How to read the Doomsday Clock

How to read the Doomsday Clock Thomas Gaulkin, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists The Doomsday Clock, 100 seconds to midnight The Doomsday Clock depicts how close humanity is to armageddon – but where did it come from, how do you read its time, and what can we learn from it? By Richard Gray/Richard Fisher Every year, the scientists responsible for the Doomsday Clock at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists publish their annual judgement of how close its hands sit to midnight. In 1949, the USSR tested its first nuclear weapons, and in reaction to this the Bulletin’s editor moved the hands of the Clock from seven to three minutes to midnight. At this point the Doomsday Clock was set at 17 minutes to midnight and was even removed from the cover of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists Though I wasn’t fully aware of it at the time, the point at which I first became concerned about the Doomsday Clock in the mid-1990s coincided with the moment of greatest safety humanity has experienced since World War Two. Getty Images Climate change is now a major threat and helps to explain why the Clock is so close to midnight For many years, the pages of the Bulletin have also considered the challenges posed by new disruptive technologies and these now also influence the hands of the Doomsday Clock.