![]() Think of it as "the slowest computer in the world," says project manager Alexander Rose. And it will do so entirely without electricity. Over the course of its 10 000-year life span, it will be able to power itself enough to keep time, synchronize that timekeeping with the sun, and randomly generate unique melodies on its chimes so that visitors will never hear the same tune twice. This clock, the flagship project of Hillis's Long Now Foundation, is a wonder of mechanical engineering. At noon the next day, they're suddenly awakened by the ethereal tones of chiming bells. Exhausted, they rest on the platform and drift off to sleep. For the next several hours, they push and walk and push and walk in a circle, methodically, silently, until the wheel will turn no further. ![]() A black globe suspended above depicts the night sky, encircled by metal disks that indicate the year and the century.Ī giant metal wheel sits in the middle of the platform, and the visitors each grasp a handle that juts out from its smooth edges. Steps cut into the walls spiral upward, and the hikers ascend until they reach a platform. A tall column of strange shiny metal gears and rods rises hundreds of meters above them. After a few minutes the hikers reach a cool chamber dimly lit from above. Finally they come to an opening in the rock, the mouth of what appears to be a long, deep tunnel.Īs they head into the shadows, not quite knowing where the tunnel will lead, the sudden darkness and the drop in temperature startle their senses. After walking for the better part of a day under a relentless sun, they struggle up a craggy limestone ridge. Two hikers cut through a stretch of cactus-filled desert outside what was once the small town of Van Horn, near the Mexican border, in West Texas. Its first components are now being machined and tested. The occasion brings thousands of citizens together each year under its watchful gaze, just like Big Ben in London or the clock in Madrid's Puerta del Sol.Time Machine: The 10 000-Year Clock is a monumental timepiece designed to tell time for ten millennia. The enormous 20 foot (6 metre) diameter clock at the top of the tower not only marks the official Moscow time, but is also in charge of indicating the arrival of the New Year. Its location on Red Square, next to Saint Basil's Cathedral, makes it impossible for it to go unnoticed, and all who visit Moscow return home with snaps of it on their camera. The Spasskaya Tower is one of Moscow's most emblematic landmarks. Under the Soviet Union, Stalin replaced the imperial symbol of the two-headed eagle on top of the Spasskaya Tower with a red star, and its height with the star is 233 feet (71 metres). Legends that the Spasskaya Tower had magical powers to protect the Kremlin from enemy invasions still surround the monument! In Tsarist Russia, the gateway could only be used by heads of state or high officials, and they had to dismount from their horses and remove their hats as a sign of respect when passing through the imposing red brick tower. The tower was built in 1491, during the reign of Ivan the Great, as the main entrance to the Kremlin complex.
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