finally something involving billions that isn't late capitalism
June 1, 2023 9:43 AM Subscribe
Got some legos, need to do some long-term planning? Guess you could make a billion-year clock.
What's the decay rate on plastic lego pieces with regards to durability? I'm assuming the device would need maintenace or tuning at certain points.
posted by Fizz at 10:40 AM on June 1, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by Fizz at 10:40 AM on June 1, 2023 [1 favorite]
An unreasonably large portion of my YouTube feed is full of homebuilt mechanical marvels. Here are some my favourite, related channels:
- Karakuri : Such as this mechanical 7-segment clock, and this handwriting clock.
- gzumwalt: with some delightful marble moving machines
- thang010146: with computer models of just about every mechanism ever devised (and still devising).
posted by Popular Ethics at 10:40 AM on June 1, 2023 [7 favorites]
- Karakuri : Such as this mechanical 7-segment clock, and this handwriting clock.
- gzumwalt: with some delightful marble moving machines
- thang010146: with computer models of just about every mechanism ever devised (and still devising).
posted by Popular Ethics at 10:40 AM on June 1, 2023 [7 favorites]
This is wonderful. Not just the clock but the way the video is illustrated and every piece of it is explained.
Clocks are one of those things... I sort of understand how they work but also I don't really. My late father in law collected them and repaired them and when he passed I inherited his clock bench (basically a jewelry bench) and a few of his tools and a I grabbed a couple clocks thinking I would learn to repair them myself but I just never really had the space in my brain to learn a new thing. So the clock bench turned into a little model making bench instead. Maybe some day.
Gear ratios are also very cool. At the MIT Museum in Cambridge, MA they have (had?) a collection of art machines by Arthur Ganson, including "Machine With Concrete". A rapidly-spinning electric motor powered a series of gears, the last of which was imbedded in concrete. I don't remember how many millions or billions of years it would take that one to turn enough to break the concrete but it was a whole hell of a lot.
Also, Josh, I miss goofing with you on Twitter. (but I get it)
posted by bondcliff at 10:58 AM on June 1, 2023 [4 favorites]
Clocks are one of those things... I sort of understand how they work but also I don't really. My late father in law collected them and repaired them and when he passed I inherited his clock bench (basically a jewelry bench) and a few of his tools and a I grabbed a couple clocks thinking I would learn to repair them myself but I just never really had the space in my brain to learn a new thing. So the clock bench turned into a little model making bench instead. Maybe some day.
Gear ratios are also very cool. At the MIT Museum in Cambridge, MA they have (had?) a collection of art machines by Arthur Ganson, including "Machine With Concrete". A rapidly-spinning electric motor powered a series of gears, the last of which was imbedded in concrete. I don't remember how many millions or billions of years it would take that one to turn enough to break the concrete but it was a whole hell of a lot.
Also, Josh, I miss goofing with you on Twitter. (but I get it)
posted by bondcliff at 10:58 AM on June 1, 2023 [4 favorites]
Yeah, I got excited about clock mechanics a couple years back and started reading up on the development of clockwork up through escapements, and...I know more about them now but it still feels a little magical to me. I had a brief "maybe I can make a rough clockwork art project" moment that really ran aground on the level of mechanical care and planning even doing a half-assed job would take.
Also, Josh, I miss goofing with you on Twitter. (but I get it)
Me too, bud. Fucking Elon.
posted by cortex at 11:14 AM on June 1, 2023 [7 favorites]
Also, Josh, I miss goofing with you on Twitter. (but I get it)
Me too, bud. Fucking Elon.
posted by cortex at 11:14 AM on June 1, 2023 [7 favorites]
What's the decay rate on plastic lego pieces with regards to durability?
Oh yeah, it'll grind itself to nubs in a couple of years of continuous use.
If you're at all interested in watch repair, and even if you don't think you are, go to the YT channel Wristwatch Revival. It's a very well-produced show, he's got the formula licked.
My frustration with clock escapements began somewhere in the mid 80s when I was given one of those papercraft books where you can make an entire clock with gears out of folded and glued paper. Made the whole damn thing and it barely moved. Would have required years of tweaking. Booo.
posted by Rhomboid at 11:37 AM on June 1, 2023 [4 favorites]
Oh yeah, it'll grind itself to nubs in a couple of years of continuous use.
If you're at all interested in watch repair, and even if you don't think you are, go to the YT channel Wristwatch Revival. It's a very well-produced show, he's got the formula licked.
My frustration with clock escapements began somewhere in the mid 80s when I was given one of those papercraft books where you can make an entire clock with gears out of folded and glued paper. Made the whole damn thing and it barely moved. Would have required years of tweaking. Booo.
posted by Rhomboid at 11:37 AM on June 1, 2023 [4 favorites]
That string would probably go after days, if not hours. Need to figure out a better material for that, first. But man that's a cool concept piece.
I'm into Legos for the architectural stuff, not the mechanical stuff, but it is really neat that you can do complex gear work with (mostly) widely-available and standardized pieces. They're not cheap, but they're not cheap because they are made to precise enough tolerances to do this kind of thing.
posted by restless_nomad at 12:05 PM on June 1, 2023
I'm into Legos for the architectural stuff, not the mechanical stuff, but it is really neat that you can do complex gear work with (mostly) widely-available and standardized pieces. They're not cheap, but they're not cheap because they are made to precise enough tolerances to do this kind of thing.
posted by restless_nomad at 12:05 PM on June 1, 2023
Would have required years of tweaking.
