did
not enlighten me. No, it's micro vibration, Like it's not moving,
quote unquote, but micro vibration over ten thousand years will
cause it to weld itself. That's pretty cool. And that's
(40:21):
if it's a like metal, and if they're unlike, they
will corrode over time in that right, Yeah, it's um
galvanic corrosion. If they're dissimilar metals, they'll just eat into
each other. So either either way, you don't want these
metals touch you another. So the ceramic ball bearings that
don't need any lubrication are perfect. It's right. The rest
of it is made from three sixteen sainless steel, which
(40:43):
this Alexander guy said that'll last ten thousand years. And
even if it starts to rust. The movements of this
clock because it moves so slowly, because it's so large Um,
the the precision doesn't need to be like thousands of
an inch, that's what's cool. It can be like a
quarter of an inch. Last plenty of room for rust, right,
(41:03):
so if there is rust, it really doesn't matter. And
also saw where he said in the video that all
the gear teeth were cut three dimensionally, and uh, what
that means is it uses rollers to roll the gear,
so it's a rolling mechanism instead of what he called
a scrubbing friction. So I guess a rolling friction is
(41:24):
much easier on the parts and scrubbing. And um, I
was reading a Wired article on it, and the reporters
said that he came upon a Geneva wheel, remember their
eight feet in diameter. Yeah, these are um and they
had the ceramic ball bearings in it and he could
turn it very easily with just like gentle pressure from
his finger. So they're going to be working just fine.
(41:46):
I can't I want to visit this thing when it's done,
at least I know I won't see the end, but
I'd like to be there for the beginning. Well you
can actually you can go join the long Now Foundation
at long now dot org. Right, Yeah, they operate on
don't nations. I don't think we ever even mentioned. It's
a private organization and funded by people like Bezos. And
(42:07):
I think the the UM basic membership costs like eight
bucks a month. Um, you probably have a pretty good
idea of where your money is going. Uh, their website
long now dot org, long now dot Oregon. Then there's
also now ten thousand year clock dot net and that's
bezos website. Yeah, and there's not a whole lot there yet,
(42:28):
but no, I mean it's just give overview, but um,
there's there. We were left out this one part and
the one in Texas Bezos is millennium Clock. There's gonna
be little alcoves, different rooms. There's a one year room,
a ten year room, hundred a thousand and ten thousand
year room, and like they're leaving it to later civilizations
(42:49):
to figure out what artifact to put in there. But
in the one year room they're putting the ory which
tracks the motion of the calculates the movement of the planets,
and it also is an animation of I think Voyager
two on this grand tour of like some of the
outer planets. UM. And that's going into one year and
they're going to figure out what to put in the tenure.
(43:11):
So they're soliciting um ideas from any if you have
an idea of what you what should be put in
the ten year alcove. But I guess some of that
stuff would require electricity though, right, I know, I don't
think so now, I don't think any of it's going
to or if it does, it will just be a thermoelectricity. Right,
(43:34):
So I feel like we covered that pretty well. Yeah,
ten year clock. I mean it's a way more basic
than it appears like when you first look at it.
It's like simple gears moving pendulum swinging. It's also going
up and fully and genius. Though, Yeah, the way they
put it together overcame problems that it may not encounter
(43:55):
for thousands of very smart, dudish indies. If you want
to learn more about the ten thousand year clock, you
can type in ten thousand year clock in the search
bart how stuff works dot com And that I said
search bar, So that means it's time for listener mail.
That's right, Josh, I'm gonna call this the cone snail
(44:16):
saved my life. Yes, remember when we talked about the
cone snail in the Venom podcast No, it wasn't venom.
What was it? It was? Probably? Was it just called venom? No,
it's like, what's the most venomous animal on earth? That's right?
This from David Miami. Hey, guys, love the show. I
recently listened to the show on venom and you mentioned
(44:38):
the cone snail. Five years ago, cone snail venom saved
my life. Was diagnosed with cancer and due to the
cancer chronic pain. After many years have failed attempts to
control my pain with conventional medication, I was extremely frustrated
and still suffering intolerable pain. Luckily, I found out about
the ziconotide cone snail venom because remember I think we
(45:01):
talked about scorpion venom being used in cancer. Yeah, that's right, okay. Uh.
The only problem with using the cone snail venom to
control pain is that I needed an implant. It can't
be taken in pill form. One needs to be implanted
with a hockey puck sized implant that slowly releases the
medication into my intrathecal fluid. What which is the fluid
(45:21):
surrounding the spinal cord? I might be pronouncing it wrong.
Every three months, I need to go in for a
refill so using a small needle. This guy's like Iron Man.
The doctor refills the pump that's inside of his body
with Cone Snail venom. It has been a godsend and
greatly improved my quality of life and some days I
am completely pain free. That is cool. So David Miami,
(45:43):
kudos to you, sir and continued good health. Hats off
to your medical pioneering. Absolutely, what's old is new again
and thank you Cone Snail. Yeah, thanks Cone Steele. Uh
let's see if you have an email about a past
episode and how it affected your life. We always want
to hear that kind of thing. Sure, you can tweet
(46:05):
to us at s y s K Podcast. That's our handle. Um,
you can enjoin us on Facebook at facebook dot com
slash Stuff we Should Know. Oh, also, we have a newsletter.
You can go to Stuff you Should Know his Facebook
page and there's a tab to sign up for the
Stuff you Should Know Electronic email newsletter. It's all free.
