Doomsday Clock will be updated next week to determine our fate

Australia
By William

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It has tracked the probability of humanity’s annihilation for over 75 years.

And next week, the Doomsday Clock will update once more to determine our fate, having stayed at 100 seconds to midnight for the last three years.

With Russia’s war on Ukraine, weather disasters raging around the world, and the coronavirus still lingering, it’s hard to imagine the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists going back in time.

The clock, an idea that began in 1947 to warn humanity of the dangers of nuclear war, was originally set at seven minutes to midnight and has since moved back and forth 24 times.

On the Verge: Next week, the Doomsday Clock will update once more to determine our fate. It was founded by American scientists involved in the Manhattan Project, which led to the first nuclear weapons during World War II, and is a symbolic countdown to represent how close humanity is to completing global catastrophe. In the photo, the first inauguration in 1947.

Presentation: Last year, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists announced that the clock would stand at 100 seconds to midnight for the third consecutive year (pictured)

Presentation: Last year, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists announced that the clock would stand at 100 seconds to midnight for the third consecutive year (pictured)

How to survive a nuclear explosion

– Being inside a concrete building.

– Position yourself in the corners of the room, facing the explosion.

– Avoid windows, corridors and doors.

– If there is not enough time, hiding in the corner of a corridor may be safer than being in the middle of the corridor.

– Immediately take refuge under tables and chairs.

Experts say this advice applies if in a nuclear explosion moderate damage zone (MDZ)or far enough from the source of the explosion.

In 2020 it reached the closest to midnight and has stayed there for the last three years.

At the height of the Cold War in 1953 it was two minutes away, and the farthest it has gotten from midnight was when it moved to 17 minutes earlier at the end of the same war.

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists will announce if the symbolic clock time will change to 15:00 GMT (10:00 ET) on January 24.

He describes the watch as a “metaphor for how close humanity is to self-annihilation.”

By 2023, the Bulletin said it would take into account the Russia-Ukraine war, biological threats, the proliferation of nuclear weapons, the ongoing climate crisis, state-sponsored disinformation campaigns, and disruptive technologies.

The decision will be made by the Bulletin’s science and safety board and its board of patrons, which includes 11 Nobel laureates.

The organization was founded in 1945 by Albert Einstein, J Robert Oppenheimer, and other scientists who worked on the Manhattan Project, which produced the first nuclear weapons during World War II.

By 2023, the Bulletin said it would take into account the Russia-Ukraine war, biological threats, the proliferation of nuclear weapons, the ongoing climate crisis, state-sponsored disinformation campaigns, and disruptive technologies.

By 2023, the Bulletin said it would take into account the Russia-Ukraine war, biological threats, the proliferation of nuclear weapons, the ongoing climate crisis, state-sponsored disinformation campaigns, and disruptive technologies.

With Russia's war on Ukraine, weather disasters raging around the world, and the coronavirus still lingering, it's hard to imagine the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists going back in time. In the photo: Ukrainian servicemen stand on their tanks in Bakhmut, Donetsk region, on January 13.

With Russia’s war on Ukraine, weather disasters raging around the world, and the coronavirus still lingering, it’s hard to imagine the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists going back in time. In the photo: Ukrainian servicemen stand on their tanks in Bakhmut, Donetsk region, on January 13.

Nuclear war between the US and Russia ‘would cause world famine and kill over 5 BILLION people’

A nuclear war between Russia and the United States would trigger a global famine that would wipe out nearly two-thirds of the world’s population, a study suggests.

More than five billion people would starve in the aftermath of a large-scale conflict, the researchers say, with computer simulations showing that firestorms would release soot into the upper atmosphere and block out the sun.

This, in turn, would cause crop failures around the world.

The model sheds new light on what would happen in six war scenarios: five smaller conflicts between India and Pakistan and one major war between the United States and Russia.

Such a threat has come to light after Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

Read more here.

The idea for the clock followed two years later as a symbolic countdown to represent how close humanity is to completing the global catastrophe.

