The Doomsday clock is now 89 seconds at midnight, what does that mean? | Science and technology news

The Doomsday clock is a symbolic watch showing how close we are to “destroy our world with dangerous technologies of our own creation”.

For the first time in three years, the atomic scientists’ bulletin (low) advanced the apocalyptic clock from a second to 89 seconds before midnight, reporting an increased risk of global disaster.

“It is the determination of the Council of Sciences and Security of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists that the world has not made enough progress on existential risks threatening all humanity. We are advancing the clock, ”said Daniel Holz, president of the organization’s science and security council on Tuesday, during a live event.

Continuous threats of nuclear weapons, climate change, bio-artic weapons, infectious diseases and disturbing technologies such as artificial intelligence (IA) have brought the clock at its last moment in 78 years.

What is the Doomsday clock?

The Doomsday clock is a symbolic watch showing how close we are to “destroy our world with dangerous technologies of our own creation”, according to Bas, a non -profit organization based in Chicago which controls the clock.

He describes it as “a lot of things at the same time: it’s a metaphor, it’s a logo, it’s a brand, and it is one of the most recognizable symbols in the past 100 years.”

The closer it gets from midnight, the closer humanity is to the end of the world.

Apocalyptic threats could result from political tensions, weapons, technology, climate change or pandemics.

How is the clock setting?

The hands of the clock are brought together or more distant from midnight depending on the reading of existential threats by scientists at a given moment.

Low updates time per year. A council of scientists and other experts in nuclear technology and climate sciences, including 10 winners of the Nobel Prize, discusses global events and determine where to place the hands of the clock each year.

“The bulletin is a bit like a doctor who made a diagnosis,” says the low website.

“We examine the data because doctors examine laboratory tests and X -rays, and also take into account the more difficult to quantify factors, as doctors do when they speak with patients and family members. We consider as many symptoms, measures and circumstances as possible. Then, we come to a judgment that sums up what could happen if leaders and citizens do not take measures to deal with the conditions, ”he adds.

Has the clock already turned around?

Yes, the most notable event was in 1991 when the American president George HW Bush and the Soviet chief Mikhail Gorbachev signed the Treaty of Reduction of Strategic Weapons (beginning) to reduce the number of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles their country.

This brought the chronometer by seven seconds. The furthest of the clock is midnight was 17 minutes away.

When is the clock of the day of the day?

The clock was created in 1947 by the bulletin of atomic scientists, which was founded two years earlier by scientists Albert Einstein, J Robert Oppenheimer and Eugene Rabinowitch with the academics of the University of Chicago.

Meanwhile, the clock was set at seven minutes at midnight. But after the Soviet Union successfully tested its first atomic bomb in 1949, Rabinowitch, who was then the editor -in -chief of the bulletin, moved the stopwatch to three minutes at midnight.

According to the University of Chicago, until recently, the closest it has ever been set was two minutes at midnight: in 1953, when the United States and the Soviet Union tested thermonuclear weapons and in 2018 Due to “a break in international order, nuclear actors, as well as the lack of continuous action on climate change”.

The Doomsday clock is placed in the lower university offices of Chicago.