It's over on the left side under our picture. On
(46:26):
the very bottom you'll see uh S Y S Game
news Letter. Yeah, and it's pretty cool. It comes out
once a week, right, is it something like that? It's
it has like our links to some of our favorite
articles Just cool Stuff. Link to the newest episode, It's
just neat. It's It's one of the better things you'll
get in your inbox. Agreed um. And speaking of inboxes,
you can send us a good old fashioned email to
(46:49):
Stuff podcast at how stuff works dot com for moral
this and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff
works dotm. To learn more about the podcast, click on
the podcast icon in the upper right corner of our homepage.
Hey, everybody, it's me Josh, and my pick for s
Y s K Selects this week is the one we
did on the ten thousand year Clock. Uh. Just looking back,
I think it's probably one of the coolest episodes we've
ever done. And it's just kind of me and Chuck
operating on all cylinders talking about something we're super jazzed about.
So we hope you enjoy it. And my apologies for
(00:21):
being sick in this one. It's still good. Welcome to
stuff you should know from house Stuff Works dot com. Hey,
and welcome to the podcast, Josh Clark. There's Charles W.
W Chuck Bright and that makes this stuff you should
(00:43):
That's right. How are you, sir? I said, it's a
little under the weather. Other than that, I'll find I've
got that. Remember the Happiness audio book. We talked to
it guy David Pierced and trans humanist about separating a
susception pain, like the physical experience of pain, from suffering,
(01:05):
like just getting rid of suffering, like I've reached that
point and being sick where like I see how intertwined
the two are. Like I just keep saying, like woe
is me? Like I am suffering. It's pretty bad. So
do you feel bad, like in a flu sense or
is it just the head full of stuff it makes
(01:25):
it unbearable. Uh? No, Luckily I don't have any flu
symtom because that's what puts me under this when you
literally feel those eggs in your skin is really sensitive.
Was just what I had before you. We're taking turns.
I don't know if I got it from you or not.
Air air travel often will do that, so yeah, I
(01:49):
got I got mine after air travel too. Stupid air travel.
It's two thousand and twelve, you know you don't. Can
we do better with the recirculated air on a plane? Maybe? Yeah,
just like surely you can crack a window a little
bit or something, right, get some fresh air in there.
There's gotta be something there, right, So um, I guess
(02:09):
we should do this one. No, we're not, you know why,
because we got all the time in the world. Man,
slow down, That's what I was saying. Yeah, and I'm
just reiterating, well, thank you. There's no hurry, Josh. Well,
let's just stay here for a little while. We're in
the foundation of the long now. Uh, you're misreading. It's
(02:33):
the long now foundation. I like the foundation of the
Long Now you Longer? Yeah it is. It's a couple
of extra wards there named by Brian Eno. Yeah, the
great musical composer, father maybe of techno producer. I think
he's called a rock musician in this article. Well the
(02:53):
guy I watched a Setti talk from Alexander Rose, who
you said is the project manager of the Long Nail
Foundation's um clock of the Longmail project, which we're going
to talk about, And when he was doing his presentation,
he said mentioned Brian Eno and he said, who was
an ambient music guy? Is that what he called him? Yeah?
(03:15):
I was like, this is Brian Eno? Come on? What
did he write? Um? What was his album music for Spaceports? Uh?
Something like that? That was a solo thing after Roxy Music.
Yeah wait, Brian you know was in Roxy Music? Yeah?
I know, Brian Ferry was. They were, and they famously
butted heads and Brian Eno left I think after one
(03:35):
album did solo work until he hooked up with you
two and the Talking Heads and as an uber producer.
Cool man, where you go, Chuck. Thanks, that was a
great explanation. Okay, Mr Brian the ambient music guy? Right?
But yeah, you're right, He's the one who coined the
the name the long now Um. And uh, this whole foundation,
(03:58):
this group of people, the long now Foundation or the
foundation of the long now Um, are dedicated to forcing
um hoisting upon humanity. Like you were saying, like just
the idea of slowing down, of taking a longer view
of everything, the long now. Yeah, And I think the
(04:20):
way they put it was to try and think in
the terms of if you live to be one thousand
years old, so long term thinking for the world is
better than short term thinking, although I would argue you
need both. You know what I'm saying, Yeah, because it's like,
because exactly when should I get out of the way
of the speeding car? We don't live to be a
(04:42):
thousand that is, but I do like you hear it
behind it, I have a question for you. Would you
want to live to be a thousand years old if
we aged like normally and would be like you don't
turn into the dungeon Master from the from the cartoon. Uh,
you mean if it was like a thousand years old
would be the equivalent of like a hundred Heck, yeah,
(05:05):
would you really? Why not? Well? I can think of
a lot of reasons why not name one, Um, boredom
you'd be worried about boredom. Boredom. I mean, think about
all the stuff you can do in a century. Now,
multiply that by ten. There's an amount of stuff to
(05:26):
do on this planet. Well, if you I think everybody
would end up with huge, massive drug problems by age four,
you might be right, but hey, four year old should
be able to handle his h So okay, despite how
(05:46):
you feel about living, do a thousand long now foundation
is Um, they're kind of into that way of thinking.
Like you said that long term thinking can lead to
short term gain and a good example of this is
climb it change, right, So, UM, I think one of
the people who are on the side of who are
(06:07):
in favor of taking great action against climate change would
would say that, Um, if we can take steps now,
if we can think further out, then you know, we'd
be able to mitigate this. But we're not. We're thinking
about very immediate concerns, which some are are reasonable, like
(06:27):
economic concerns, that kind of thing. But it's just two
schools of thought exactly. So, UM, you can kind of
understand where the long Now Foundation UH would side or
sit on that. UM, debate. But what they figured out
is that we basically we humans to think like this,
we need something to um lead our minds in that direction,
(06:52):
because just saying like, man, what's it gonna be like
ten thousand years from now? It's like who cares? You know,
I'm thinking about food, like I am literally right now.
