A Home-Made Power Supply that Lasts 1000 Years? 71
x_man asks: "This may sound a little strange but I've accumulated a lot of cool stuff throughout my life. Add to that my parent's stuff, my wife's stuff, and all of the other cool stuff I plan to accumulate before I die, and you have a lot of stuff. The problem is what to do with all of this stuff when I die. My descendants will want a few bits, but I can't bear the thought of my 1000+ collection of sci-fi books being scattered to the Goodwill winds. Therefore, I've decided to entomb my stuff. It will all go into an airtight stainless steel shipping container and be buried on a family plot for a 1000 years or so. I will have the ultimate geek time capsule, but there is one problem. Let's say you want to broadcast some sort of locator beacon in a 1000 years. How do you construct a reliable power supply that will last at least 1000 years or more? There's also the question of how to signal future generations. I'm thinking some sort of VLF for ground penetration."
You need two power supplies (Score:5, Insightful)
This way, you don't have to design a power supply which is capable of lasting 1000 years AND giving a reasonably big power output.
Re:You need two power supplies (Score:1)
Re:You need two power supplies (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:You need two power supplies (Score:1)
I'm curious as to what workable solutions anyone has.
Two words (Score:5, Funny)
What part of Home-made don't you understand? (Score:1)
No, Firesmoke-Detector-Pile-Boy doesn't count.
And besides, I think you mean "Radio-Isotopic", not "Nuclear".. its a battery, after all.
Re:What part of Home-made don't you understand? (Score:2)
And just which part of the atom do you think "Radio-Isotopic" (I assume you mean decay of radioisotopes, converting either the heat or the motion of charged particles (specifically, beta) to electrical current) energy comes from if not the nucleus?
Re:What part of Home-made don't you understand? (Score:1)
Re:What part of Home-made don't you understand? (Score:2)
Re:What part of Home-made don't you understand? (Score:1)
Re:Two words (Score:2, Funny)
Two words (Score:1)
radioisotope generator (Score:3, Insightful)
Thing is .. (Score:2, Funny)
"MAKE Magazine: the Radio-Isotopic Generator Issue"
Re:radioisotope generator (Score:1)
I think you need to... (Score:1, Insightful)
Assuming this isn't April Fools, go on out and get a life, ANY LIFE, instead of planning for your death.
Sure, having a will, living or otherwise, is fine, but this?
Besides, no one's going to give two bits about all your stuff in one thousand years.
And I gotta wonder just who the locator beacon is for. Aside from archaeologists, who would really want to locate all your crap?
Re:I think you need to... (Score:1)
Use one of those batteries (Score:3, Funny)
The kind the pink bunny uses that "keep going and going and going." ...
Easy science (Score:1)
Re:Easy science (Score:2)
Get a big weight .... (Score:5, Interesting)
I did something like this once....
put it on a geared mechanism, and then hang it high in your container. get a bio-degradable material, or some other perishable material that takes about 1000 years to degrade.
Use the degrade material to suspend the weight.
After 1000 years the material fails, releasing the weight. The gearing mechanism is used, like the mechanism on a grandfather clock that powers the pendulum, to "tick" every 10 seconds. At each 10 second interval a large ball-bearing will be dropped on to the now-defunct cymbal from your 80's drum set.
This audio signal will be far more likely discovered than a RF type signal.
Your only limits are how heavy the weight can be, how many ball-bearings you can trap at the top of your container, and how deep you bury it.
YMMV
gus
acid, glass, copper. (Score:1)
so, the acid, over time, uses gravity/chemistry to burn through the wall, fall into the lead bits at the bottom, and boot up your crypt-o-gram.
{which had better not announce itself with a Windows
Freecycle (Score:2, Informative)
Radiation (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Radiation (Score:2)
You need free energy (Score:1)
Course, you may not believe that stuff like that exists, but then again, you can always try.
Re:You need free energy (Score:1)
Assuming you are serious.... (Score:3, Interesting)
I'd build a battery similar to the ones used to power the electronics of missiles. You have the electrolyte separated from the dry electrodes by a thin metal diaphram. Use a small explosive charge to rupture the diaphram and flow the electolyte onto the electrodes. A huge amount of immediate power and almost infinite shelf-life.
