That’s worse than if we found a plaque now saying, “In the year 2010, please have the two Consuls of the Roman Republic and the Chief Librarian of the Library of Alexandria open this.” The Library of Alexandria was significantly fewer than six thousand years ago. I think it likely that English will still be understood by a few scholars in 8113, and possible that scholars will be able to hold control of the time capsule and protect it from injudicious looters, but simply impossible that Oglethorpe University or even the United States of America will last so far as the fourth millennium.

P.S. just for the fun of it I have some great links here to explore, if you dig a bit deeper about the content of the crypt you can find some goodies to read here, look at the links and go the the part about the Toast-o-later that was sold for $ 5000.00
http://www.jitterbuzz.com/indtol.html
http://davidszondy.com/future/timecapsule/crypt_of_civilisation.htm

I’m not sure of the future ‘value’ of it, but I’m guessing they were thinking of duplicating the Pyramid discoveries to some extent. Ambitious and a bit righteous, not unlike sending plaques engraved with our information into space.

The odds of leaving it undisturbed for the next 6,000+ years approaches zero in my opinion. I’d give it another century or two at most before someone blows it open.

I disagree. Haven’t you ever watched a show on the Discovery or History channel where they bring up some ancient civilization and start talking about engineering, weaponry, commerce, or legal matters of the time? The ways of doing some things change over time and we do glean a lot of information from simpler times and the innovations that were used at earlier points in history. If anything, simpler innovations become someone’s analogy or inspiration for current applications.

Our children’s children? Umm…if I have a kid right now….he’ll have a kid about 20 to 40 years from now. Assuming the late breeding….40 years from now will be 2047. That child will live to be, let’s say…95 to 100 (better technology and medicine by this point meaning longer average life). That will be 2147. This thing isn’t getting opened until 8113. You still have about 6,000 years of offspring to cover.

Time capsules are an okay idea. I’m sure if thousands of years ago they thought of this we’d know a great deal more about the past than we do now, maybe not useful information but information.

Why such a long term? If you create a time capsule that is meant to be opened in 100 years…100 years from now people will get a good grasp on how things were 100 years ago. Then they can pass this information on, along with their own additions for another 100 years.

Sort of like a chain letter. I suppose the problem is that somebody always breaks those. I’m sure this time capsule will never see 8113 either. I still would have picked 250 to 300 years. That is at least remotely possible.

I’m not sure how useful these things are anyway. For example, we find the first ever man-made tool. Aside from saying “Huh…that’s neat.” is there really any useful information we can gain from this? They’re “neat” but not very beneficial to anyone, I don’t think.

But questions remain:
How long will the memory of our current civilization last?
How long will the ability to read the English on the door last?
Will it be opened at the correct time?
Will it be opened by robbers or people interested in preserving the past?
Will the ones opening it be smart enough to figure it all out? (you know all those sci-fi stories where civilization dies and man goes back to the stone age)

Media in time capsules have to be analogue and not digital. We can’t expect people (aliens?) in the distant future to be able to read today’s machine code. Microfilm and Microfiche are good for images because all they need is a magnifier and a back lite. Gramophones are good for as someone pointed out above that they are simple to make (although it make take a little while for the future scientists to realize it).

A note on exploring landfills: It is true that archaeologists find some of the best stuff in trash pits, but to dig around in today’s landfills a thousand years from now will not be pleasant at all. Landfills are putrid and they stay putrid forever because all that organic waste is sealed up in trash bags and has more stuff piled on top of it. The garbage never has a chance to compost, so it all just sits there purifying. No one is ever gonna want to dig around in it to find the inorganic relics of society when they’re going to be overwhelmed by the gasses and stench of the partially decayed organic stuff.

Nah, it’ll get robbed.