I just pose the question, and I'm thinking about food
already long term, right. But if they were saying, like
a two ft clock in front of me that I
knew was designed to tick off ten thousand years, I
(07:16):
might take a much longer view of things. A beacon,
if you will, a beacon. Indeed, so the long Now
Foundation has undertaken its flagship projects and there's a bunch
of other projects to UM called the Clock of the
long Now a k a. The ten thousand year clock.
Very cool, Yeah, and I think it's pretty awesome. I
can tell you're a fan. Well, but if for no
(07:37):
other reason than to uh get attention for for their
foundation and their their school of thought, you know, right,
And that's the whole point. Like, and it's gotten some
pretty good attention, I think, Um, A lot of people
have heard of the ten thousand year clock already. UM,
But it's actually being created. One's already done a tabletop version. Yeah,
(08:02):
tabletop meaning eight ft. But the well, the prototype, um,
and the whole thing was proposed by a guy named
Danny Hillis. Um back in UH wrote in a like
a Wired magazine scenarios article, the idea for this, the
concept behind it, and um, there's been coome this kind
(08:24):
of rallying cry that he wants a cuckoo to come
out every millennium. Everybody that shows up in every article
I've read on it, that's what they say. That's his thing, like,
he wants a cuckoo to come out on the millennium.
What's crazy is I don't see anywhere in here that
there actually will be a cuckoo. Yeah. I didn't see
that either. So poor Danny Hillis will have to wait.
(08:45):
But he's he's the guy behind the Long Nail Foundation, right. Yeah.
The first thing that I noticed when I look at
any of the writings about them and the long now
clock is the zero that they just placed in front
of the current year. So in when he wrote that article,
he proposed, you know, not that they actually change it,
(09:06):
but the way they look at things is zero one, nine,
nine five and Just seeing a date written in that
way kind of makes me breathe a little relief, because
all of a sudden, twenty twelve doesn't look like the future.
Oh to one two looks like, oh well, we got
a long way to go, like we're backwater Yokel's time wise.
(09:28):
Yeah does that make sense? Oh yeah, totally, because I
think they said we've been around, like civilization has been
around for ten thousand years or so. So essentially this
clock would represent our entire past. Well yeah, moving forward. Yeah,
it would place us directly in the middle of two,
which I love so which I was curious about. Why
(09:49):
they're not starting over then? Why not started zero years?
Clark's clock, um starts you want to name it a
Clark it's a millennium yea, uh maybe because they just
they don't want to disrespect you know, time served if
you will. But also so, what they've come up with
(10:10):
is a clock then that will run until the year
twelve thousand, twelve thousand, twelve twelve thousand and fifteen, depending
on how how fast they can get this thing built. Um,
but that's their idea, is to come up with a
ten thousand year clock, the clock that will run without
human intervention for ten thousand years one um that can
(10:33):
be easily understood by anybody. Um, which I think that
they could have done something slightly different with the design,
Like my eyes crossed when I look at like the face. Yeah, um,
I feel like I'm living in zero two one two um.
But there there's some challenges to all this, right, Like
there's humans haven't really made too many things, um that
(10:57):
have lasted ten thousand years yet. Yeah, why should this
be any different? Well, you you outlined a couple of
the base. I think they have the five basic principles
they were aiming for, and you outlined a couple of them.
There to work relatively free of regular maintenance? Was one? Uh,
simple enough to maintain that if all of a sudden
we go into some post apocalyptic world where there's no technology,
(11:21):
we could still maintain it. Right, They were saying they
estimate it couldn't go back prior to the Bronze Age.
But as long as we have Bronze Age technology, which
begin and the hallmark of the Bronze Ages metallurgy and
um in black magic and of metal or separating ores
from metal and um uh metal alloys. Okay, Well if dude,
(11:45):
if we're sent back beyond the Bronze Age, then this
clock is not gonna matter very much. You know what
I'm saying. Uh, A close inspection of the operational principles
should reveal the principles behind its operation. It's a little
bit of word play there that sounds like Danny hillis
and then uh what else? No matter when someone comes
(12:05):
upon it, it should be able to be improved upon.
And finally it should be able to be constructed small
enough to fit on a table. That's what the prototype.
So success, Yeah, success, And then for the rest of them,
they're they're kind of abandoning that because, like we said,
this thing is going to be the one that's being
constructed right now, is going to be two ft tall. Yes, um,
(12:27):
but looks like it I have ourselves, um powering such
a clock. There's if you're looking at ten thousand years,
I think it seems kind of likely that civilization will
suffer at least one collapse, if not several, And we
have no idea how far back humans will be set,
(12:48):
hopefully not for the Bronze Age. But um, so this
clock needs to somehow gain power from the environment, and
Danny hillis came up with a bunch of different ideas, right,
like atomic power. Yeah, most of that, Uh, that's poor
manageability and transparency. Most of these are scalability Like they
(13:10):
may have been good ideas, but they're just what too
large to fit their their needs either that there either
they're too big or they there already like they're perfect
for this clock, but you can't use that to power
Maybe if if something need if something's added on that
(13:30):
requires more power, t s. You already are using all
the power you can, or you can't scale it up
and it wouldn't work the same maybe exactly so that
would be chemical pre stored potential, geothermal, tidal, gravitational changes,
and seismic and plate tectonics. Those all had poor scalability,
(13:50):
so says Hill us Um, you can't use pressure change
because you would need like a bellows or a seal.