But at least you wouldn't have been burdened with the knowledge of how much time had passed!
posted by Greg_Ace at 12:13 PM on June 1, 2023 [2 favorites]
But at least you wouldn't have been burdened with the knowledge of how much time had passed!
posted by Greg_Ace at 12:13 PM on June 1, 2023 [2 favorites]
I have never worn a wristwatch, but some years ago I saw an old Accutron wristwatch for sale at a thrift store.
They used a tuning fork as an oscillator, were billed as the most accurate watches of their time, and ads for them were absolutely ubiquitous in the Scientific American of my childhood.
I couldn’t resist, and when I got it home and opened it up, sure enough, there was a tiny tuning fork with a jewel embedded in the outside and near the tip of one of the tines, and that jewel in turn drove a tiny wheel. I somehow did not expect the tuning fork itself to be the prime mover, but it was very charming.
And it hummed instead of ticking when I put a new battery in it, at 360 Hz according to the Wikipedia article, which was also very charming.
These days it rather incongruously graces the base of one of those Cartesian diver style glass cylindrical thermometers where you tell the temperature by looking to see which weighted glass ampoule of transparent colored fluid has floated to the top of the sealed fluid filled cylinder.
My version of a time and temperature station I guess, and the hum would probably speed up the otherwise very slow to respond rising and sinking glass ampoules, but the battery hasn’t been replaced in more than a decade.
posted by jamjam at 12:32 PM on June 1, 2023 [2 favorites]
They used a tuning fork as an oscillator, were billed as the most accurate watches of their time, and ads for them were absolutely ubiquitous in the Scientific American of my childhood.
I couldn’t resist, and when I got it home and opened it up, sure enough, there was a tiny tuning fork with a jewel embedded in the outside and near the tip of one of the tines, and that jewel in turn drove a tiny wheel. I somehow did not expect the tuning fork itself to be the prime mover, but it was very charming.
And it hummed instead of ticking when I put a new battery in it, at 360 Hz according to the Wikipedia article, which was also very charming.
These days it rather incongruously graces the base of one of those Cartesian diver style glass cylindrical thermometers where you tell the temperature by looking to see which weighted glass ampoule of transparent colored fluid has floated to the top of the sealed fluid filled cylinder.
My version of a time and temperature station I guess, and the hum would probably speed up the otherwise very slow to respond rising and sinking glass ampoules, but the battery hasn’t been replaced in more than a decade.
posted by jamjam at 12:32 PM on June 1, 2023 [2 favorites]
Amazon calls it a Galileo Glass Thermometer.
posted by jamjam at 12:50 PM on June 1, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by jamjam at 12:50 PM on June 1, 2023 [1 favorite]
Made me think of the clock in Anathem
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 12:54 PM on June 1, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 12:54 PM on June 1, 2023 [3 favorites]
Legos are made of fossil fuels. They're absolutely useless for carbon dating. What you want is refined uranium.
posted by phooky at 2:10 PM on June 1, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by phooky at 2:10 PM on June 1, 2023 [2 favorites]
I watched this video, and then I watched bondcliff's link to Arthur Ganson's 'Machine with Concrete,' and then YouTube suggested 'Machine with Concrete: Lego Interpretation.'
If only the algorithm always worked this well.
posted by box at 2:26 PM on June 1, 2023 [2 favorites]
If only the algorithm always worked this well.
posted by box at 2:26 PM on June 1, 2023 [2 favorites]
I had similar thoughts about the plastic wearing out when they got to counting years, and wondered why bother building something that's not going last to make a single rotation on that lifetime dial, but by the end when they had it all hooked up and that music started... damn actually that kinda hit me emotionally hard and it's pretty awe inspiring. It suddenly clicked why someone would go to all that trouble, to assemble it. Sort of a way to viscerally feel the vastness of time. Thanks for sharing it
posted by okonomichiyaki at 3:37 PM on June 1, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by okonomichiyaki at 3:37 PM on June 1, 2023 [1 favorite]
Yeah, I think the spirit of the whole thing is very much "here's how you could rig mechanisms", without any pretension of "THIS clock will last". A blueprint, a conceptual walkthrough.
posted by cortex at 3:56 PM on June 1, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by cortex at 3:56 PM on June 1, 2023 [3 favorites]
The lifetime dial made me sad. Seeing a whole life laid out like that, with most of it dedicated to "work."
posted by bondcliff at 5:02 PM on June 1, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by bondcliff at 5:02 PM on June 1, 2023 [3 favorites]
The various complex gears: were those more "how to do a difficult gear ratio elegantly" or "how to do a simple gear ratio weirdly"? or a bit of a mix of both?
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 6:26 PM on June 1, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 6:26 PM on June 1, 2023 [1 favorite]
"Dad, when can I have my Legos back?"
"Um...pretty soon, hon...Really, really soon."
posted by PlusDistance at 7:25 PM on June 1, 2023 [1 favorite]
"Um...pretty soon, hon...Really, really soon."
posted by PlusDistance at 7:25 PM on June 1, 2023 [1 favorite]
Incidentally, "gear ratio weirdly" would be a good username.
posted by Greg_Ace at 7:54 PM on June 1, 2023
posted by Greg_Ace at 7:54 PM on June 1, 2023
Insert Clever Name Here, the clock from Anathem is connected with/inspired by The Long Now as well. Funnily enough, people keep writing The Long Now Foundation saying "Stop ripping off KSR or Neal Stephenson" about concepts these two authors thought about because of or inspired by The Long Now.
posted by burntbook at 6:22 PM on June 4, 2023
posted by burntbook at 6:22 PM on June 4, 2023
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posted by BigHeartedGuy at 10:08 AM on June 1, 2023 [4 favorites]