Scientists at the “Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists” have left the conceptual clock, created in 1947 to represent our proximity to the end of time, at “1 minute 30 minutes to midnight,” as in 2023. Since 2007, it has also taken ecological into account and technological risks.
What is the connection between “Why Did I Fall for That” by The Who (1982), “Two Suns in the Sunset” by Pink Floyd (1983), “2 Minutes to Midnight” by Iron Maiden (1984) and “Minutes to Midnight from Midnight Oil (1984)? These four rock and metal tracks refer to the height of the pacifist demonstrations during the Euromissile crisis (1977–1987), when Soviet SS-20 missiles and American Pershing II missiles faced off on the soil of the Old Continent all more or less on the pacifist demonstrations less explicitly on the “Doomsday Clock”.
The “Doomsday Clock” was first modeled in 1947 by scientists at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists at the University of Chicago to symbolically represent the time that would separate the human species from the End Times caused by nuclear Armageddon. Many of them, most of them physicists, had taken part in the Manhattan Project during World War II, which produced the first atomic bomb, and in turn, at the beginning of the Cold War, were worried about a scientific being who, by escaping from them, risked endangering the fate of humanity.
The peak of 1953
For more than 70 years, their successors have regularly turned this paradoxical conceptual clock in one direction or another as it counts the minutes and seconds from a date, that of the apocalypse, of which, by definition, we know neither the day nor the hour. That's how it is this Tuesday, January 23rd: After a now well-oiled eschatological ritual, the “Bulletin” announced that humanity is now 90 seconds away from midnight, the same time as in January 2023. Never the big hand of the “Doomsday Clock.” “It has never been so close to midnight.
The development of the “Doomsday Clock”. Wikipedia
In 2023, against the backdrop of the war in Ukraine and fears of the use of tactical nuclear weapons, the clock was advanced from midnight to 90 seconds; It had already been a dismal record since 1947. In 2020, the second-to-last time it was increased, it was set at 100 seconds, as scientists were innovating in seconds rather than minutes for the first time, which of course was hardly reassuring. This year also marked the first time the clock moved closer to midnight than in 1953, when physicists had advanced it to just two minutes (compared to 7 minutes when it was introduced in 1947). acquired the H-bomb. For decades, these “2 Minutes to Midnight” sung by Iron Maiden represented the late hour.
“A grotesque exercise with a wet finger”
This peak in 1953 might surprise anyone who knows anything about the course of the Cold War. Wasn't the planet on the verge of nuclear catastrophe during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962? American historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. called this critical episode “the most dangerous moment in human history.” Invisible on the dial, the event does not appear to have disturbed the oscillation of the “Doomsday Clock”… But 60 years ago, those responsible for the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists rarely wound their clock, the hand of which did not change between 1960 and 1963. The number of 7 minutes for 1962 is therefore an average and the frequency of the cadence does not allow us to observe the Cuban Missile Crisis, which lasted only 13 days. No one doubts that at that very moment it was dangerously close to midnight. One of the most important bestsellers published in 2008 about this game of nuclear standoff between the Soviet Khrushchev and the American Kennedy is entitled “One Minute To Midnight”.
Also read: Nuclear power: The war in Ukraine, a new Cuban crisis?
The situation is different today, as the Bulletin's scientists have been winding the clock every year since 2015. It is logically much more sensitive to the ups and downs and whims of current events. But another major breakthrough in the history of the “Doomsday Clock” dates back to 2007. Since then, it has taken into account not only nuclear risk, but also aggregates other systemic risks (ecological, energy, biological, technological, etc.). ), which darken the fate of humanity. Global warming, rising water levels, the increase in environmental disasters, the potential dangers of artificial intelligence, the risks of uncontrolled progress in molecular biology… All the great fears of the century thus merge into one hour that remains a simple view of the mind . In its communication, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists itself recognizes that it is a “metaphor” and a “symbol” aimed at “shaping the discussions” around the convergence of all these risks.
The debates surrounding the epistemic value of this watch are numerous and often heated. The majority of political scientists and strategists who specialize in nuclear energy deny any scientific value. “It's a grotesque exercise done with a wet finger,” says Bruno Tertais, deputy director of the Foundation for Strategic Research (FRS) and author of the essay L'Apocalypse n'est pas pour Tomorrow (2011). “When it came to disarmament, they decided to add climate change because it was no longer scary enough,” says this nuclear deterrence specialist, formerly of the RAND Corporation. The “Doomsday Clock” would be more than a scientific tool, it would above all be one of the most blatant manifestations of a great fear of collapse that would roil the planet and part of the scientific community familiar with “collapsology”.
Ten Nobel Prizes
Because the watchmakers of the apocalypse are not fringe activists, but actually renowned scientists. The Science and Security Board, which determines the timing each year, has 17 names. A former general in the US Air Force, a former governor of California, but above all more than ten great professors in various disciplines. Stanford, Princeton, Oxford… The most renowned universities are represented on the “Board”. And this committee can also rely on a “Board of Sponsors” that includes no fewer than 10 Nobel Prize winners, mainly from physics and chemistry. Founded in 1948 by … Albert Einstein, its first director was J. Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb. Proof that fear is not necessarily alien to reason, as emphasized by the philosopher and polytechnician Jean-Pierre Dupuy, professor at Stanford University and author of the essay “The War That Cannot Take Place”. Essay on Nuclear Metaphysics (2019). In his books, the “enlightened disaster researcher” – a reference to his best-known book – has been quoting the apocalyptic countdown for years to warn of a nuclear catastrophe.
Ultimately, the most important thing is less the “Apocalypse Clock” itself than the way we read the time it now gives us every year. The most dangerous thing would be to believe that the Bulletin scientists would look into the future and succeed in making a scientific prediction of the end of times. This is not the calling of the “doomsday clock.” Believing that this would lead directly to collective panic. But to make the watch nothing more than a simple “metaphor” or “marketing” gimmick designed to alarm the general public would be too minimalist a reading. The “Doomsday Clock” is what logical philosophers like Jean-Pierre Dupuy call a “self-invalidating prophecy of doom”: it consists of determining a future that we want to avoid, so that this image is projected before us in the form of a collectively accepted image The agreement will stop us from letting it happen. It is a highly paradoxical game with time loops that, for those living today, consists in making a future that does not yet exist speak, so that it never comes to pass.
Also read: War in Ukraine: Could Russia use nuclear weapons?
This form of “self-invalidating prophecy of doom” is also that of nuclear deterrence itself. “The nuclear weapon is by nature a weapon of non-use. It is its disproportionate power that deters anyone from ever thinking of detonating it over a civilian population. It has only one goal: to dissuade other nuclear powers from using their nuclear weapons; and, moreover, deter states or terrorist groups that do not have it from acquiring it. It is a weapon of deterrence,” summarizes Jean-Pierre Dupuy in an article in Le Grand Continent. It is an image of a collectively accepted catastrophic future that fends off the nuclear threat itself. But to be effectively rejected, this image must exist despite everything. The “apocalypse clock” is therefore itself an abyss of deterrence. Regularly remembering the approach of midnight is the prerequisite for this fragile balance. “The streets of the future are littered with remnants / All predictions are enough to kill / But only God knows if it won't or won't be / A foolish creature said we'd never break / So many reckless, sincere promises / By people who thought we were saved / But the truth is that we have forgotten how we fought / Four minutes to midnight on a sunny day / Maybe if we smile the clock will disappear, sang the Who very aptly.