You want this thing to be as um simple as possable,
because as any engineer knows, the more moving parts you have,
the more parts you have that can break down. Um.
And the flow of water. That's a good one, right,
there should be water on the on the planet for
(14:13):
ten thousand years. Sorry, you're exposing the clock to water,
so inherently waters is self defeating energy source. Wind. Yeah,
any kind of exposure to weather. That's why this thing
is buried inside of a mountain, right, So what did
he come up with? He came up with two ideas
to power this humans. That's one. Yeah, human winding, that's one,
(14:34):
a novel idea. The other is temperature change, that's right,
but yeah, he wanted He said his favorite was human
winding because it fosters responsibility for the clock, which is
a great, great idea, I think, because ultimately the clock
is for humans, even though it's sequestered in a mountain
and it can run by itself for ten thousand years,
if no human ever lays eyes on it, it's for humans.
(14:56):
And we'll explain on that. If it sounds like we're
talking out above side to our amounts, will explain on
that by saying doesn't need humans. Yet, it doesn't need humans.
I bet people can't wait. I could just feel attention.
The hairs in the back of their necks bristly. All right.
So for the prototype, um, it's sort of like an
(15:16):
old school clock in a way. Uh. They used to
helical weights, Uh, similar to the weight gravity systems just
like clock towers, old clock towers, and they drive the
energy going up and down these tubes which will drive
the pendulum, right yeah, um. And ultimately the prototype, the
(15:36):
drive assembly as you'd call it, Um, it served its purpose.
There was a prototype and that it said, okay, we
need to do something different, and they have. But for
the prototype, Yeah, there's helical weights we're not familiar with,
are you okay? Um, But the the prototype also still
(15:57):
had like a solar synchronizer, which we'll talk about later, um,
and a pendulum, which will also get a little more
into But the pendulum is kind of key to keeping
the time. We should do that now you want to Yeah, yeah, okay.
So back in the six D people were trying to
figure out how to keep time better than they have
(16:20):
him more accurately. UM. And somebody a Dutch astronomer. Back
in the day the best astronomers were Dutch Christian holligans.
He said, hey, why don't you try using a pendulum
because a pendulum has pretty cool property and that the
only two um things that affect the swing of a pendulum.
(16:43):
Nothing else affects the swinging of a Pendlum, not changes
in temperature, not humidity, not anything else except the force
of gravity and the length of the pendulum. I didn't
know this well I didn't either. Um, if you take
a pendulum and put it just about anywhere on Earth,
you're gonna find that the gravitational field is is so
(17:05):
close to the same that a pendulum will swing the
same way anywhere on Earth. So the same rate to right, right,
So what affects that rate The period, which is the
amount of time it takes for a pendulum to swing
all the way from one side to the other. So
not just one side, it's it's both. That's a pendulum period.
So really the only thing that affects it is um,
(17:27):
the length of the pendulum. Right. The shorter the pendulum,
the faster uh they go. The longer the pendulum usually uh,
the um the longer it takes. And once you get
a pendulum going, which doesn't require a lot, it will
keep going. Yes, it takes a very small amount of
energy input to keep it going, right, yeah, which is
perfect for something like a ten year clock. Right. So
(17:49):
if you put a pendulum and attached it to something
called an escapement, right, Yeah, this is a part I
got confused on. Okay, we'll check this out. So you
have a pendulum, and you've figured out the exact length
you need for a pendulumce period to take one second
to tick off one second on on a second hand.
That's exactly right. So you can attach the pendulum to
(18:10):
this thing called an escapement. An escapement is just like
a wheel with some gears to it, right, And these
gears are attached to the second hand, Okay, and the
escapement is always wanting to go forward, but it's being
held in place by the pendulum, which is attached to
an anchor. But we'll just call it the pendulum, right,
So as the pendulum swings one way, the escapement gear
(18:31):
is being held in place, and it's when it swings
the other way, which is the end of a second,
the pendulum opens up, allowing the escapement gear to take
forward one tooth, thus moving the second hand forward one
movement in a second. So that's how you do it.
And if you're very, very clever, you can design the
(18:53):
escapement gear so that as it moves, as it escapes,
it also nudges that anchor that's a touched to the pendulum,
transferring energy back to the pendulum to keep it swinging
and that's basically the basics of a clock, mechanical clock, right,
and that's what they use for the ten thousand year
clock too, very smartly inappropriately to Yeah. I love how
(19:14):
when they do design something to work ten thousand years
they go back to bronze age and well this wasn't
bronze age, but a lot of just old mechanical technology.
Well yeah, I mean it's I think we've advanced in
a lot. I mean, if you're gonna make a digital clock,
yeah we know what we're doing, but how are you
going to power it? And you want to just use
(19:34):
some really old, perfect technology exactly? That's called long thinking, Josh.
So we've got winding and temperature changes, differences in temperature
changes that are powering this clock, now right, that's right, um.
And then those are the two principles that are powering
the clock. And there are different parts of the clock
(19:55):
that need to be powered, like your favorite the Geneva wheels,
right Yeah, Aneva wheel sounds intimidating a Geneva drive until
you look it up on YouTube and see what it is,
and it's really just um. And it can come in
all kinds of shapes and in this case, it's sort
of the shape of a star, and it's imagine each
(20:15):
point of a star has a notch cut in it,
and sitting underneath that is a is a wheel, a
drive wheel that spins with a peg coming out of it,
and it slips into the little slot on the star,
advancing it one little click, keeps turning and and spins
out of it and then by the time it comes
back around, it slips back into the next one. So
it's just a slow ticking around in a circle. Right,
(20:39):
And so there's I think twenty of these for the
big clock. But they're designed with a bunch of holes
in a pins and holes system basically, which essentially is
making a mechanical Babbage Babbage difference engine like an early computer,
like a punch hole computer. Yeah. Right, they use before calculators.
