
Crypt of Civilization  - prtk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypt_of_Civilization
======
arethuza
To give some idea of how long this is supposed to last, 8113 AD is 6102 years
in the future. The oldest buildings on the planet are all a good bit less old
than 6102 years - they typically start at a maximum of about 3500 BC.

I would suspect that the biggest danger facing such a time capsule is that it
is broken into during some time of societal collapse - a sealed strong room is
going to look very tempting. For that reason I would suspect that comparable
projects in remote locations stand a much better chance of long-term survival:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svalbard_Global_Seed_Vault>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clock_of_the_Long_Now>

~~~
ugh
Are there no buildings older than 6102 years because every building inevitably
crumbles or because the buildings that existed 6102 years ago inevitable
crumbled?

Agriculture isn’t that old and there just wan’t any need for permanent
buildings before agriculture arrived.

It doesn’t seem completely out of the question for the Pyramids to survive
another 2,000 years to reach 6,000 years. (Ok, that might be a bad point to
make, given that there is nothing inside the pyramids anymore.)

~~~
arethuza
"Agriculture isn’t that old"

Agriculture is _way_ older than any surviving building, back to about 9000BC:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_agriculture>

~~~
ugh
Sure, but considering the scales involved the need for buildings is relatively
recent.

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ori_b
I always wonder how future civilizations will interpret time capsules like
this. "And here, children, we have the primitives sacrificing their
possessions to their god 'Kap-sool', ruler of time"

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justincormack
It was just at the start of the microfilm boom, so they used microfilm. The
quoted lifetime is 500 years, accelerated ageing tests indicate 1000 years. So
the books probably wont be readable. The Egyptians did better with papyrus and
ink.

~~~
lachenmayer
Well, the chamber is supposedly filled with an inert gas, so the lifetime of
the microfilm should be much larger.

~~~
justincormack
It is not oxidisation that is the issue. Humidity and temperature are the main
issues. Film is metallic silver in gelatine, and lasts ok, but thousands of
years is a very long time.

~~~
Retric
They do mention a metallic storage system which should last a vary long time.
I suspect the microfilm was there more for publicity than any real expectation
that it would work in 8000 years. Still even if you can't directly read them
they may degrade in such a fashion that you can reconstruct a useful
significant percentage of the original message.

 _A backup metal film system resides in the crypt as well.[1][2]

[1]"The New Georgia Encyclopedia — Crypt of Civilization". Retrieved
2008-06-29. [2]"History of the Crypt of Civilization". Retrieved 2008-06-29._

------
zandorg
Stick a computer on the moon, put a mirror of the Web on it, and let it serve
queries over shortwave radio. Then all a fallen civilisation has to do is re-
discover radio, to get access to the world's knowledge.

~~~
pjscott
How would you power it? How would you protect it from the cycles of heating
and cooling every lunar day? How would you protect the circuits from long-term
damage, like electromigration?

~~~
nazgulnarsil
the monolith comment was more spot on than you think. see fullerenes:
[http://www.acceleratingfuture.com/michael/blog/2011/08/fulle...](http://www.acceleratingfuture.com/michael/blog/2011/08/fullerenes-
are-long-lasting/)

------
philwelch
I always like how these are scheduled to be opened at a specific date. If we
remember thousands of years from now what the original plan was, we'll
probably have records of what was kept inside. If we forget, it won't be
opened on schedule.

~~~
steve-howard
For that matter, our current system of numbering years hasn't been around that
long.

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jcoder
I was expecting a clever system of pictographs or landscape design to lead
future generations to the vault. This:

> _We depend upon the laws of the county of DeKalb, the State of Georgia, and
> the government of the United States and their heirs, assigns, and
> successors, and upon the sense of sportsmanship of posterity for the
> continued preservation of this vault until the year 8113, at which time we
> direct that it shall be opened by authorities representing the above
> governmental agencies and the administration of Oglethorpe University. Until
> that time we beg of all persons that this door and the contents of the crypt
> within may remain inviolate._

represents a very unrealistic expectation.

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sigilyph
Should be Crypt of Western or American-defined Civilization, honestly. I
always look at these things expecting something more comprehensive, only to
find the same narrow slice of human civilization as a whole.

~~~
zeteo
Archaeologists are usually interested in object assemblages that belonged in
the same context. Thus it would be far more interesting to preserve, say, a
complete print shop, than a juxtaposition of dental floss and Donald Duck.

~~~
rwmj
Really? I think archaeologists are fascinated by the later excavations at
Pompeii because it captures all the little things in daily Roman life so well.
A lot of that was not written down at the time ...

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jason77700
As an alumni of Oglethorpe University, I would bet I'm the only one that reads
HN (Anyone Else?).

You pass by the steal doors of the Crypt on the way to the Book Store. It was
my observation that students didn't really care about the Crypt itself, but
that in order to build it they had to gut the indoor pool.

70+ years later they still don't have a pool nor offer any Computer Science /
Computer Engineering classes.

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nopassrecover
A bit incidental, but would there be any risk of a sealed time capsule
delivering viruses/bacteria to the future?

~~~
josscrowcroft
That's the first thing I thought of as well - immunity to certain basic things
might have evolved out by then.

I wonder whether bacteria or viruses could survive that long in those
conditions?

~~~
rubinelli
Some bacteria can hibernate for millions of years in spore form. There was
some speculation that the "Curse of the Pharaos" was caused by pathogenic
bacteria or fungus-produced toxins, so yes, anyone opening that crypt should
better be careful.

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eneveu
Only 6000 years? Well, that's nothing next to the Chauvet Cave (
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chauvet_Cave> ), where they found 35000 years
old paintings...

This is actually a weird coincidence to see this on HN tonight, since I
watched "The Cave of Forgotten Dreams" (
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_of_Forgotten_Dreams> ) _this evening_.
Having two hours to spend in Paris before a rendezvous, and seeing the great
critics, I thought "Hey, I'm not usually into art / paintings / museums, but
let's give this a try...".

The documentary was fascinating. The paintings look so fresh, it's as if they
were done yesterday... But they are 30k - 35k years old. This really puts
things into perspective...

It's hard to explain, but the effect was kind of similar to watching a Sagan
video ( <http://saganseries.com/> ). Instead of marveling at the size of the
universe when compared to our tiny planet, I was marveling at how short the
recorded history is when compared to the thousand of years of prehistory. I
knew about this theoretically, but it never really hit home before...

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borism
don't forget the <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_Golden_Record>

