The cover of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has featured the famous Doomsday Clock since it debuted in 1947, when it was set at seven minutes to midnight.
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists is a nonprofit organization concerning science and global security issues resulting from accelerating technological advances that have negative consequences for humanity. The Bulletin publishes content at both a free-access website and a bi-monthly, nontechnical academic journal. The organization has been publishing continuously since 1945, when it was founded by Albert Einstein and former Manhattan Project scientists as the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists of Chicago immediately following the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The organization is also the keeper of the symbolic Doomsday Clock, the time of which is announced each January.
One of the driving forces behind the creation of the Bulletin was the amount of public interest surrounding atomic energy and rapid technological change at the dawn of the Atomic Age. In 1945 the public interest in atomic warfare and weaponry inspired contributors to the Bulletin to attempt to inform those interested about the dangers of the nuclear arms race they knew was coming and about the destruction that atomic war could bring about.[2] To convey the particular peril posed by nuclear weapons, the Bulletin devised the Doomsday Clock in 1947, with an original setting of seven minutes to midnight.[3]
The minute hand of the Clock first moved closer to midnight in response to changing world events in 1949, following the first Soviet nuclear test. The Clock has been set forward and back over the years as circumstances have changed; as of 2023[update], it is set at 90 seconds to midnight.[4] The Doomsday Clock is used to represent threats to humanity from a variety of sources: nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction, climate change,[5] and disruptive technologies.[6] In 2015, the Bulletin unveiled its Doomsday Dashboard,[7] an interactive infographic that illustrates some of the data the Bulletin's Science and Security Board[8] takes into account when deciding the time of the Clock each year. As of August 2018, the Bulletin's Board of Sponsors boasts 14 Nobel Laureates.[9]
In the 1950s, the Bulletin was involved in the formation of the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, annual conferences of scientists concerned about nuclear proliferation, and, more broadly, the role of science in modern society.
In 1949, the Educational Foundation for Nuclear Science incorporated as a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) organization to serve as the parent organization and fundraising mechanism of the Bulletin. In 2003, the board of directors voted to change the foundation's name to Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
Purpose
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists began as an emergency action undertaken by scientists who saw urgent need for an immediate educational program about atomic weapons.[14] The intention was to educate fellow scientists about the relationship between their world of science and the world of national and international politics. A second was to help the American people understand what nuclear energy and its possible applications to war meant. The Bulletin contributors believed the atom bomb would only be the first of many dangers.[14] The aim of the Bulletin was to carry out the long, sustained effort of educating people about the realities of the scientific age.
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists seeks to educate citizens, policy makers, scientists, and journalists by providing non-technical, scientifically sound and policy-relevant information about nuclear weapons, climate change, and other global security issues. The Bulletin also serves as a reliable, high-quality global forum for diverse international opinions on the best means of reducing reliance on nuclear weapons.[15] Since its inception in 1945, the Bulletin has sought to educate the American public of the continual danger posed by nuclear weapons and other global dangers, most recently adding climate change and disruptive technologies in the life sciences to the list of concerns.
The Bulletin's leadership consists of three boards, and it was announced on October 25, 2018, that California Governor Jerry Brown is joining the organization as executive chair.
Board of Sponsors
The Bulletin's Board of Sponsors is composed of accomplished science and security leaders from around the world. Members of the Board of Sponsors weigh in on critical issues, including the setting of the organization's Doomsday Clock. As of October 2018, the Bulletin's Board of Sponsors lists 14 Nobel Laureates.
Science and Security Board
The Bulletin's Science and Security Board is composed of globally-recognized leaders who have specific areas of expertise in nuclear risk, climate change, and disruptive technologies. Members of the Science and Security Board provide the Bulletin organization and editorial staff with perspectives on trends and issues in their respective fields. Among their duties is the annual setting of the Doomsday Clock, with input from the Board of Sponsors.
The Bulletin's logo of the Doomsday Clock as of January2024.
