Jacobs' vision was to make available to some civilization far in the future a kind of latter-day Egyptian style tomb of a complete cross section record of physical and visual items showing the life and traditions that people had developed to the time of the closing of the crypt. In 1935, he discussed this idea with the editor of "Scientific American", Orson Munn, and he promised to use the magazine to publicize the project. In November 1936 an article was published describing the time capsule project. Jacobs sought the help of scientist Thomas K. Peters and the project was started in August 1937. By June 1940 they had collected all the items they thought represented human life on earth of the previous 6000 years. Jacobs calculated that 6,177 years had passed since the start of the Egyptian calendar and proposed the creation of a Crypt of Civilization to be opened in AD 8113 after another 6,177 years.