Doomsday Clock About To Be Pushed Forward

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070112/sc_nm/doomsday_clock_dc

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The keepers of the "Doomsday Clock" plan to move its hands forward next Wednesday to reflect what they call worsening nuclear and climate threats to the world.
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The symbolic clock, maintained by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, currently is set at seven minutes to midnight, with midnight marking global catastrophe.

The group did not say in which direction the hands would move. But in a news release previewing an event next Wednesday, they said the change was based on "worsening nuclear, climate threats" to the world.

"The major new step reflects growing concerns about a 'Second Nuclear Age' marked by grave threats, including: nuclear ambitions in
Iran and
North Korea, unsecured nuclear materials in Russia and elsewhere, the continuing 'launch-ready' status of 2,000 of the 25,000 nuclear weapons held by the U.S. and Russia, escalating terrorism, and new pressure from climate change for expanded civilian nuclear power that could increase proliferation risks," the release reads.

The clock was last pushed forward by two minutes to seven minutes to midnight in 2002 amid concerns about the proliferation of nuclear, biological and other weapons and the threat of terrorism.

When it was created by the magazine's staff in 1947, it was initially set at seven minutes to midnight and has moved 17 times since then.

It was as close as two minutes to midnight in 1953 following U.S. and Soviet hydrogen bomb tests, and as far away as 17 minutes to midnight in 1991 after the superpowers reached agreement on a nuclear arms reductions.

well isnt that nice

😕 There's a Doomsday clock?

Ya I am now taking bets on wether or not this will actually be the end iof the world. odds 20:1 says the earth still exists.

Originally posted by Cybershinobi
Ya I am now taking bets on wether or not this will actually be the end iof the world. odds 20:1 says the earth still exists.

you don't get what the doomsday clock is do you?

Not really but I am still taking all bets.

the clock is a rough measure of how close the world is to a war the would result in armaggedon

Actually I had already understood that part however a war that would result in armaggedon would actually need a major shift in the current political power.

Do they change it for daylight savings? ermm

Originally posted by Mišt
Do they change it for daylight savings? ermm

Originally posted by Strangelove
we can only hope ermm

what about leap years?

What if they forget? Would the world end? That would be pretty bad, then again it would be cool to watch.

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
what about leap years?

Originally posted by Strangelove
I'm sure they take that into account too

What about timezones?ermm

Originally posted by Mišt
What about timezones?ermm

damn this is complicated

the margin of error is so low and there are so many potential confounds

but on topic any move forward on the clock is a bad thing

Who cares....

It's not like the clock should be at it's worst now, the cold war had a lot more potential to destroy us all. So I'm guessing we're all relatively safe

Originally posted by Fishy
Who cares....

It's not like the clock should be at it's worst now, the cold war had a lot more potential to destroy us all. So I'm guessing we're all relatively safe

the u.s. and russia have had ballistic missiles locked and loaded on eachother the whole time and still do.

Originally posted by Mišt
What about timezones?ermm

seeming that high velocity missiles accelerates to "approximately Mach 3.5, launching three laser beam riding submunitions, the submunitions increases the likelihood of a successful hit on the target, been around with British Army since 97" (read up Starstreak on wikipedia, almost exact quotes if u doubt me).

At that mach velocity/speed, we don't need to care that much for time zones.

just look up "doomsday clock" in wiki if you dont know what it is. its been around since the late 40's. ultimately its just the scholarly version of the 'color terrormeter' we see today. wiki also shows an interesting graph on its history.

Originally posted by Oncewhite
seeming that high velocity missiles accelerates to "approximately Mach 3.5, launching three laser beam riding submunitions, the submunitions increases the likelihood of a successful hit on the target, been around with British Army since 97" (read up Starstreak on wikipedia, almost exact quotes if u doubt me).

At that mach velocity/speed, we don't need to care that much for time zones.

Thanks to disco, we overpopulated the planet, now that there are too many people on earth and not enough food to feed everyone, it's time for war, remember basic economics...but, they didn't teach us it was b/c of disco, that's my twist on it, but the sexual revolution was to populate the country more, too bad it went overboard, not only here but across the world. They've been saying for the past 10 years now that there are too many folks, overcrowding the planet. The joke was that the actual rotation of the earth is going to slow down (lol)...but it's really serious, not enough housing, not enough food, not enough money, and people, humans inherently want control and power, no matter if there are 5 of us, or 5 billion. It's not only the USA, and poor countries produce babies like daisies.

The air distance from Saudi Arabia to DC is 6790 miles 10900 km
The V-2, and this is OLD, as in the 1940s, speed is about 5,150mph, height/alt of 250 miles...so, again, I don't think time zone is a big issue, esp with light beams.

Now that I looked it up on wikipedia, I recall reading this before somewhere else. The best thing is that this clock has a unique way of time traveling...

"the clock...has subsequently been moved forwards or backwards at intervals", so we have control over moving this clock back, and this time, excuse the pun, going backwards in time is a good thing.