Doomsday Clock

Also called the Bulletin clock

First cover, 1947; the setting moves

Doomsday Clock meaning

The Doomsday Clock is a cover symbol of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, drawn in 1947 by Martyl Langsdorf. Midnight stands for civilization-ending catastrophe. The hands move when the Bulletin’s board changes its judgment. On 27 January 2026 the setting was 85 seconds to midnight.

A clock face used as a judgment. Midnight is the catastrophe. The hands are a decision.

The name. Doomsday is the Bulletin’s word, not a liturgical hour. The Clock is the cover device Martyl Langsdorf drew in 1947. People drop the Bulletin and keep the clock, which makes a committee’s metaphor look like a measurement.

Download drawing

Where it comes from

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists began in 1945, founded by scientists who had worked on the Manhattan Project and wanted a public voice about the weapons they had helped make. In 1947 the artist Martyl Langsdorf, married to the physicist Alexander Langsdorf, designed the cover. She used a clock. The first setting was seven minutes to midnight, a composition chosen because it looked urgent, not because a formula had produced the number seven. Later settings were argued by the Bulletin’s Science and Security Board. The clock has moved closer and farther as the board’s view of nuclear risk, and later of climate, biological threats, and disruptive technology, has changed. It is not an instrument. There is no sensor in midnight. There is a group of people and a metaphor they refuse to retire. On 28 January 2025 the board set the clock at 89 seconds to midnight. On 27 January 2026 it set the clock at 85 seconds, four seconds closer, and called that the nearest setting so far. The Bulletin’s statement of 27 January 2026 is the source for the later number. Any page that quotes a different number without a date is quoting a different meeting. The lexicon draws a clock face near midnight. It does not copy the Bulletin’s master artwork.

Modern

A metaphor with a committee

The power of the mark is that a clock seems to measure. The honesty of the mark is that the Bulletin keeps saying who moved the hands and why. If you detach the face from the statement, you have a picture of dread and no argument. The argument is the content. Nuclear weapons were the original subject. The later addition of other risks is a decision you can accept or reject, but it is dated in the Bulletin’s own record. It is not a silent change in the drawing.

A hard history

The clock is about the end of a world in which people still set clocks. It began as a warning from scientists who had built a bomb and did not trust the peace to hold. Softening it into a general feeling of anxiety loses the weapon. The hands are a judgment, and the judgment has been, for most of the clock’s life, that the weapons are the nearer danger.

In popular culture

comic · 1986–87

Watchmen

The clock recurs through the series; issue 1's headline has it at 11:55 and each issue edges toward midnight.

The clock recurs through the series; issue 1's headline has it at 11:55 and each issue edges toward midnight, a later reading.

Source

music · 1984

Iron Maiden, '2 Minutes to Midnight'

Title and lyric take the clock's closest Cold War setting; the Bulletin itself keeps a Doomsday Clock playlist.

Title and lyric take the clock's closest Cold War setting; the Bulletin itself keeps a Doomsday Clock playlist, a later reading.

Source

tv · 2017

Doctor Who, 'The Pyramid at the End of the World'

The Monks set every clock on Earth to three minutes to midnight; it runs backwards once disaster is averted.

The Monks set every clock on Earth to three minutes to midnight; it runs backwards once disaster is averted, a later reading.

Source

music · 1985

Sting, 'Russians'

The video opens on an ominous clock in the Doomsday manner.

The video opens on an ominous clock in the Doomsday manner, which is a later reading of the mark.

Source

film · 1964

Dr. Strangelove

Britannica suggests the clock may have inspired the film's doomsday machine.

Britannica suggests the clock may have inspired the film's doomsday machine, which is a later reading of the mark.

Source

Worth knowing

Martyl Langsdorf set the first clock at seven to midnight because 'it looked good to my eye'; she had considered a uranium symbol instead. Source
Michael Bierut redrew the clock in 2007, adding the curved rim. Source

Questions

What does the Doomsday Clock mean?

Where does the Doomsday Clock come from?

Why does Watchmen use Doomsday Clock?

The clock recurs through the series; issue 1's headline has it at 11:55 and each issue edges toward midnight. The clock recurs through the series; issue 1's headline has it at 11:55 and each issue edges toward midnight, a later reading.

Why does Doctor Who, 'The Pyramid at the End of the World' use Doomsday Clock?

The Monks set every clock on Earth to three minutes to midnight; it runs backwards once disaster is averted. The Monks set every clock on Earth to three minutes to midnight; it runs backwards once disaster is averted, a later reading.

Near this

Sources

Named when the entry depends on a text, a date, or a standard. Catalog numbers are not invented.

Your margin

Private. It stays in this browser and never joins the canon.

symbol.wiki, edited as Sigilla. Last reviewed 20 October 2026. A reading of public tradition, not a ruling.