Artist Martyl Langsdorf was commissioned to make the clock and told to create an image that would “frighten men into rationality,” according to Eugene Rabinowitch, the first editor of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, who died in 1973.

Langsdorf developed a simplified watch to reflect urgency and only the last quarter hours before midnight are displayed on the dial.

It was also his decision to set the minute hand to seven minutes before midnight, which was only meant to be visual, before Rabinowitch moved it to three minutes in 1949.

“For 75 years, the Doomsday Clock has acted as a metaphor for how close humanity is to self-annihilation,” reads the website of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists.

“Since 1947, it has also served as a call to action for reversing hands, which have been moved backwards before.”

The Doomsday clock was first moved to 100 seconds to midnight in January 2020 and remained there in 2021, in part due to a “lack of action” over the Covid pandemic.

Since 1947, it has been delayed eight times and advanced 16 times.

The time is determined taking into consideration all the events that have happened throughout the year.

It can include politics, energy, weapons, diplomacy, and climate science, along with potential sources of threats such as nuclear bombs, climate change, bioterrorism, and artificial intelligence.

What is the Doomsday Clock and what does it mean?

What is the Doomsday Clock?

The Doomsday Clock was created by the Bulletin, an independent, non-profit organization run by some of the world’s most eminent scientists.

It was founded by American scientists involved in the Manhattan Project, which developed the world’s first nuclear weapons during World War II.

In 1947, they established the watch to provide a simple way to demonstrate the danger that nuclear war poses to Earth and humanity.

The Doomsday Clock not only takes into account the probability of nuclear Armageddon, but also other emerging threats, such as climate change and advances in biotechnology and artificial intelligence.

The Doomsday Clock was created by the Bulletin, an independent, non-profit organization run by some of the world's most eminent scientists.

The Doomsday Clock was created by the Bulletin, an independent, non-profit organization run by some of the world’s most eminent scientists.

It is symbolic and represents a countdown to a possible global catastrophe.

The decision to move, or leave the clock alone, is made by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, in consultation with the bulletin’s Board of Sponsors, which includes 16 Nobel laureates.

The clock has become a universally recognized indicator of the world’s vulnerability to catastrophes caused by nuclear weapons, climate change and emerging technologies in the life sciences.

In 2020, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, a think tank formed in 1945, set the Doomsday Clock 100 seconds to midnight, the closest we’ve ever come to total destruction, and it stayed there in 2021.

That sent a message that Earth was closer to oblivion than ever since the early days of hydrogen bomb testing and 1984, when US-Soviet relations reached “their coldest point in decades.”

The Bulletin also considered the response of world leaders to the coronavirus pandemic, feeling that it was so poor that the clock needed to remain in its position dangerously close to midnight.

The closer the clock moves to midnight, the closer humanity is to annihilation.

How has the clock changed since 1947?

  • 1947 – 48: 7 minutes
  • 1949 – 52: 3 minutes
  • 1953 – 59: 2 minutes
  • 1960 – 62: 7 minutes
  • 1963 – 67: 12 minutes
  • 1968: 7 minutes
  • 1969 – 71: 10 minutes
  • 1972 – 73: 12 minutes
  • 1974 – 79: 9 minutes
  • 1980: 7 minutes
  • 1981 – 83: 4 minutes
  • 1984 – 87: 3 minutes
  • 1988 – 89: 6 minutes
  • 1990: 10 minutes
  • 1991 – 94: 17 minutes
  • 1995 – 97: 14 minutes
  • 1998 – 2001: 9 minutes
  • 2002 – 06: 7 minutes
  • 2007 – 09: 5 minutes
  • 2010 – 11:6 minutes
  • 2012 – 14:5 minutes
  • 2015 – 16: 3 minutes
  • 2017 – 2.5 minutes
  • 2018 – 2 minutes
  • 2019 – 2 minutes
  • 2020 – 100 seconds
  • 2021 – 100 seconds

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