Once the Soviet Union developed atomic weapons, the concern surrounding the world's destruction was a great fear of the scientists working on the Bulletin. The proximity of nuclear devastation was a popular interest and, as a result, Bulletin co-editor Hyman Goldsmith asked landscape artist Martyl Langsdorf to create a cover for the June 1947 magazine.[10] Langsdorf, who was married to Manhattan Project physicist Alexander Langsdorf, first considered using the symbol for uranium but then realized that a clock would better convey "a sense of urgency."[16] The resultant Doomsday Clock, which only has bullets labeling the numbers in the upper left hand corner, has been featured on the cover of the Bulletin many times since its creation.[17]
The proximity of the minute hand to midnight has been the Bulletin leadership's way of warning the public about manmade threats to humanity; the Clock is a metaphor, not a prediction. That is, the time on the clock is not to be interpreted as actual time. When it began in 1947, the minute hand was 7 minutes to midnight; in 1953, when the Soviet Union continued to test more and more nuclear devices, it was 2 minutes to midnight.[18] This proximity to midnight of the Doomsday Clock during the early 1950s shows the concern that the Bulletin contributors had about the Soviet Union and the nuclear arms race. The warnings of the Bulletin continued throughout the 1950s and 1960s, and the focus of the efforts shifted slightly from warning about the dangers of nuclear war to the necessity of disarmament. In 2007, the leadership began taking anthropogenic climate change into account in its Clock discussions. Throughout the history of the Doomsday Clock, it has moved closer to midnight, and farther away, depending upon the status of the world at that time.[18] The Doomsday Clock has been getting closer to midnight since 1991, when it was set to 17 minutes to midnight, after the United States and the Soviet Union reached an agreement on nuclear arms reductions.
As of January23,2024,[update] the Doomsday Clock stands at 90 seconds to midnight.[19] It is the closest approach to midnight, exceeding that of 1953, 2018 and 2020. The decision to move the hand of the Clock is made by the Bulletin's Science and Security Board, which meets in person twice a year, with subcommittees meeting more often; the announcement of the decision is made each January. Each November, just prior to the Science and Security Board's fall discussion, the Bulletin hosts an annual dinner and meeting in Chicago;[20] both events are open to the public. Reflecting international events dangerous to humankind, the Clock's hand has been adjusted 25 times since its inception in 1947, when it was initially set to seven minutes to midnight (11:53pm).
Present
In more recent years, articles of the Bulletin have focused on many topics, ranging from the dangers of radiation following the Chernobyl disaster to the impact of the fall of the Soviet Union. In the wake of the Soviet Union's collapse, other articles have focused on issues such as military spending[21] and the continued funding of missile defense systems designed to thwart nuclear attacks but that in reality may not work.[22] With the ever-growing number of nuclear power plants and the demand for nuclear energy as a solution to climate change, the publication has focused a great deal on the costs and problems surrounding nuclear energy.[23] In 2015, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists unveiled the Nuclear Fuel Cost Calculator.[24]
Although the arms race and the Cold War, which were focuses of the Bulletin for many of the earlier years, are no longer occurring, the publication still focuses on the nuclear dangers that exist in the world today.[25] As more countries such as Pakistan and India have tested nuclear weapons, the Bulletin has focused on the dangers posed by these countries.[26] The Bulletin's bi-monthly "Nuclear Notebook" is written by Federation of American Scientists experts Hans Kristensen and Matt Korda and tracks the number of nuclear weapons in the world by country.[27] Robert "Stan" Norris, who was a founding co-author of the Nuclear Notebook, retired from the Notebook in 2018, although he is still a senior fellow at FAS. In 2015, the Bulletin added the Nuclear Notebook Interactive,[28] an infographic that illustrates which countries have nuclear weapons and when they got them, and how many nuclear warheads they have in any given year. All nine nuclear-armed states are featured: the United States, Russia, China, India, Pakistan, France, Britain, Israel, and North Korea.
In the 21st century, articles have covered threats to humanity from a variety of sources. The potential dangers of nuclear weapons[29] and energy,[30] military and political developments in the Post-Cold War world, political unrest in the Middle East (and its attendant potential for proliferation risks of nuclear and chemical weapons), myriad negative consequences of climate change, cyber warfare, and changes wrought by emerging technologies[31] have all been examined in the Bulletin in the most recent years. Examples include North Korea,[32] Middle East,[33] Syria,[34][35] Fukushima,[36] Cybersecurity,[37] and Climate Change.[38]
In January 2015, longtime executive director and publisher Kennette Benedict retired. Rachel Bronson took over as president and CEO of the organization.[39] The editor of the Bulletin is John Mecklin.[40]
Next Generation Initiative
As part of the Bulletin's work to engage new audiences in issues related to nuclear threats, climate change, artificial intelligence, and biological threats, the publication launched its Next Generation Initiative to encourage young and emerging scholars to engage on these issues. Programs under the initiative have included writing workshops for graduate and undergraduate students, as well as the Voices of Tomorrow feature, which publishes articles and multimedia projects from emerging scholars and experts working in the Bulletin's interest areas. Two Voices of Tomorrow authors, Emma Bastin and Yangyang Cheng, had their work republished in Teen Vogue.
