Doomsday Clock

The Doomsday Clock is a symbolic clock face, maintained since 1947 by the board of directors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists at the University of Chicago, that uses the analogy of the human species being at a time that is "minutes to midnight", where in midnight represents "catastrophic destruction". Originally, the analogy represented the threat of global nuclear war, but since includes climate-changing technologies and "new developments in the life sciences and nanotechnology that could inflict irrevocable harm".[1] The closer the clock is to midnight, the closer the world is estimated to be to global disaster.

 

Since its inception, the clock has appeared on every cover of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Its first representation was in 1947, when magazine co-founder Hyman Goldsmith asked artist Martyl Langsdorf (wife of Manhattan Project physicist Alexander Langsdorf, Jr.) to design a cover for the magazine's June 1947 issue.

The number of minutes before midnight – measuring the degree of nuclear, environmental, and technological threats to mankind – is periodically corrected; currently, the clock reads five minutes to midnight, having advanced two minutes on 17 January 2007

TIMELINE

IT IS 5 MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT

2007: The world stands at the brink of a second nuclear age. The United States and Russia remain ready to stage a nuclear attack within minutes, North Korea conducts a nuclear test, and many in the international community worry that Iran plans to acquire the Bomb. Climate change also presents a dire challenge to humanity. Damage to ecosystems is already taking place; flooding, destructive storms, increased drought, and polar ice melt are causing loss of life and property.

IT IS 7 MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT

2002: Concerns regarding a nuclear terrorist attack underscore the enormous amount of unsecured--and sometimes unaccounted for--weapon-grade nuclear materials located throughout the world. Meanwhile, the United States expresses a desire to design new nuclear weapons, with an emphasis on those able to destroy hardened and deeply buried targets. It also rejects a series of arms control treaties and announces it will withdraw from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.

IT IS 9 MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT

1998: India and Pakistan stage nuclear weapons tests only three weeks apart. "The tests are a symptom of the failure of the international community to fully commit itself to control the spread of nuclear weapons--and to work toward substantial reductions in the numbers of these weapons," a dismayed Bulletin reports. Russia and the United States continue to serve as poor examples to the rest of the world. Together, they still maintain 7,000 warheads ready to fire at each other within 15 minutes.