(20:59):
They is mechanical summers or actors, and this is you.
But it's adding in binary ones and zeros. So it's
carrying out digital calculations through mechanical means, which is astounding.
And they're using this astounding technology to power basically what
um in this article that we're reading. It's the world's
(21:20):
slowest computer, and that computer is being used to calculate, uh,
an algorithm that will produce a different chime using ten
different chimes or two bells, um so that this thing
supposedly will never make the same chime twice. Yeah. I
think the algorithm maxes out at three point five million
(21:41):
chimes of course, designed composed by Brian Eno, the ambient
music guy, right and uh and that that doesn't have
anything to do with the powering of the clock. That's
just the chimes. No, but the dirty secret of the
Long Mouth Foundation is that three point five million different
possible chime tones uh or combinations is about ninety thousand
(22:03):
days short of ten thousand years. Oh really, yeah, it
wasn't ninety thousand days and years. I don't know, you
have a binary add we need some Geneva wheels in here.
Stat Well, they're not telling anyone that though obviously no
they did actually wired. Yeah, They're like, you know, this
(22:24):
thing's not gonna chime every day, so I'm sure it'll
be fine, Okay, But basically no one's speaking to probably
Needo right now. He's been demoted to ambient music guy
from legendary producer. Uh. So the prototype, that's the prototype.
It's eight ft tall roughly eight and a half. It
is um at the Science Museum in London. You can
(22:47):
go see it there. And it first started ticking on
December thirty first, nineteen or O one if you're a
long hour, and it worked the gong twice at the
turn of the millennium to indicate that two millenniums are
now past, which is funny because technically the millennium didn't
(23:08):
start until two one. That's true. But they don't care.
They don't care about a lot of stuff I'm finding out. Uh,
So let's talk about the real deal when this article
is written. The real deal was just proposed and it
was going to be about sixty ft tall. That was
two years ago. Well, that one is the one in Nevada.
I think that's still gonna be sixty. They just decided
(23:30):
to start on the Texas one first, gotcha because Bezos
was like, Hey, here's forty two million bucks, can we
get started? Well, go ahead and spill the means there.
I just Jeffrey Bezos, founder of Amazon dot com, UH
is heavily involved in this, to the tune of money
and UH it being built on a mountain inside a
mountain in West Texas, on his property. Yeah, so he
(23:51):
he owns it sort of kind of. I get the
impression that, yes, he definitely has This project is his,
but it's one of many that are going to be
built around the world, Like they got approval to build
one in a Smithsonian just this past year. Um and
uh also Bezos by the way, he said that the
two are unrelated. It's just a cool coincidence or whatever.
(24:13):
But he's also building a spaceport by the mountain too,
and he says that's unrelated to the clock. Yeah, he
just said, Hey, that's why not there's a space port.
There's gonna be ten thousand year clock. We'll see what happens.
But if you want to see he's um funding this,
uh this space program called Blue Origin. And you know
how like in the fifties, like science fiction rockets would
(24:34):
like land just going straight up and straight down, you know, yeah, yeah, Okay,
that's what his rockets do. And there's you can see
video of It's the most amazing thing I've ever seen that.
I'm I'm like, is this real? Like we're pretty good
at after effects these days, it's gotta be. I think
it's real. You can make it happen blue Origin dot com.
(24:57):
I will I will look that up, sir. So, like
you said, Bezo says, or the one in Texas, I
guess is what you should call it. The one that's
under construction is going to be about two hundred feet tall, um,
and it's kinda it's out in the middle of nowhere,
very purposefully. Yeah. I think it's hours from the nearest airport.
It requires a full days hike to reach the mouth
of the cave opening, which is like a steel door,
(25:21):
and it's a mountain rising up from the the desert,
so you have a fifteen hundred foot climb just to
get to the steel door the first door. So vandals,
not only will you be trespassing, but you need to
be a mountaineer if you want to go mess with
this thing, which we don't encourage one, but they have
they The first door is going to be jade, which
(25:42):
is pretty cool. It's gonna be hidden behind the rock face,
so like you have to, I guess you could stumble
upon it. I think that's part of the idea, the fun. Yeah. Um,
but you will know when you do stumble upon it
that there's something very cool there because it's going to
be a carved jade door in the rock face. Well,
they're gonna open it up when they finish, they said
they are. But I'm saying, like, if if this if
(26:03):
the location or the idea or anything you're having to
do with the clock, it'll still be there and people
can find it accidentally. Yeah. What really bothers me about
this is I'm not going to know the result. You know,
if you lived to a thousand, maybe you would, but
I can't live to ten thousand regardless. But does that
bother you? Yeah? Like I want to know how this ends.
(26:24):
I want to know if in ten thousand years, if
it's still running, Well, what happens if if? Okay, so
just the clock just you don't care what happens like
hundred years from now, not just the clock. Um, So,
if you want to access this thing, you go through
those two doors. It's in complete darkness. It's not all
lit up, which is kind of cool, right because I
guess any kind and they don't want any kind of
(26:45):
electricity to be needed obviously why they're building it. They're
using stuff but for a visitor later on, Yeah, exactly,
a post Bronze age visitor. It's going to be housed
in a five hundred foot tall tunnel about twelve ft
in diameter, Yeah, a vertical tunnel. Yeah, it's like a shaft. Basically,
(27:07):
it's a twelve ft diameter shaft that's five ft tall,
very tall. And um, it's got a very precise rock
staircase that was carved with a robot slicing machine. You
see video that I think it was awesome. And it
starts at the top, which is cool. Basically it starts
at the top with this just big hunk of rock
(27:29):
and just cuts in a circle, down, down, down, one
stair at a time, like the golden ratio kind of nautilus. Yeah,
very cool. Yeah, And so that's how you're gonna access
the gears. So let's go ahead and get to that.