Re:Assuming you are serious.... (Score:1)
Re:Assuming you are serious.... (Score:2)
here is a start: (Score:3, Informative)
Radioactive decay (Score:2)
Solar (Score:1)
Why (Score:5, Interesting)
Think about the degradation of plastics, oxidation of the materials, and outside interference from shock, moisture on the container, and other items. Why try to make junk from today work forever?
It may be more interesting to put something personalized and written from you describing your life, rather than trying to bottle it. Your apparatus of the container is a good judgement of the technology available at the time. Also, you get to solve the "how should i communicate and store it" question (been done on
Then, the geek portion of you can still solve the issues of
- how to safely hold the contents
- when to wake up (never?)
- how to wake up
- how to detect premature tampering
- how to perform a self-diagnostic to let finders know if they're seeing your intended payload
- how to signal once awake
All these have great metaphors in CompSci/Networking references. I'd start there.
The battery is a chemistry problem, driven by how much power you'll need. If you act like a RF beacon and signal 1kW once every 24 hours, you can decide how much power you'll need. A pulsed beacon will definitely singal longer than most. RF will be more detectable than other sources (especially if underground), and best if you sweep a wide freq. on each pulse.
Also, work out the location: Are you buying land in a relatively quiet place on the earth? Not on a geologic fault, floodplain, mild temperature ranges, development area, etc. You could probably only extrapolate about 300years into the future with any chance of a lucky guess, IMHO.
And really, you could just toss it into a FreshKills, NY (a trash dump). Your signal will lead our descendants to a treasure trove of items.
When is this to occur? (Score:3, Insightful)
Please, let us know the date and place of your entombment. A group of us will show up the following day, dig up your stainless steel time capsule, cast your precious 'stuff' to the 4 winds and various charities (of our choosing), all the while merrily chanting "You thought you could take it with you! HA HA. April Fool!"
The needs of the many.... (Score:2, Interesting)
I think it
Solved Problem (Score:2, Informative)
USE A COVER STONE.
-Peter
Re:Solved Problem (Score:2)
Duh! (Score:2)
-m
Simple Solution (Score:3, Funny)
SD
Re:Simple Solution (Score:2)
And there definitely won't be anything to go into any sort of time capsule...
Re:Simple Solution (Score:2)
It's been done already (Score:2)
I mean really, are we still living back in 2001 [kubrick2001.com] or something?
What about... (Score:1)
Duluc Dry Pile (Score:4, Interesting)
Also google for "Oxford Electric Bell". This particular type of battery has been ringing a bell (albeit inaudibly) in the foyer of a lab in Oxford for over 160 years.
The gist of it is that you get small circles of zinc foil, silver foil, and paper. Then you stack 'em up (silver, zinc, paper, repeat). Next you stick the whole thing in a glass tube and compress it. You want several thousand of them, basically. Once you're done, coat the whole thing in plastic to prevent oxidation from eating it away.
What you end up with is a battery that will power something reasonably small for a long, long, long time. Certainly could power a simplistic clock for a thousand years. Once your clock goes off, you make some sort of signal. Audio perhaps, since that's probably more reliable than radio would be over that time period.
Eek and Me Capsu (Score:2, Funny)
Mom: What do you have there, little Timmy?
Timmy: I don't know, mommy. What does this mean?
Mom: He was Eek, and this is Me Capsu. Oh my goodness, little Timmy...you've found the remains of an ancient king, Eek, and his wife, Me Capsu!
earthquake power (Score:3, Interesting)
instead of radio.... (Score:1)
Re:instead of radio.... (Score:2)
About That Stainless Steel Box... (Score:1)
Re:About That Stainless Steel Box... (Score:2)
Just a suggestion.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Don't need power (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Don't need power (Score:2)
Please don't forget to include the joke "there are ten types of people. Those who understand binary, and those who don't"
Why store Junk? (Score:2)
In 100 years your collection of sci-fi books will be mostly acidic dust. Better set that beacon to go off in about 15 years - when there will still be something to salvage.
Use the resources you already have... (Score:2, Informative)
some alternate ideas: (Score:1)
2) Earn some money, setup a trust fund for maintainance and buy some stock in every DowJones listed stock, donate land for a park in the downtown of a city and put it under a stone tower with a plaque explaining about the stock certificates which will be donated to the city at the 1k anniversary else if dug up earlier be donated to the United Nations (Heh. You're lieing about the stock of course)
3) Plant a Sequoia and place the box at the base.
Carve "cut me down