By Andrew Liszewski
Here’s a real pick me up for a Monday morning. The Life Clock was designed by Bertrand Planes and instead of ticking away the minutes until your next break or the end of the work day, it actually ticks away the years of your life. The clock mechanism has been slowed own 61,320 times so that it measures an average human lifespan instead of half a day, though I’m not entirely sure what the minute and second hands represent. (Days and minutes?) While the idea of having your impending death staring you in the face is kind of depressing, since the clock face only shows 82 84 years, I guess you can consider it a real victory if you manage to squeak by to 83 85. (Apparently only 7 of these clocks were made, so you can probably forget about ordering one if you were actually interested.)
[ Life Clock ] VIA [ Ezday ]
Correction, at midnight, it will be 77+7 = 84 years (not 82).
The minute hand will be 84/60 = 1.4 years
The second hand is 1.4 / 60 = 0.023333 years = 8.5 days.
Sorry for splitting hairs and missing the big picture :). I actually watched “The Bucket List” the other day and this clock is resonating with me somehow.
Sorry Nathir, but I think you’ve got it wrong. There are 82 years on the clock (just like a normal clock shows 12 hours).
The minute hand will be 1/60th of a year, say 7.3 days (close enough to a week).
The second hand will be 1/60th of this, so it ticks to the next position every 2.9 hours.
This clock also resonates with me, and I think it would be very strange and disturbing to see your life tick away each day.
Actually I think Nathir is right. Looking more closely at the clock face there seems to be 7 years separating the numbers instead of just 5. (Even though there are only 5 sub-ticks.)
I made a mistake with interpreting the minute and second hands, but noon/midnight does point to 84 years. I think the correct view is that when the “hour hand” moves one minute-tick, 1.4 years have passed (= 7 years / 5 ticks).
Minute and second interpretation can be derived as follows:
— 1 hour on the dial == 7 years
— 1 minute on the dial = 1 hour / 60 == 7 years / 60 = 0.11667 years = 42.6 days
— 1 second == 42.6 days / 60 = 0.71 days = 17 hours.
This means that you can “see” the second hand move to tick your life away every 17 hours.
-Nathir
Easy to convert into dog years, too!