The Clock was first represented in 1947, when the Bulletin 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. After the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, they began publishing a mimeographed newsletter and then the magazine, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which, since its inception, has depicted the Clock on every cover. The Doomsday Clock's origin can be traced to the international group of researchers called the Chicago Atomic Scientists, who had participated in the Manhattan Project. Since 2010, the clock has been moved forward over four minutes, and has changed by five minutes and twenty seconds since 1947.Ĭover of the 1947 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists issue, featuring the Doomsday Clock at 'seven minutes to midnight' The clock's setting was left unchanged in both 20. In January 2020, it was moved forward to 100 seconds before midnight.

The clock was moved to two and a half minutes in 2017, then forward to two minutes to midnight in January 2018, and left unchanged in 2019. It has since been set backward eight times and forward 16 times for a total of 24, the farthest from midnight being 17 minutes in 1991, and the nearest being 100 seconds, from 2020 to the present. The clock's original setting in 1947 was seven minutes to midnight. The Bulletin 's Science and Security Board monitors new developments in the life sciences and technology that could inflict irrevocable harm to humanity. The main factors influencing the clock are nuclear risk and climate change. A hypothetical global catastrophe is represented by midnight on the clock, with the Bulletin 's opinion on how close the world is to one represented by a certain number of minutes or seconds to midnight, assessed in January of each year. Maintained since 1947, the clock is a metaphor for threats to humanity from unchecked scientific and technological advances. The Doomsday Clock is a symbol that represents the likelihood of a man-made global catastrophe, in the opinion of the members of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. The Doomsday Clock pictured at its current setting of '100 seconds to midnight'

Clock with the minutes