Located in the tallest of the six pyramids that house the Nima Sand Museum, Japan, is a 5.2-m-tall (17-ft 0.72-in) 560-kg (1,234.6-lb) hourglass with a diameter of 1 m (3 ft 3.37 in). It is filled with 629,100,000,000 grains of the “singing” Osodani sand, which weigh 1,000,368 g (2,205 lb 6.88 oz). The sand, sifted to ensure that each grain measures an average of 0.11 mm, flows continuously through a nozzle measuring 0.84 mm in diameter. Built in 1991, the huge sand timer is flipped over at midnight every 31 December, with the upper globe taking exactly one year to empty into the lower globe.

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