Doomsday Clock

 

The Doomsday Clock was first introduced in 1947. It is not a clock like in the sense that keeps hours. seconds and minutes but rather it is a symbolic clock. The clock represents countdown to possible global catastrophe such as nuclear war or climate change. The members of the Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists maintain and update the clock. The closer the clock gets to midnight, the closer scientist believe the world is getting to global disaster.

 

 

 

The clock is located on the wall of the Bulletin's office in the University of Chicago. The clock first measured the threat of global nuclear war. Something that was true alert when I was a young kid. Since 2007 it also keeps tract of climate change. January 2015 saw the clock move to 3 minutes before midnight and in 2016 the clock holds the same time.

The clock was introduced by the international group of researchers called the Chicago Atomic Scientists. Members had participated in the Manhattan Project. The group started sending out a newsletter following the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Later the group started sending out a bulletin. Since 1947 the clocks hands have bee reset twenty one times. The first setting of the clock was seven minutes til midnight.