n 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.
|Year||Minutes to midnight||Time||Change||Reason|
|1947||7||23:53||—||The initial setting of the Doomsday Clock.|
|1949||3||23:57||-4||The Soviet Union tests its first atomic bomb, officially starting the nuclear arms race.|
|1953||2||23:58||-1||The United States and the Soviet Union test thermonuclear devices within nine months of one another. (This is the clock's closest approach to midnight since its inception.)|
|1960||7||23:53||+5||In response to a perception of increased scientific cooperation and public understanding of the dangers of nuclear weapons (as well as political actions taken to avoid "massive retaliation") the United States and Soviet Union cooperate and avoid direct confrontation in regional conflicts such as the 1956 Suez Crisis. Scientists from different countries help establish the International Geophysical Year, a series of coordinated, worldwide scientific observations between nations allied with both the United States and the Soviet Union, and the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, which allow Soviet and American scientists to interact.|
|1963||12||23:48||+5||The United States and Soviet Union sign the Partial Test Ban Treaty, limiting atmospheric nuclear testing.|
|1968||7||23:53||-5||Regional wars wage: Vietnam War intensifies, Six-Day War occurs in 1967 and Indo-Pakistani War of 1965 takes place. Worse yet, France and China, two nations which have not signed the Partial Test Ban Treaty, acquire and test nuclear weapons (the 1960 Gerboise Bleue nuclear test and 1964 596 nuclear test, respectively) to assert themselves as global players in the nuclear arms race.|
|1969||10||23:50||+3||Every nation of the world, with the notable exceptions of India, Pakistan, and Israel, signs the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.|
|1972||12||23:48||+2||The United States and the Soviet Union sign the SALT I (Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty) and the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.|
|1974||9||23:51||-3||India tests a nuclear device (Smiling Buddha), SALT II talks stall. Both the United States and the Soviet Union mo