The Doomsday Clock is a symbolic clock face, representing a countdown to possible global catastrophe (e.g. nuclear war or climate change). It has been maintained since 1947 by the members of the Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, who are in turn advised by the Governing Board and the Board of Sponsors, including 18 Nobel Laureates. The closer they set the Clock to midnight, the closer the scientists believe the world is to global disaster.
Originally, the Clock, which hangs on a wall in the Bulletin's office in the University of Chicago, represented an analogy for the threat of global nuclear war; however, since 2007 it has also reflected climate change and new developments in the life sciences and technology that could inflict irrevocable harm to humanity. The most recent officially announced setting—three minutes to midnight (11:57 pm)—was made on January 22, 2015 due to climate change, the modernization of nuclear weapons in the United States and Russia, and the problem of nuclear waste.
The origin of the Clock can be traced to the international group of researchers called the Chicago Atomic Scientists who had participated in the Manhattan Project. After the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, they started to publish a mimeographed newsletter and then a bulletin. Since its inception, the Clock has been depicted on every cover of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Its first representation was in 1947, when bulletin co-founder Hyman Goldsmith asked artist Martyl Langsdorf (wife of Manhattan Project research associate and Szilárd petition signatory Alexander Langsdorf, Jr.) to design a cover for the magazine's June 1947 issue. As Eugene Rabinowitch, another co-founder of the Bulletin, explained later,
The Bulletin's clock is not a gauge to register the ups and downs of the international power struggle; it is intended to reflect basic changes in the level of continuous danger in which mankind lives in the nuclear age...
In January 2007, designer Michael Bierut, who was on the Bulletin's Governing Board, redesigned the Clock to give it a more modern feel. In 2009, the Bulletin ceased its print edition and was one of the first print publications in the US to become entirely digital; the Clock is now found as part of the logo on the Bulletin's website. Information about the Doomsday Clock Symposium, a timeline of the Clock's settings, and multimedia shows about the Clock's history and culture can also be found on the Bulletin's website.
The 5th Doomsday Clock Symposium was held on November 14, 2013 in Washington, D.C.; it was a daylong event that was open to the public and featured panelists discussing various issues on the topic "Communicating Catastrophe." There was also an evening event at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in conjunction with the Hirshhorn's current exhibit, "Damage Control: Art and Destruction Since 1950." The panel discussions, held at the American Association for the Advancement of Science, were streamed live from the Bulletin's website, and can still be viewed there. Reflecting international events dangerous to humankind, the Clock's hands have been adjusted twenty times since its inception in 1947, when the Clock was initially set to seven minutes to midnight (11:53pm).
Symbolic timepiece changes
In 1947, during the Cold War, the Clock was started at seven minutes to midnight and was subsequently advanced or rewound per the state of the world and nuclear war prospects. The Clock's setting is decided by the Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and is an adjunct to the essays in the Bulletin on global affairs. The Clock is not set and reset in real time as events occur; rather than respond to each and every crisis as it happens, the Science and Security Board meets twice annually to discuss global events in a deliberative manner. The closest nuclear war threat, the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, reached crisis, climax, and resolution before the Clock could be set to reflect that possible doomsday.
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