MIT discovers another time capsule buried on campus, not be opened until 2957.

MIT loves themselves time capsules. LOVES them. There are at least eight known--and untold unknown--time capsules buried on the Cambridge, MA, campus, and the latest has just been discovered. Construction on a foundation for a new science building unearthed the discovery buried in 1957, which was generally forgotten despite an abundance of historical documentation about its existence. Until now, that is.

“MIT likes to be rational and future-oriented, but this is a remarkably sentimental activity and sweet moment,” says Deborah Douglas, director of collections at the MIT museum.

Unlike most time capsules that tend to be opened while someone is still alive from when it was buried, this latest time capsule has specific instructions listed not to be opened until 2957, a thousand years after its burial. To ensure everything contained within survives that long, a special glass container was constructed. Argon gas was pumped inside before sealing, as well as a small amount of carbon-14--which will allow scientists in the future to discern the container's age should it ever crack open in the next millennium and the contents destroyed.

The contents are generally known. The container is clear, and now that it has been brought back to light, Douglas and others have looked in the records to see what was included. Among the items includes synthetic penicillin, newly minted coins from the First Bank of Boston, and a cryotron, which Tech Talk noted was “the tiny unit invented at MIT this year which will replace complex tubes and expensive transistors in electronic computers of the future.”

Now, some students are proposing--wait for it--another time capsule to be buried alongside this one once construction is completed. And then in 50 years it, too, will be unearthed during a construction project.