The capstone of the initiative is the Leonard M. Rieser Award,[41] selected each December by the Bulletin's editorial team from among the year's Voices of Tomorrow submissions. The recipient of the Rieser Award receives $1,000 and a subscription to the Bulletin's bi-monthly magazine. In 2018, Erin Connolly and Kate Hewitt shared the award for their article "American students aren't taught nuclear weapons policy in school. Here's how to fix that problem."[42] Recent recipients include Yangyang Cheng,[43] Nikita Perumal[44] and Moritz Kütt.[45]
Online editions
The Bulletin has had a public-access website available online for some years, with a subscription magazine that comes out 6 times per year and is currently published by Taylor & Francis Online. An e-newsletter is also available without charge by signing up via the Bulletin website.[46]
Backfiles of the subscription magazine are available in the John A. Simpson Collection.[47] The backfile from the first (1945) issue through the November 1998 issue of the Bulletin has also been made available free of charge via Google Books.[48]
November/December 2008 was the last print edition of the Bulletin, which became all-digital only that year.[49]SAGE Publications began publishing the Bulletin's subscription magazine in September 2010; Taylor & Francis took over from Sage in January 2016.[50]
Indexing
The journal is indexed in the Journal Citation Reports, which states that the journal has a 2016 impact factor of 0.452, ranking it 71st out of 83 journals in the category "International Relations" and 32nd out of 41 journals in the category "Social Issues".[51]
Awards
Finalist for 2009 Lumity Technology Leadership Award
2006 Silver Excel Award for Magazine Excellence, 20,000 or Fewer for the July/August, September/October, and November/December 2005 issues sponsored by the Society of National Publications
1983 Forum Award for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and Ruth Adams, editor sponsored by the Forum on Physics and Society American Physical Society
↑ Benedict, Kennette (January 26, 2018). "Doomsday Clockwork". The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Archived from the original on April 2, 2015. Retrieved April 1, 2015.
↑ Vishwanathan, Arun (August 9, 2013). "Nuclear Signals in South Asia". Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Archived from the original on October 18, 2013. Retrieved August 9, 2013.
↑ Hans Kristensen; Robert S. Norris. "Nuclear Notebook". Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Retrieved May 17, 2013.
↑ Salsabili, Mansour; Eiran, Ehud; Malin, Martin B.; Khalil, Ayman (June 21, 2013). "Banning WMD from the Middle East". Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Archived from the original on August 20, 2013. Retrieved September 6, 2013.
↑ Blair, Charles (August 26, 2013). "The Chemical Weapons of Syria". Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Archived from the original on September 10, 2013. Retrieved September 6, 2013.
↑ Bronson, Rachel (March 17, 2015). "A Message to our Community". Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Archived from the original on April 2, 2015. Retrieved March 30, 2015.
↑ "Bulletin Staff". Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Retrieved July 20, 2013.
A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission or a combination of fission and fusion reactions, producing a nuclear explosion. Both bomb types release large quantities of energy from relatively small amounts of matter.
Nuclear warfare, also known as atomic warfare, is a military conflict or prepared political strategy that deploys nuclear weaponry. Nuclear weapons are weapons of mass destruction; in contrast to conventional warfare, nuclear warfare can produce destruction in a much shorter time and can have a long-lasting radiological result. A major nuclear exchange would likely have long-term effects, primarily from the fallout released, and could also lead to secondary effects, such as "nuclear winter", nuclear famine, and societal collapse. A global thermonuclear war with Cold War-era stockpiles, or even with the current smaller stockpiles, may lead to various scenarios including the human extinction.
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) is a federally funded research and development center in California, United States. Originally established in 1952, the laboratory now is sponsored by the United States Department of Energy and administered privately by Lawrence Livermore National Security, LLC.
The Doomsday Clock is a symbol that represents the likelihood of a human-made global catastrophe, in the opinion of the members of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Maintained since 1947, the Clock is a metaphor, not a prediction, for threats to humanity from unchecked scientific and technological advances. That is, the time on the Clock is not to be interpreted as actual time. 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, which is then assessed in January of each year. The main factors influencing the Clock are nuclear warfare, climate change, and artificial intelligence. The Bulletin's Science and Security Board monitors new developments in the life sciences and technology that could inflict irrevocable harm to humanity.
