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That’s a really interesting idea. If you plant a tree that lasts for 10,000 years (is there such?), I wonder if you can use its height or the shadow it casts (

That’s a really interesting idea. If you plant a tree that lasts for 10,000 years (is there such?), I wonder if you can use its height or the shadow it casts (trunk thickness) to measure time. Of course, someone would just come and kill it. Unless you can make it undesirable to get close to it.. for example fill it with thousands of snakes and spiders.

datpiff 7y ago
>If you plant a tree that lasts for 10,000 years (is there such?), I wonder if you can use its height or the shadow it casts (trunk thickness) to measure time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Increment_borer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Increment_borer
- aetherspawn 7y ago
  You need to make some sort of sign that indicates the age of the oldest trees in the forest is the clock. And make it impossible or unprofitable to log the forest for wood, maybe by building hundreds of annoying stone pillars at inconvenient spacings
justinclift 7y ago
Count time via its genome, such that further generations increase the count?
- aetherspawn 7y ago
  That’s a good idea but you’d need a visible characteristic. Because future humans may lose the ability to see the count in the genome .. or just forget it exists and never notice it.
ForHackernews 7y ago
> is there such? Yes, there are colonies of quaking aspen trees that are estimated to be 80,000 years old: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pando_(tree) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pando_(tree) (except human activity is killing it today)
abdullahkhalids 7y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_longest-living_organisms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_longest-living_organis... As far as we know, there are a few clonal plant colonies that have survived longer than 10K years. No individual plants have quite made it to 10K, but some have made it past 2-3K years.
- scrumbledober 7y ago
  Scientists recently discovered a bristlecone pine over 5000 years old https://www.livescience.com/29152-oldest-tree-in-world.html https://www.livescience.com/29152-oldest-tree-in-world.html

datpiff 7y ago

>If you plant a tree that lasts for 10,000 years (is there such?), I wonder if you can use its height or the shadow it casts (trunk thickness) to measure time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Increment_borer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Increment_borer

aetherspawn 7y ago
You need to make some sort of sign that indicates the age of the oldest trees in the forest is the clock. And make it impossible or unprofitable to log the forest for wood, maybe by building hundreds of annoying stone pillars at inconvenient spacings

justinclift 7y ago

Count time via its genome, such that further generations increase the count?

aetherspawn 7y ago
That’s a good idea but you’d need a visible characteristic. Because future humans may lose the ability to see the count in the genome .. or just forget it exists and never notice it.

ForHackernews 7y ago

> is there such? Yes, there are colonies of quaking aspen trees that are estimated to be 80,000 years old: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pando_(tree) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pando_(tree) (except human activity is killing it today)

abdullahkhalids 7y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_longest-living_organisms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_longest-living_organis... As far as we know, there are a few clonal plant colonies that have survived longer than 10K years. No individual plants have quite made it to 10K, but some have made it past 2-3K years.

scrumbledober 7y ago
Scientists recently discovered a bristlecone pine over 5000 years old https://www.livescience.com/29152-oldest-tree-in-world.html https://www.livescience.com/29152-oldest-tree-in-world.html