Am I insane?
Am I insane?
I am seriously thinking of commissioning a simple tungsten cube emblazoned with cuneiform style figures, set up on a stainless steel platform. For the legacy. For someone millions of years from now.
Maybe, but in a good way. Do it!
Eh, if you have the money, it's probably fine.
My current weird things:
- Switched from my normal time zone to UTC on all my clocks.
- Chose to study Esperanto instead of a more practical language because of its past of hopefulness
- Plan on switching to a 13-month calendar in the future (is going to require modifying the opensource calendar I use to allow the change)
- Switched to barefoot shoes not for health but the diminished cost in materials.
- changed my keyboard to a dactyl manuform for the hell of it.
- changed my keyboard scheme to Dvorak now.
- changed my videogame control scheme from wasd to dcxf to accommodate the keyboard (in Dvorak that's exku).
We're all alittle eccentric. Some of us more than others.
Mi ne pensas ke numero du estas stranga.
I don't think this is crazy at all. It sounds like art. And we have lots of art that is meant to endure for centuries, like oil paintings.
It sounds like an interesting project, actually. So, no, I don't think you are.
For wanting to leave a legacy that will last, and a message for anyone or anything that finds it? No, that's not insane, that's understandable, I think.
What will determine the insanity quotient is the message you want to inscribe.
Ea nasir's shitty copper complaint
In a few thousand years...
"We finally deciphered the text on it. It's a monument to love, to undying loyalty and affection! How amazing! Here, it reads: 'Never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down'"
Can we all splurge on a cubesat with a vinyl record or some other media that contains "never gonna give you up" , and make our own voyager sattelite for other lifeforms to receive?
"Skibidi Toilet" is all the cube says.
Oh boy is that going to be a perplexing mystery for future archeologists. I can already imagine a PhD student banging their head on a desk screaming: “none of this makes any sense”.
Thousands of years in the future, our descendents will return to Earth, to visit museums of ancient culture, and marvel at the Tungsten Cube of Dickbutt.
According to a US Army study, Iron and Tungsten could create galvanic action, causing both materials to degrade if in contact.
https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/ADA358781.pdf
So at first glance, it seems like this combo wouldn't last as long as it could with just Tungsten.
Informative. Thank you!
Ceramics…. There is an Isaac Asimov story where the only evidence they can find that humans used to live on Earth is the presence of what appear to be toilets and sinks. All else is dust.
Yes, you’re crazy. Stainless steel won’t last a million years. Not even close. You should go with titanium instead. That would also create a massive density difference between the two pieces in case someone lifts them up separately. Feeling the weight difference of the two pieces is very confusing for most people.
Put the same text in 6 different languages (maybe: English, Mandarin Chinese, Hindi, Russian, Arabic, and Bengali to get as many scripts as possible?) on each side of the cube. Be the Rosetta Stone of the future. Be sure to get a native speaker to look over each text before you comission it.
That should be enough work to discourage you. :)
well if you get a tungsten cube your mortality will be cured so you will be around in a million years
Text version
[5 stars amazon review of a Tungsten cube] This Cube Cured my Mortality
All the people here who bought this wireless tungsten cube to admire its surreal heft have precisely the wrong mindset. I, in my exalted wisdom and unbridled ambition, bought this cube to become fully accustomed to the intensity of its density, to make its weight bearable and in fact normal to me, so that all the world around me may fade into a fluffy arena of gravitational inconsequence. And it has worked, to profound success. I have carried the tungsten with me, have grown attached to the downward pull of its small form, its desire to be one with the floor. This force has become so normal to me that lifting any other object now feels like lifting cotton candy, or a fluffy pillow. Big burly manly men who pump iron now seem to me as little children who raise mere aluminum.
I can hardly remember the days before I became a man of tungsten. How distant those days seem now, how burdened by the apparent heaviness of everyday objects. I laugh at the philistines who still operate in a world devoid of tungsten, their shoulders thin and unempowered by the experience of bearing tungsten. Ha, what fools, blissful in their ignorance, anesthetized by their lack of meaningful struggle, devoid of passion.
Nietzsche once said that a man who has a why can bear almost any how. But a man who has a tungsten cube can bear any object less dense, and all this talk of why and how becomes unnecessary.
