The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists' Council on Science and Security announced that on January 24 it will announce an update to its "Doomsday Clock," designed to predict how close humanity will be to apocalyptic annihilation.
The council said that it will decide next Tuesday whether the date will be the same as previously announced, which is fixing the clock at 100 seconds before midnight, or if there is a change in the matter.
The "Doomsday Clock" is a symbolic clock established in 1945 by scientists, some of whom participated in the nuclear bomb-making program, as part of the "Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists" plan, which includes, in addition to the clock, other scientific services, and scientists make a decision whether or not to move the clock hands based on indicators. The world's situation has improved in the face of nuclear and climatic dangers.
The Doomsday Clock has been a powerful symbol for communicating existential threats for over 75 years.
Tune in January 24 at 10:00AM EST to hear what leading scientists have set the Doomsday Clock to for 2023.
Learn more: https://t.co/SlWeXEROGW pic.twitter.com/SdWZGwaRMO
— Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (@BulletinAtomic) January 10, 2023
On January 21, 2022, the Council fixed the clock at only 100 seconds before the "zero hour", which is 12 midnight.
IT IS 100 SECONDS TO MIDNIGHT
Read the 2022 #DoomsdayClock statement: https://t.co/eiMjD586FF pic.twitter.com/LuBWlAifs7
— Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (@BulletinAtomic) January 20, 2022
The publication said it will take into account new changes in the world, such as the Russian-Ukrainian war, biological threats, the spread of nuclear weapons, the ongoing climate crisis, state-sponsored disinformation campaigns and disruptive technologies.
The Bulletin will be releasing its #DoomsdayClock statement in Russian and Ukrainian.
The announcement will be in English, with translations in Russian and Ukrainian shared shortly after our live event. https://t.co/SlWeXEROGW
— Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (@BulletinAtomic) January 20, 2023
What is the story of the hour on the Day of Resurrection?
The "doomsday clock" was first unveiled at the start of the Cold War in 1947 by the Science and Security Council of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
The council, which includes 11 Nobel Prize-winning scientists and is based in Chicago, USA, set the first doomsday clock at 7 minutes before midnight, to determine how close the world is to nuclear annihilation.
And just 4 months after the atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the first issue of the "Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists" was published, which, two years later, turned from a printed newsletter into a magazine, with landscape artist Martell Langsdorff designing the first doomsday clock to be placed on the cover of the new magazine. .
In 1949, the editor of the Bulletin moved the clock from 7 to 3 minutes before midnight after the Soviet Union tested its first nuclear weapons.
In 1953, the clock moved to two minutes before midnight, after the United States and the Soviet Union detonated the first thermonuclear weapons, and this is the closest time to midnight on this watch in the 20th century.
Recently, the clock has been updated to include additional threats beyond just nuclear power, such as the threats of climate change, as well as other threats that are pushing us ever closer to extinction.
Since then, members of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists' Science and Security Council have annually adjusted the time to reflect on whether the events of the previous year brought humanity closer to or further from destruction, drawing on a database of more than 100 predictions to assess the risk.