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> engineers are building a clock in the Texan desert that will last for 10,000 years Well, we don't know that. There is no way to know. Selling this to rich gu

• 6d6b73 7y ago
  Well, actually we know that.. It's called engineering.. And no, we can't guarantee that it will work for 10k years as there is too many things that could go wrong, but we can, based on our current knowledge predict that it should last that long based on all we know about engineering and science.
• jotm 7y ago
  It wont last 10,000 years. Nothing more complicated than scribblings on a tough rock will, and even those will likely be indecipherable. Seed banks are especially funny/sad. They need to constantly produce seeds, which means constant growth of male/female plants, under human supervision. No seeds last more than a few years under ideal conditions. Even DNA is unrecoverable/unusable after a few centuries iiirc.
  • whatshisface 7y ago
    You maintain a seed bank by constantly buying new seeds, and when you can't buy them, oh I guess they're extinct, time to reintroduce them.
  • Real_S 7y ago
    DNA can be used as a stable data storage medium for 10k years. I was actually hoping that was the topic of the article when I clicked it... https://www.wired.com/story/the-rise-of-dna-data-storage/ https://www.wired.com/story/the-rise-of-dna-data-storage/
  • asdff 7y ago
    >Even DNA is unrecoverable/unusable after a few centuries iiirc Only if poorly stored. We have plenty of neanderthal DNA, because we have lots of neanderthal teeth which we drill into to extract this ancient DNA. Properly stored, DNA can last thousands of years, I'd wager indefinitely in the right buffer and in liquid nitrogen.
  • mythrwy 7y ago
    Seeds of some species can last considerably longer than a few years. For example Amaranth (pigweed) I've read can lay dormant for something like 40 years and then sprout. And that's outside in native conditions. Bananas maybe not so much. Not sure.