![]() Martyl Langsdorf, a celebrated landscape artist, was married to physicist Alexander Langsdorf, who worked on the Manhattan Project. Luckily, the Chicago-based scientists in charge didn’t have to look far for a graphic designer. “They wanted people to understand that these weapons could literally end civilisation-and even, perhaps, the human species.” “The editors were afraid that the nuclear weapons they had helped create were not fully understood by either politicians or the public,” says Mecklin. The clock came about simply because the association’s editors-most of whom had been scientists working on the Manhattan nuclear project during World War II-wanted a striking cover for the first issue of the new magazine they were launching. Gabel trace the history of the clock, which they argue is “the most powerful piece of informational design of the 20th century.” In their unnervingly entertaining new book, The Doomsday Clock at 75, Robert K. “But they also realised there would be others.” Powerful wake-up call The early atomic scientists “knew that nuclear weapons were the first human creation that could literally end civilisation,” Mecklin says. In recent years, the committee has even added the rapid spread of disinformation to its growing list of existential threats to humanity. “Climate change, biological threats, artificial intelligence-there are lots of emerging issues that could threaten the planet,” says Mecklin. Now, the Bulletin’s Science and Security Board considers more than just the nuclear threat when deciding where to set the clock’s hands each year. When the clock was first depicted on the June 1947 issue-set at seven minutes to midnight-the editors were concerned solely with the likelihood that atomic bombs would soon rain down on the world’s capitals. ![]() That’s a pretty grim way to celebrate your 75th birthday, but as Bulletin editor John Mecklin observes, the ingredients for a possible doomsday scenario are more numerous than ever. The clock is reset every January, and not even at the height of the Cold War, when Americans were digging fallout shelters and kids were being told to “duck and cover” under their school desks in case of atomic attack, were the clock’s hands this far into the final countdown. The iconic clock has been the symbol of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientistsever since, and as the clock turns 75, the group’s experts say we’re closer than ever to that dreadful wakeup call. ![]() In 1947, a group of scientists who had worked on the first nuclear weapons dreamed up the Doomsday Clock as a metaphor warning just how close humanity was to destroying itself. put it another way: “It's the End of the World as We Know It.” That’s the interval on the symbolic Doomsday Clock between the present moment and “planetary catastrophe.” The alternative rock band R.E.M. Follow us on Twitter (opens in new tab) or Facebook.Regardless of what your watch tells you, it’s 100 seconds to midnight. "That's really significant for a lot of real-world applications, where our laser looks a lot more like what you would take out into the field."įollow Elizabeth Howell on Twitter (opens in new tab). "The amazing thing is that we demonstrated similar performance as the JILA group despite the fact that we're using an orders of magnitude worse laser," Kolkowitz said. The other study, led by a research institute in Colorado called JILA (formerly known as the Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics), set the world record overall for the most precise frequency difference. SpaceX's Amazing Falcon Heavy Triple Rocket LandingĬoincidentally, an unrelated study in the same issue of Nature published a frequency difference between the top and bottom of a dispersed cloud of atoms about 10 times better than the UW–Madison group. Ultraprecise Atomic Clock Network on the Hunt for Dark Matter ![]() SpaceX's Falcon Heavy: Latest News, Images and Video Ultimately, the researchers detected a difference in the ticking rate between two atomic clocks "that would correspond to them disagreeing with each other by only one second every 300 billion years - a measurement of precision timekeeping that sets a world record for two spatially separated clocks," the university said. ![]() The team ran the experiment over 1,000 times to measure the difference, finding more precision in that measurement over time. The group then attempted to measure differences between clocks precisely, because two groups of atoms in slightly different environments will "tick" at different rates due to changes in magnetic fields or gravity. "But because the clocks are in the same environment and experience the exact same laser light, the effect of the laser drops out completely." "Normally, our laser would limit the performance of these clocks," Kolkowitz said. NASA's Deep Space Atomic Clock, seen here in an artist's illustration, will test out new technology to for deep-space navigation. ![]()
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