Let's go ahead and get to the counterweights at least.
Well that's the first thing you would kind of come
upon if you walked in on this thing and it's completed.
(27:50):
And the counterweights are made up of stone discs, each
about the size of a car, each waying about ten
thousand pounds um. And we said that winding is winding
in differences in temperature change of the principles that provide
energy for this clock, but um, the weights are what
keep it running. Um. And when you come upon the weights,
(28:13):
you're gonna come upon a platform. And you know there's
like old um those old movies or whatever where there's
you know, slaves or um, somebody on a ship and
they're having to like crank a wheel. Like there's three
guys like all moving in the same direction, and each
one has like a pole that is pushing like a
horizontal wheel. Right. Yeah, they're gonna have one of those
(28:35):
for visitors to crank, and that will raise these enormous
counterweights and once they're fully raised, they'll have enough stored
potential energy to power the clock for about a century
without a single dash of sunlight or another human visitor.
So that's essentially winding the clock. I think they said
(28:55):
two or three people it takes to do this, and
um it what's it called a cap stand? I think
that that is what it's called. It's called a cap stand, right, Yeah,
that's the horizontal wheel. That's yeah. Yeah, so it's pretty cool,
like it requires human intervention. But as we said, and
let's go ahead and spill the beans how that works.
(29:16):
If no one came around ever, it would still run
because of uh differences, and it collects sun's rays. The
prism that sticks out at the top a sapphire couple
of I bet that looks nice. And that's the only
part that's visible from outside. They said, yes, And it
collects the sun's rays and then channels them down through
(29:37):
metal rods. And the difference in that was it the cave,
the interior cave temperature and the temperature that collects between
day and night. It changes okay and night, which is
pretty ingenious because you think about what they're probably still
will be over ten thousand years, there probably will still
be day and night. Yes, and that's ultimately what powers this. Well,
(29:58):
they're with no human intervention, Yeah, exactly. This dude though,
the Alexander uh what was his name? Rose? He said
that what they had to figure out there's something called
the equation of time, and it's not constant, like the
Earth is slowing its rotation by about a second every
couple of hundred years, and all this stuff sounds like
you have a big deal, but when you look on
(30:19):
a ten thousand of your timeline, it is a big deal. Um,
So the Earth is slowing by about a second every
couple of hundred years. Uh, it's also processing on its
pole every twenty six thousand years, so they have to
take that into account. And then climate change, it's gonna
if poles continue to melt, water is gonna be pushed out,
(30:41):
it's gonna rotate even slower. So what they figured out
there was a variance, Well, normally there's a variance of
about ten or fifteen minutes throughout the course of a
year from where the Sun should be. And they designed
this thing too self correct to still be able to
pick up the Sun's rays. Yeah, pretty ingenious, but they
needed to do it on a ten thousand year scale.
(31:02):
So they basically formulated this massive equation and they figured
out how time would evolve over ten thousand years according
to all these variables, and they found out it is
a plus or minus and this worst case scenario with
climate change of twenty three days from where they think
the sun should be over ten thousand years, which means
(31:23):
that the clock is way off by the end of
the ten thousand years. Well, but they accounted for that
with this equation they did. And the way that they
accounted for it though, also is through the solar synchronizer.
So every sunny day that um. At noontime, the sun
will hit that prism. We'll heat up this little rod
(31:44):
that sends a signal to the clock center working. So
the the smart part of the clock that keeps time
all the time, no matter what um and says, hey
it's solar noon, and they the clocks readjusts itself. So
the most it's ever going to get off is say,
you know, however, many days or maybe a couple of
(32:06):
centuries without sunlight if there's some sort of horrible nuclear
winner or whatever. But let's say a couple of hundred
years without sunlight. The next time there's sunlight, it'll say, oh,
it's noon, and the clock will just readjust itself kind
of wake back up. Yeah that's crazy, but but it
will go back to Okay, it's noon now. No matter
how far it drifted, it will now know it's noon.
(32:27):
Solar nude. It is very awesome. And the timber. The
differences in temperature also, it's it's called the thermoelectric effect UM.
The electrons. If you have a thermoelectric device, electrons will
go from a hot side to the cold side. And
you know as well as I do that the flow
electrons equals electricity, that's right, So that will keep things
(32:49):
in check as well. That will keep the inner workings
powered too. They thought of everything they did, and they
also thought of ways to store energy or to keep
from using energy, saving energy. He's another way to put it, well, yeah,
I mean over time. I think they said that if
the difference in temperature is great enough, it will just
store that temperature and over a timeline. If that keeps happening,
(33:11):
it won't even have to you know, stop and catch up.
It'll just start operating fully mechanically by itself. Right. So
here in the order of winding exactly, So in the
order of um preference or of importance, the solar energy
or the diurnal temperature change energy UM goes from the
(33:31):
inner workings of the clock, yes, spills over to the weights, yes,
and then if the weights are wound, then you will
have the Geneva drive operating. Right, So it goes basically
like the clock knowing the correct time, the clock operating
and showing the correct time or whatever information that's supposed
(33:52):
to and then the clock making sounds. Those are the
levels of importance as far as energy distribution. Sure, yeah,
that makes sense because the chimes, they gotta come last
they do. It's nice and all, but they're also they're
meant for human consumption. But if enough of that diurnal
temperature difference uh energy spills over to the weights, then
(34:15):
the clock will ostensibly um be chime when nobody's there.
