Unwinding Doomsday’s Clock

Unwinding Doomsday’s Clock

Share to Linkedin It's the summer of 1969, but it may as well be today. A newly-formed womens' rights group known as the Redstockings storms the New York State legislature to protest its handling of abortion laws. Armed members of the Black Panther Party take to the streets across America, protecting black citizens from police brutality. Two nuclear powers, China and the Soviet Union, battle over a disputed border in Manchuria. Hovering high above, three Apollo 11 astronauts are cruising at 2, 000 miles per hour towards the moon. This first sojourn of humans to the chalky, white orb is simultaneously a rallying cry for the great things the species is capable of doing, and a reminder of America's ability to launch nuclear weapons anywhere in the world. The Doomsday Clock, created by Albert Einstein and others who helped invent the nuclear bomb, is set to 10 minutes till midnight. If the clock strikes 12, it's unlikely anyone will know, as the world will have blinked out of existence in a nuclear flash. As the spindly-legged Eagle moon-lander begins its 70-mile descent to the moon's surface, a restless 31-year old nuclear physicist named Robert Socolow is just one of 500