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Amazon.com founder to make 10,000 year clock

(Â鶹ÒùÔºOrg.com) -- Jeff Bezos the founder of Amazon.com has embarked on an interesting and unique project that, if all goes well, will last the test of time, a whole lot of time. He is looking to create a clock that is able to run for 10,000 years.

If, at first, this sounds like a bit of a strange project you have to understand why Mr. Bezos wants to make a giant clock that will keep time long after his great-great-grandchildren are dead and gone and Amazon.com is less than a faint memory in the collective of the web.

To Mr. Bezos the clock is not just about creating a timepieces that will give him the ultimate in bragging rights, even among the super rich. It is his hope that by building a clock meant to stand the ages it will alter the way that humans think about time and the way that we act, encouraging future generations to take a longer-term view.

The clock, which will be built into a mountain ridge, represents a monumental feat of engineering, since it will have to run for as long as it took to create all of human civilization. Keeping a clock operational and accurate over this epic of a time span is no small feat. The clocks accuracy will be maintained by a complex set of calculations made by the Jet Propulsion Laboratories that will calculate the suns position at noon for the next 10 millennium. This will allow the clock to automatically correct its time.

$42 million has already been put towards the creation of the clock to date, all of it from Mr. Bezos private fortune.