![]() ![]() The history of the Doomsday Clock goes back to the late 1940s, when scientists concerned about the risks posed by nuclear weapons, including Albert Einstein, formed many organizations to lobby for safer nuclear policy, according to Stevens Institute of Technology historian of nuclear technology Alex Wellerstein. Tim Boyle/Getty Images News/Getty Images The history of the Doomsday Clock Lederman at the hands of a Doomsday Clock. ![]() It was not conceived as a means of ending the threat of worldwide catastrophe directly, and eventually evolved as a means to generate discussion - and headlines - just like the one you clicked on to read more about the Doomsday Clock.įormer Fermilab director Leon M. Judging by the fact that the end of the Cold War did not lead to worldwide nuclear disarmament, and that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has once again raised the specter of global thermonuclear war, it may seem the Doomsday Clock never successfully conveyed the cautionary message the nuclear scientists behind it intended.īut on the other hand, the Doomsday Clock is not a formally constructed ritual or device of the state and is, in many ways, an accidental cultural artifact. Initially conceived during the height of the Cold War as a way of signaling to policymakers and the public just how close nuclear brinkmanship was bringing the US and Soviet Union to a disastrous nuclear war, the setting of the clock has more recently taken into account other potentially existential risks such as climate change and artificial intelligence.īut is a public relations metaphor conceived more than half a century ago still an effective device for communicating risk in the contemporary world? Was it ever? ![]() “It makes sense that the hands would be moved up an additional ten seconds closer to midnight for 2023.” “The risk of atomic escalation in Ukraine brings the world closer to nuclear war than at any time since the Cuban Missile Crisis,” Daniel Zimmer, a post-doctoral researcher at the Stanford Existential Risk Initiative, tells Inverse. On January 24, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved the minute hand of the Doomsday Clock from 100 seconds to midnight to 90 seconds to midnight, reflecting their experts’ opinion about how much closer humankind has slid toward potential global ruin. ![]()
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