The center of the clock will show a star field, indicating both the sidereal day, and the 26,000-year precession of the zodiac. Around this will be a display showing the position of the Sun and the Moon in the sky, as well and the phase and angle of the Moon. Outside this will be the ephemeral dial, showing the year according to our current Gregorian calendar system. This will be a five-digit display, indicating the current year as in a format like "02000" instead of the more usual "2000" (to avoid a Y10K problem).

In the universe, pure information lives the longest. Bits last. Just before Jonas Salk died, I was lucky enough to sit next to him at a dinner. I didn't know him well, but in past conversations he had always encouraged my more mystical lines of thought. I was sure he would like the millennium clock.

I was disappointed by his response: "Think about what problem you are trying to solve. What question are you really trying to ask?"

I had never thought of the clock as a question. It was more of an answer, although I wasn't sure to what. I talked more, about the shrinking future, about the oak trees. "Oh, I see," Salk said. "You want to preserve something of yourself, just as I am preserving something of myself by having this conversation with you." I remembered this a few weeks later, when he died. "Be sure you think carefully about exactly what you want to preserve," he said.

OK, Jonas, OK, people of the future, here is a part of me that I want to preserve, and maybe the clock is my way of explaining it to you: I cannot imagine the future, but I care about it. I know I am a part of a story that starts long before I can remember and continues long beyond when anyone will remember me. I sense that I am alive at a time of important change, and I feel a responsibility to make sure that the change comes out well. I plant my acorns knowing that I will never live to harvest the oaks.

I have hope for the future.

-Danny Hillis

http://longnow.org/projects/clock/