Why is it so prominent?

Though technology makes possible amazing and wonderful things, it can also pose risks. In 1947 the biggest of those was nuclear war. Since then the bulletin has added others, including climate change, bioterrorism, artificial intelligence and the damage done by mis- and disinformation.

Over the years the clock has been referenced by the White House, the Kremlin and the leadership of many other nations. Robert Oppenheimer and Albert Einstein were on the bulletin’s Board of Sponsors, and John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon wrote pieces for the magazine.

Though not everyone agrees with the clock’s settings, it is generally respected for the questions it asks and for its science- based stance.

Does it always go forward?

The setting of the clock has jumped forward and back over the past 75 years, depending on world events.

The furthest from midnight it has ever been was in 1991, when it was set at 17 minutes to midnight after the U. S. and the Soviet Union signed the first Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, followed by the dissolution of the USSR.

“People would go to sleep every night worried about were they going to wake up,“said Daniel Holz, a professor of physics at the University of Chicago and co- chair of the Bulletin’s Science and Security Board. “That threat was definitely reduced at the end of the Cold War.”

The most pessimistic years have been 2021 and 2022, when it was set at 100 seconds to midnight, in part because of global nuclear and political tensions, COVID- 19, climate change and the threat of biological weapons.

The first clock, announced in 1947, was set at 7 minutes to midnight.