Lewis Carol once noted that a stopped clock was better than one which was five minutes fast because at least, he reasoned, the stopped clock would tell the right time twice a day whereas the one which was five minutes fast would never be right…there is a clock that is held in the university of Chicago that has been stopped for some time now, the doomsday clock, which is meant to be a metaphorical image of how close mankind is to total nuclear fallout bringing with it the end of civilization as we know it but also, one might hope, bringing with it the end of a civilization obsessed with doing just that, that is bringing itself to an end…
The minute hand of this clock has lurked within the last quarter to midnight since its invention in 1947 (where it was set at 7 minutes to midnight), straying back and forward as scientists deem fit; being as close as 2 minutes to midnight in 1953 and as far as 17 minutes to midnight in 1991 (its furthest point from doom to date…).
The clock is, in short, supposed to be mankind’s gauge as to how close it is to the event of total nuclear war or fallout.

In October of 1961 the most powerful weapon ever constructed by man (at least the most powerful weapon known of by the general public…) was exploded over Novaya Zemlya, an island in Artic Sea. After the explosion, the fire ball (which reached from the ground level to 34,000 feet…) and the mushroom cloud (which reached over 60 kilometers into the sky…) had dissipated, a team was sent into the area to analyze their handiwork, they said :
“The ground surface of the island has been levelled, swept and licked so that it looks like a skating rink. The same goes for rocks. The snow has melted and their sides and edges are shiny. There is not a trace of unevenness in the ground… Everything in this area has been swept clean, scoured, melted and blown away."

This month, January 2007, the minute hand of the Doomsday clock was moved two minutes closer to midnight, it is now 5 minutes to midnight in case you wondered; five short minutes to nuclear Armageddon… So, in this case in particular, we will have to be agreed on the fact that a stopped clock really is a whole lot better than one that is five minutes fast…but what can we do..?...well, first we need to synchronize our watches just like they do in the movies and just like we always forget to do in real life, but, more importantly, we need to remember that if it weren’t for mankind…


Perhaps the most interesting thing about this Doomsday clock is the insight it can give us on our own perspective of the world. The Doomsday clock is not some kind of objective scientific measurement as it is often heralded to be but rather it is a mirror. It is a mirror of our own selves in the world, of mankind’s place or more accurately mankind’s role in the grand scheme of our earth, or put more accurately still, our role in the earth that we happen to inhabit.

The thing is, time is linear and a line always goes somewhere…

The very fact of there being a Doomsday clock spells trouble. As could be pointed out we will never actually see the so called midnight or the fallout, we won’t be able to look up at the clock and say, oh, whoops, its midnight on our metaphorical gauge of mankind’s complete destruction, we had better pull in the reigns boys before something really goes wrong… oh no, we just won’t have time, but that seems to be the point…

Hesq.