Even though we wonder how the world will change in the next 1,000 years, this is a period of time that none of us will live to know unless the secret of time travel or immortality is discovered. But an experimental philosopher in Tucson, Arizona, has developed the Millennium Camera, a device that hopes to capture everything.
Jonathon Keats, a researcher at the University of Arizona, proposes the idea of taking photos of a period of 1,000 years with this camera. This process has a relatively simple design for a camera and consists of a pin-sized hole in a thin sheet of 24-carat gold through which light can strike a small copper cylinder on a steel pole.
Inside the camera is a light-sensitive surface coated with thin layers of the oil paint pigment rose madder, which will fade with light. However, whether this will happen at the right rate or not is only a conscious claim for now.
With the help of Desert Lab researchers in Tumamoc Hill, the camera was placed next to a bench overlooking the Star Pass neighborhood in Tuscon, where visitors are encouraged to sit and think about the future.
But even with a carefully designed camera, there is no guarantee that anyone in the future will be able to see the image it can theoretically produce.
“A thousand years is a long time, and there are many reasons why this might not work,” Keats said in his statement, and continued: “The camera may not be around in a thousand years. Natural forces and administrative or criminal decisions made by people may cause the camera not to last long.”
But Keats has some ideas about what the camera could show if it survived a thousand years later. While image features such as peaks will appear mostly sharp, more easily changing features such as buildings will appear blurred. It is also said that it is very important that the camera is not opened before 1,000 years, and it is said that “If we open it within this period, the imagination will decrease.” Keats hopes the camera will encourage people to think about how best to plan for the future, taking into account population growth and our connection to the natural environment.
“Most people have a pretty pessimistic view of what will happen in the future,” says Keats. “It’s easy to imagine that people might see a much worse version of Tucson in 1,000 years than the one we see today, but it’s not a bad thing that we can imagine it. “In fact, this is a good thing, because if we can imagine this, we can imagine what else could happen, and this can motivate us to take action to shape our future.”
Keats plans to install more cameras in Chongqing, China, Griffith Park in Los Angeles, and the Austrian Alps: “This project depends on this being done in many places around the world. “Hopefully this will lead to a planetary process of redesigning planet Earth for future generations.”