Beyond delivery drones, space travel and other outside projects, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is also fascinated with time. Namely, a giant solar-powered clock in Texas.
Bezos announced in a tweet Tuesday that construction had begun on a 500-foot tall "10,000 Year Clock," showing a time-lapse, high-speed video of workers putting it together.
The clock itself is described by Bezos as one "designed to be a symbol, an icon for long-term thinking. It's of monumental scale inside a mountain in West Texas."
He is working with the Long Now Foundation to help build the clock that will keep time for the next 10,000 years, says Bezos. "As I see it, humans are now technologically advanced enough that we can create not only extraordinary wonders but also civilization-scale problems," he wrote on a 10,000 Clock website. "We're likely to need more long-term thinking."
Bezos says the team has carved into the mountain five anniversary chambers, for 1, 10, 100, 1000 and 10,000 year anniversaries. The clock will activate once a year on a pre-determined date at solar noon, adds Bezos.
Bezos is working with several partners on the project, including Danny Hillis, the Long Now foundation, Penguin Automated Systems, Swaggart Brothers, Seattle Solstice and Machinists, Inc. According to Wired, he's invested at least $42 million in the project.
Bezos, who has over 450,000 followers on Twitter, is not an active tweeter. But some of his preferred topics include space travel, earth exploration and an occasional plug for entertainment on Amazon Prime Video.
