Waiting For God Knows is a large hour glass which is attached to an auto inverting apparatus. The hour glass has two positions: 12 o'clock and 6 o'clock. The auto inverter turns the hour glass over from 12 to 6 causing the sand to run from the upper container to the lower one.

The complete difference between this device and every other hour glass, is the auto inverter, which has a totally random setting.

When the randomiser is activated, Waiting For God Knows may sit for days doing nothing then the auto inverter decides to turn over the hour glass and begin the timing process as the sand runs from the upper to the lower container.

This may run its course, but it's equally possible that it may flick the process into reverse for a minute or two, or ten minutes or for a few seconds.

Nothing may happen for a few hours or for days before more sporadic activity resumes, as everything about waiting for God Knows is about waiting for God knows.
-- xenzag, Sep 02 2019

"Computer, is there a God ? "

"Yes, now there is a God."
-- 8th of 7, Sep 02 2019


//a totally random setting// I see the problem here. If the timer is totally random, then it will produce any number between zero and infinity. On average, therefore, it will produce about half infinity, which is still infinity.

In fact, on its very first activation, the probability that it will produce a number less than the time needed to completely drain the [finite amount of] sand is literally infinitesimal. So, your egg timer will just sit there, long after the first load of sand has completed its fall from top to bottom.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Sep 02 2019


The only way you'll know or not know is to wait and see - waiting and watching for God knows. When it's built I'll invite you to come and spend time proving or not proving your theory through empirical observation.
-- xenzag, Sep 03 2019


Max - you'll also note that there are a few elements at work here: resting time - as the sand descends; and a sort of binary time - when the position is either at the 6, or 12 position. Then there is the interval time between the hour glass moving or remaining static. If an infinite series like the digits of pi was built into the controller then the odd numbers could be allocated to one state, and the even numbers to another state. Perhaps pi does not contain a random sequence of digits? My logic is to base a binary status on a random deciding mechanism, but with the inclusion of interval timing.
-- xenzag, Sep 03 2019


//Perhaps pi does not contain a random sequence of digits?//

By definition, pi is not a random sequence of digits. Separately, it may or may not have a random distribution of digits.
-- hippo, Sep 03 2019


For an infinite time stoppage it would have an infinitely unlikely probability. Although, [xenzag] could put normal hour glass that has run out in front of us and we wouldn't know. The period of change and probability for it , could be longer than a lifetime. Maybe drive it by some random traveling universal particles.

God usually returns you if the period is too short to transition that no return event horizon.
-- wjt, Sep 03 2019


The nice thing about this is that you wouldn't actually have to motorize it at all.
-- RayfordSteele, Sep 05 2019



random, halfbakery