That's pretty cool. That's very cool. And next to his
little rocket station. Right, he's got it all. He's got
all figured out. Um So, while we mentioned the Geneva
gears on on the on the main uh the two
ft when they're building these are about eight ft in diameter,
(34:36):
each one weighing about a thousand pounds. Yeah, and it's
it's pretty remarkable. I mean, if you think if you
ever been inside a clock tower and seeing that, it's like,
imagine that times twenty. And remember the Geneva drive system
is the the mechanical computer that's come that's calculating the
algorithm to play the chimes. It's the whole reason it's there,
(34:57):
that's right, and it's being powered by winding or the weights.
Winding the weights. Uh So, if you keep climbing up
in this thing, you will get to the primary chamber,
and that is where you finally see the face of
the clock, which is the most important thing. If you're
building a clock, it's also gonna be baffling thing. Yeah,
I mean the face of this clock is uh or
(35:20):
if it's anything like the prototype, it's not like any
clock I've ever seen. It's very awesome, Like you can
clearly say, oh, I see the century, and I see
them the millennium, maybe even the year. But like when
I get to the star field, I imagine like so
the starfields being displayed, I get that. I think that
(35:40):
that means that if it were nighttime and you can
see the star field and you went outside and looked up,
you would see the same stars, right right, Okay, But
the horizons are what's throwing me off the most. The
ret r e t e. It shows horizons. I don't
understand what that, what that means, or what you're gonna
it from that fortunately, and I haven't seen it. But
(36:03):
supposedly there's going to be a manual, some sort of explanation. Yeah,
I'm sure they'll have it, some sort of uh it.
Once they open it up for people to come visit.
There'll be some like a little button you push and
it will be Morgan Freeman's boy explaining our works or
what the horizon means. Um If you want to know
the time of day, though, you have to ask the clock.
(36:25):
Chuck I thought this was one of the coolest parts
of this whole deal because they built it to to
operate at its most frugal over the years, obviously, and
one thing that you don't need is a current read
out if no one's there to read it. And so
they says, well, why don't you ask the clock, like
you said, So whatever time you see when you approach
(36:46):
the clock is the last time that it read when
someone wound not the clock itself, but the clock's face
right the display the yeah, the clocks. So there's two
ways to win. The cap stay and that raises the weights,
and then there's the there's a little hand wheel that
just one single person can do to wind the clock
(37:09):
the clocks display and it'll correct itself and say, we'll
ring it's now you know whatever time it is. And
here's the horizon, which Josh doesn't get. Here's where the
moon and sun phases are, and here's what year it
is with the zero in the front of it. It's
pretty cool. So the clock always knows what time it is.
It's just not necessarily displaying it. It's just not gonna
(37:29):
tell it's asked. Pretty cool, so chuck. Um, there's some
pretty obvious reasons to choose the inside of a mountain
to put this clock in earthquake protection, nuclear bomb protection mountains.
They're they're long lasting, yeah, um. But there's other reasons
that they chose the interior of a mountain as well, Like, um,
(37:50):
the differences in temperature between seasons and day within the
mountain um are very minimal, which means that you're not
gonna have a freeze thaw cycle, which is apparently very corrosive. Yeah,
but it's great enough to where you're gonna get the
energy out of it, right, especially at the top. So
remember like there's the mountain top that from the entrance
(38:14):
the bottom of the clock, the top is five feet,
but the clocks only two d feet, so the extra
three feet is above there is where the temperature differences
will really be noticeable. Right. Uh. So they've picked a
very good place. And also the one in Nevada has
got similar conditions, I think so, which is why they
picked that high dried desert, highdried desert. Uh. And then
(38:36):
the parts this is remarkable to me, Um, if you're
going to construct something at last for ten thousand years,
you're not gonna want to throw a bunch of thirty
weight oil in there, because oil uh has the potential
to fail and leak, and oil will attract dirt like crazy,
and little hairs in like fuzzy pieces of grit over
(38:57):
ten thousand years will stop any machine from running. So
what they did was they barring from NASA, who originally
developed ceramic bearings to use on satellites. So because you
don't want to have satellites that need oiling either, uh,
they used uh ceramic, which nowadays can be harder than diamonds.
(39:17):
Ceramic bearings, like the moving parts are ceramic. And remember
earlier I said, like humans haven't made too many things
that have lasted ten thousand years. Ceramic pot shirts are
one example of something. Boom Uh we have pot shirts
that are like seventeen thousand years old, and that's just
like from a pot. What they're making today should be
able to last way longer because these parts move so
(39:40):
slowly they don't require any lubrication. So the ceramic ball
bearings are keeping the metal parts away from one another,
because if you have to like metals that are in
contact and aren't moving really like the millennium dial um
basically won't move the whole time you or I are alive,
children are alive. Um. And if you have the same
(40:00):
kind of metal and like one gear touching the other gear, um,
they're's gonna fuse together. You know. Micro vibration. I did
not enlighten me. No, it's micro vibration, Like it's not moving,
quote unquote, but micro vibration over ten thousand years will
cause it to weld itself. That's pretty cool. And that's
(40:21):
if it's a like metal, and if they're unlike, they
will corrode over time in that right, Yeah, it's um
galvanic corrosion. If they're dissimilar metals, they'll just eat into
each other. So either either way, you don't want these
metals touch you another. So the ceramic ball bearings that
don't need any lubrication are perfect. It's right. The rest
of it is made from three sixteen sainless steel, which
(40:43):
this Alexander guy said that'll last ten thousand years. And
even if it starts to rust. The movements of this
clock because it moves so slowly, because it's so large Um,
the the precision doesn't need to be like thousands of
an inch, that's what's cool. It can be like a
quarter of an inch. Last plenty of room for rust, right,
(41:03):
so if there is rust, it really doesn't matter. And
also saw where he said in the video that all
the gear teeth were cut three dimensionally, and uh, what
that means is it uses rollers to roll the gear,
so it's a rolling mechanism instead of what he called
a scrubbing friction. So I guess a rolling friction is
(41:24):
much easier on the parts and scrubbing. And um, I
was reading a Wired article on it, and the reporters
said that he came upon a Geneva wheel, remember their
eight feet in diameter. Yeah, these are um and they
had the ceramic ball bearings in it and he could
turn it very easily with just like gentle pressure from
his finger. So they're going to be working just fine.
