The Doomsday Clock

“For nearly 55 years, the Bulletin [of the Atomic Scientists] clock (a.k.a. the ‘Doomsday Clock’) has been the world’s most recognizable symbol of nuclear danger. The first representation of the clock was produced in 1947, when artist Martyl Langsdorf, the wife of a physicist who worked on the Manhattan Project, was asked by magazine co-founder Hyman Goldsmith to design a cover for the June issue.... This simple design captured readers’ imaginations, evoking both the imagery of apocalypse (midnight) and the contemporary idiom of military attack—the countdown to zero hour.... The idea of moving the minute hand came later, in 1949, as a way to dramatize the magazine’s response to world events.”

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