The Doomsday Clock symbolizes the perceived risk of a human-made global catastrophe, as assessed by the members of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Established in 1947 by J. Robert Oppenheimer, Albert Einstein, and Eugene Rabinowitch, the Clock is a metaphor rather than a literal prediction, representing threats to humanity posed by unchecked scientific and technological progress. The time shown on the Clock does not correspond to actual time, but instead indicates how close humanity is to a hypothetical global disaster, with midnight signifying the catastrophe. Each year in January, the Bulletin evaluates the time based on factors such as nuclear warfare, climate change, and artificial intelligence. The Bulletin's Science and Security Board tracks developments in life sciences and technologies that could cause irreversible harm to humanity.
The Doomsday Clock, shown at its current setting of "89 seconds to midnight," was last updated in January 2025.
Frequency: Annually
Inaugurated: June 1947
Most recent update: January 28, 2025
The Clock's original setting in 1947 was 7 minutes to midnight. It has since been set backward 8 times and forward 18 times. The farthest time from midnight was 17 minutes in 1991, and the nearest is 89 seconds, set in January 2025.[6]
The Clock was moved to 150 seconds (2 minutes, 30 seconds) in 2017, then forward to 2 minutes to midnight in 2018, and left unchanged in 2019.[7] It was moved forward to 100 seconds (1 minute, 40 seconds) in 2020,[8] 90 seconds (1 minute, 30 seconds) in 2023,[9] and 89 seconds (1 minute, 29 seconds) in 2025.[10]
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