(41:46):
I can't I want to visit this thing when it's done,
at least I know I won't see the end, but
I'd like to be there for the beginning. Well you
can actually you can go join the long Now Foundation
at long now dot org. Right, Yeah, they operate on
don't nations. I don't think we ever even mentioned. It's
a private organization and funded by people like Bezos. And
(42:07):
I think the the UM basic membership costs like eight
bucks a month. Um, you probably have a pretty good
idea of where your money is going. Uh, their website
long now dot org, long now dot Oregon. Then there's
also now ten thousand year clock dot net and that's
bezos website. Yeah, and there's not a whole lot there yet,
(42:28):
but no, I mean it's just give overview, but um,
there's there. We were left out this one part and
the one in Texas Bezos is millennium Clock. There's gonna
be little alcoves, different rooms. There's a one year room,
a ten year room, hundred a thousand and ten thousand
year room, and like they're leaving it to later civilizations
(42:49):
to figure out what artifact to put in there. But
in the one year room they're putting the ory which
tracks the motion of the calculates the movement of the planets,
and it also is an animation of I think Voyager
two on this grand tour of like some of the
outer planets. UM. And that's going into one year and
they're going to figure out what to put in the tenure.
(43:11):
So they're soliciting um ideas from any if you have
an idea of what you what should be put in
the ten year alcove. But I guess some of that
stuff would require electricity though, right, I know, I don't
think so now, I don't think any of it's going
to or if it does, it will just be a thermoelectricity. Right,
(43:34):
So I feel like we covered that pretty well. Yeah,
ten year clock. I mean it's a way more basic
than it appears like when you first look at it.
It's like simple gears moving pendulum swinging. It's also going
up and fully and genius. Though, Yeah, the way they
put it together overcame problems that it may not encounter
(43:55):
for thousands of very smart, dudish indies. If you want
to learn more about the ten thousand year clock, you
can type in ten thousand year clock in the search
bart how stuff works dot com And that I said
search bar, So that means it's time for listener mail.
That's right, Josh, I'm gonna call this the cone snail
(44:16):
saved my life. Yes, remember when we talked about the
cone snail in the Venom podcast No, it wasn't venom.
What was it? It was? Probably? Was it just called venom? No,
it's like, what's the most venomous animal on earth? That's right?
This from David Miami. Hey, guys, love the show. I
recently listened to the show on venom and you mentioned
(44:38):
the cone snail. Five years ago, cone snail venom saved
my life. Was diagnosed with cancer and due to the
cancer chronic pain. After many years have failed attempts to
control my pain with conventional medication, I was extremely frustrated
and still suffering intolerable pain. Luckily, I found out about
the ziconotide cone snail venom because remember I think we
(45:01):
talked about scorpion venom being used in cancer. Yeah, that's right, okay. Uh.
The only problem with using the cone snail venom to
control pain is that I needed an implant. It can't
be taken in pill form. One needs to be implanted
with a hockey puck sized implant that slowly releases the
medication into my intrathecal fluid. What which is the fluid
(45:21):
surrounding the spinal cord? I might be pronouncing it wrong.
Every three months, I need to go in for a
refill so using a small needle. This guy's like Iron Man.
The doctor refills the pump that's inside of his body
with Cone Snail venom. It has been a godsend and
greatly improved my quality of life and some days I
am completely pain free. That is cool. So David Miami,
(45:43):
kudos to you, sir and continued good health. Hats off
to your medical pioneering. Absolutely, what's old is new again
and thank you Cone Snail. Yeah, thanks Cone Steele. Uh
let's see if you have an email about a past
episode and how it affected your life. We always want
to hear that kind of thing. Sure, you can tweet
(46:05):
to us at s y s K Podcast. That's our handle. Um,
you can enjoin us on Facebook at facebook dot com
slash Stuff we Should Know. Oh, also, we have a newsletter.
You can go to Stuff you Should Know his Facebook
page and there's a tab to sign up for the
Stuff you Should Know Electronic email newsletter. It's all free.
It's over on the left side under our picture. On
(46:26):
the very bottom you'll see uh S Y S Game
news Letter. Yeah, and it's pretty cool. It comes out
once a week, right, is it something like that? It's
it has like our links to some of our favorite
articles Just cool Stuff. Link to the newest episode, It's
just neat. It's It's one of the better things you'll
get in your inbox. Agreed um. And speaking of inboxes,
you can send us a good old fashioned email to
(46:49):
Stuff podcast at how stuff works dot com for moral
this and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff
works dotm. To learn more about the podcast, click on
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