Schopenhauer once said that every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world. Tungsten expands the limits of a man’s field of vision by showing him an example of increased density, in comparison to which the everyday objects to which he was formerly accustomed gain a light and airy quality. Who can lament the tragedy of life, when surrounded by such lightweight objects? Who can cry in a world of styrofoam and cushions?
Have you yet understood? This is no ordinary metal. In this metal is the alchemical potential to transform your world, by transforming your expectations. Those who have not yet held the cube in their hands and mouths will not understand, for they still live in a world of normal density, like Plato’s cave dwellers. Those who have opened their mind to the density of tungsten will shift their expectations of weight and density accordingly.
To give this cube a rating of anything less than five stars would be to condemn life itself. Who am I, as a mere mortal, to judge the most compact of all affordable materials? No. I say gratefully to whichever grand being may have created this universe: good job on the tungsten. It sure is dense.
I sit here with my tungsten cube, transcendent above death itself. For insofar as this tungsten cube will last forever, I am in the presence of immortality.
That is.... Epic.
I think that is awesome
Fuck you. Don't encourage me.
Do you want some discouragement?
Stainless steel is stains less not rusts never. You would need additional measures to keep the stand from degrading over thousands of years. Your local archeology department could give you some pointers on how to accomplish that.
Or maybe you design the stand in such a way that the tungsten object is held firmly, but still easily visible in rusty stainless jaws.
I mean, if you have the money and inclination, sounds like a nerdy but pretty cool project!
The cuneiform bit definitely seems like you're trying to troll across the ages. Why else would you do that?
You could also try to get a tungsten replica of your genital. It's probably more expensive though.
All depends on the amount of material required.
Tungsten is a bit expensive. Titanium however...
IMO, the real question is how to preserve it in deep time. Where is accessible enough but also protected? The best place would probably be a location that is heavily contaminated by toxic or nuclear waste. Those will likely remain time capsules in the near term, but remain as focal points in deep time. Find a spot that is likely to survive continental drift, the next super continent, and countless ice ages. I dare you. Do it! Make the ultimate geo cache.
How about the bottom of Mariana tench? The intense pressure will make sure some Mr Rando can’t just pop in one day and smack it with a hammer. If you keep this relic in the remains of the exploded reactor in Chernobyl, some nut job can just run in, cause some damage and run away. Sure, they will pay with their life, but that won’t fix the hammer marks on the cube.
Chemical dangers are another option, but those kinds of places aren’t stable for a million years. Some volcanoes spew sulfur dioxide, which would be a good repellant, but those vents open and close in unexpected ways.
Dang didn't think of a nuclear site. Was thinking more along the lines of a protected area. The only problem with toxic environment would be protecting the material itself in a budget friendly way
You are too smart to survive. You are the weakest link.
Size?
Well that's a bit personal but I was thinking 10cm.
Nah I think about doing this shit all the time, I get overly technical with details trying to make it last as long as possible, tungsten is a great idea.
Why not just use actual cuneiform?
You got me there. Too many extra words.
For bonus points shoot it into deep space. Maybe some alien civilization will run into it trillions of years from now.
You wouldn't be the first! If you do do it, then you should make a video for us here on Lemmy ❤️
Can I sign it?
Inscribe as many different languages as you can. No telling which one theyll still know and it could be the next Rosetta Stone.
Screw it go for it think the only thing holding you down is cost of materials and machining especially if you're adding a message to it, if its just an artifact/statue you're shooting for maybe opt for a more budget and workable material than tungsten. Some kind of industrial metal you can work with like steel or even aluminum may be a better alternative stone material (granite or marble) being the best IMO for longevity, encase it in epoxy and then put in a PVC pipe with desiccant for added measure. Finding a location where it won't be disturbed is probably the hardest part of this. Can't be exposed to UV light or harsh chemicals, so ocean is out (think its illegal to dump there too). If burying, it needs to be below the frost line for sure in fairly stable ground, with good chemical makeup of the soil, where people won't interact with it. I personally can't come up with a legal means so you might have to get permission from some kind of protected grounds like a national park or something. Even then at most it will last maybe a couple thousand years, longer if using stone material instead of metal
Use copper, or it could have been brass (I don’t remember) this thing resists everything and lasts longer - and it’s even cheaper
Whatever rocks your boat. Until you're not hurting anyone, commission away.