No, this is not a clock that emits loud noises. This is a clock that shows time since the beginning of everything (using a best estimate for whenever that actually was). User can choose unit - days (with a few decimals), hours, seconds, whatever.
You'd need a good-quality display so that the first digits (those won't be changing much, after all) will look as sharp as ever.
Inspired by Space Watch.-- herilane, Nov 24 2002 Space Watch http://www.halfbake.../idea/Space_20WatchThe inspiration [herilane, Oct 04 2004] muppetboy's link http://www.longnow....lock/clkPurpose.htm- may work, who knows [po, Oct 04 2004] 10¯43 seconds *Blammo* Oops, my clock stopped at v > c-- thumbwax, Nov 24 2002 Interestingly enough, i had a similar idea, onyl i was going to call it 'Universal Clock', and it would have had morf-ing numbers on an analogue face, so that it could complete a cycle every-so-often.-- tyskland, Nov 24 2002 Another great variation: A clock that counts down the time until the earth is devoured by the sun. Maybe even make it solar powered, just for kicks. Would make a great hand-me-down.-- Blue Persian Cat, Nov 24 2002 ...and down and down and down and down and down and down...-- bristolz, Nov 24 2002 Actually, someone has already done something that has a similar effect, anyway:
http://www.longnow.org/10kclock/clkPurpose.htm
The clock ticks once per year. The century hand advances once every 100 years and it has a bird come out and chirp every millenium. Pretty cool huh?
What I don't like about the Big Bang Clock idea is that it assumes something that we don't know for sure. While the Big Bang is our best theory for now, I'm not convinced that it's the be-all end-all theory of everything. Isn't it possible that the artifacts of the Big Bang which we observe are the result of a very large scale, but still "local" phenomena? In other words, might there be more than one of these Big Bangs going on? Do we even know for sure if space or time are finite or bounded?
If you look at history, we've certainly fooled ourselves by believing wrong things like the geocentric and heliocentric universe theories. I think these kinds of theories are especially tempting to a culture which is absolutist, monotheistic and believes in a personal God (very strange ideas in my opinion, but that's another matter). Anyway, could it be that Western cultural beliefs are biasing an open investigation here? I mean, if we were predominantly Buddhist, we might just as easily assume that time and therefore the universe has no beginning. What kind of clock would that result in?! (okay, maybe I'll post that as an idea here in a minute... ;-))
Even if Big Bang theory is exactly correct, the clock would have a probable error of +/- some number of millions or even billions of years. What's the point in having a second hand on such a clock? We should face it... we have NO IDEA what time it is on the Universe's clock. I think I prefer the Long Now foundation's clock. It presumes less while still giving the "user" a sense of how vast time is.-- muppetboy, Nov 24 2002 Welcome to the halfbakery, muppetboy. Please use the "link" feature to insert site addresses.-- thumbwax, Nov 24 2002 linky, <sigh> po has nothing better to do.-- po, Nov 24 2002 random, halfbakery