> Speaking of time, what sort of time is the Long Now clock keeping, anyway? > Solar, atomic, or something else entirely?
Solar. It's all mechanical. No electronics. >From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clock_of_the_Long_Now > Hillis concluded that no single source of timing could meet the > requirements. As a compromise the clock will use an unreliable but accurate > timer to adjust an inaccurate but reliable timer, creating a phase-locked > loop. > In the current design, a slow mechanical oscillator, based on a torsional > pendulum, keeps time inaccurately, but reliably. At noon the light from the > Sun, a timer that is accurate but (due to weather) unreliable, is > concentrated on a segment of metal through a lens. The metal buckles and the > buckling force resets the clock to noon. The combination can, in principle, > provide both reliability and long-term accuracy. -- These are my opinions, not necessarily my employer's. I hate spam. _______________________________________________ LEAPSECS mailing list [email protected] http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/leapsecs
