Doomsday Clock

The Doomsday Clock is a symbolic clock face, maintained since 1947 by the board of directors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists at the University of Chicago. The closer the clock is to midnight, the closer the world is estimated to be to global disaster. The most recent officially announced setting — five minutes to midnight (11:55pm) — was made on 10 January 2012. 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).

Originally, the clock analogy represented the threat of global nuclear war; however, since 2007 it has also reflected climate-changing technologies and "new developments in the life sciences that could inflict irrevocable harm."

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 magazine 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.