The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) is an American nonprofit global policy think tank with the stated intent of using science and scientific analysis to attempt to make the world more secure. FAS was founded in 1946 by scientists, including some who worked on the Manhattan Project, to develop the first atomic bombs. The Federation of American Scientists states that it aims to reduce the amount of nuclear weapons that are in use, and prevent nuclear and radiological terrorism. It says it aims to present high standards for nuclear energy's safety and security, illuminate government secrecy practices, as well as track and eliminate the global illicit trade of conventional, nuclear, biological and chemical weapons.
The Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs is an international organization that brings together scholars and public figures to work toward reducing the danger of armed conflict and to seek solutions to global security threats. It was founded in 1957 by Joseph Rotblat and Bertrand Russell in Pugwash, Nova Scotia, Canada, following the release of the Russell–Einstein Manifesto in 1955.
Bernard Taub Feld was a professor of physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He helped develop the atomic bomb, and later led an international movement among scientists to banish nuclear weapons.
"2 Minutes to Midnight" is a song by the English heavy metal band Iron Maiden, featured on their fifth studio album, Powerslave (1984). It was released as the band's tenth single, and first from the album on 6 August 1984. It rose to number 11 on the UK Singles Chart and number 25 on Billboard Top Album Tracks. The band's first single to exceed five minutes in length, it remained their longest until the release of "Infinite Dreams" in November 1989.
The Franck Report of June 1945 was a document signed by several prominent nuclear physicists recommending that the United States not use the atomic bomb as a weapon to prompt the surrender of Japan in World War II.
Eugene Rabinowitch was a Russian-born American biophysicist who is known for his work in photosynthesis and nuclear energy. He was a co-author of the Franck Report and a co-founder in 1945 of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, a global security and public policy magazine, which he edited until his death.
Minutes to Midnight is the fourth track on the 1984 album Red Sails in the Sunset by Australian music group Midnight Oil. The song was written by band members Peter Garrett and Jim Moginie.
A salted bomb is a nuclear weapon designed to function as a radiological weapon by producing larger quantities of radioactive fallout than unsalted nuclear arms. This fallout can render a large area uninhabitable. The term is derived both from the means of their manufacture, which involves the incorporation of additional elements to a standard atomic weapon, and from the expression "to salt the earth", meaning to render an area uninhabitable for generations. The idea originated with Hungarian-American physicist Leo Szilard, in February 1950. His intent was not to propose that such a weapon be built, but to show that nuclear weapon technology would soon reach the point where it could end human life on Earth.
A nuclear holocaust, also known as a nuclear apocalypse, nuclear annihilation, nuclear armageddon, or atomic holocaust, is a theoretical scenario where the mass detonation of nuclear weapons causes widespread destruction and radioactive fallout. Such a scenario envisages large parts of the Earth becoming uninhabitable due to the effects of nuclear warfare, potentially causing the collapse of civilization, the extinction of humanity, and/or the termination of most biological life on Earth.
Hans Møller Kristensen is director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists. He writes about nuclear weapons policy there; he is coauthor of the Nuclear Notebook column in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, and the World Nuclear Forces appendix in Stockholm International Peace Research Institute's annual SIPRI Yearbook.
M. V. Ramana is professor and Simons Chair in Disarmament, Global and Human Security at the University of British Columbia, and Director of the Liu Institute for Global Issues, at the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs. A physicist by training, he previously worked at the Nuclear Futures Laboratory and the Program on Science and Global Security, both at Princeton University. Ramana is a member of the International Panel on Fissile Materials, the Canadian Pugwash Group, the International Nuclear Risk Assessment Group, and the team that produces the annual World Nuclear Industry Status Report.
Ward Hayes Wilson is an American researcher who is the executive director of RealistRevolt, a grassroots advocacy organization in the Chicago area. He lives and works in Glenview, Illinois.
David William Titley is a professor of meteorology at Pennsylvania State University and the founding director of their Center for Solutions to Weather and Climate Risk. He was also NOAA's chief operating officer from 2012 to 2013. Before assuming these positions, he was a rear admiral in, and the chief oceanographer of, the U.S. Navy, in which he served for 32 years. He is a fellow of the American Meteorological Society.
The renovation of the nuclear weapon arsenal of the United States is the modernization, refurbishment and rebuilding of the nuclear arsenal of the United States of America.
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