The ''Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists'' is a

nonprofit organization A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...

concerning science and global security issues resulting from accelerating technological advances that have negative consequences for humanity. The ''Bulletin'' publishes content at both a free-access website and a bi-monthly, nontechnical

academic journal An academic journal or scholarly journal is a periodical publication in which scholarship relating to a particular academic discipline is published. Academic journals serve as permanent and transparent forums for the presentation, scrutiny, and ...

. The organization has been publishing continuously since 1945, when it was founded by former

Manhattan Project The Manhattan Project was a research and development undertaking during World War II that produced the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States with the support of the United Kingdom and Canada. From 1942 to 1946, the project w ...

scientists as the ''Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists of Chicago'' immediately following the

atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki The United States detonated two atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 and 9 August 1945, respectively. The two bombings killed between 129,000 and 226,000 people, most of whom were civilians, and remain the onl ...

. The organization is also the keeper of the symbolic

Doomsday Clock The Doomsday Clock is a symbol that represents the likelihood of a man-made global catastrophe, in the opinion of the members of the ''Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists''. Maintained since 1947, the clock is a metaphor for threats to humanity ...

, the time of which is announced each January.

Background

One of the driving forces behind the creation of the ''Bulletin'' was the amount of public interest surrounding atomic energy and rapid technological change at the dawn of the Atomic Age. In 1945 the public interest in

atomic warfare Nuclear warfare, also known as atomic warfare, is a theoretical military conflict or prepared political strategy that deploys nuclear weaponry. Nuclear weapons are weapons of mass destruction; in contrast to conventional warfare, nuclear wa ...

and

weaponry A weapon, arm or armament is any implement or device that can be used to deter, threaten, inflict physical damage, harm, or kill. Weapons are used to increase the efficacy and efficiency of activities such as hunting, crime, law enforcement, s ...

inspired contributors to the ''Bulletin'' to attempt to inform those interested about the dangers of the nuclear arms race they knew was coming and about the destruction that atomic war could bring about. To convey the particular peril posed by nuclear weapons, the ''Bulletin'' devised the

in 1947, with an original setting of seven minutes to midnight. The minute hand of the Clock first moved closer to midnight in response to changing world events in 1949, following the first

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

nuclear test. The Clock has been set forward and back over the years as circumstances have changed; it is set at 100 seconds to midnight. The Doomsday Clock is used to represent threats to humanity from a variety of sources: nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction, climate change, and disruptive technologies. In 2015, the ''Bulletin'' unveiled its Doomsday Dashboard, an interactive infographic that illustrates some of the data the ''Bulletin'' Science and Security Board takes into account when deciding the time of the Clock each year. As of August 2018, the ''Bulletin'' Board of Sponsors boasts 14 Nobel Laureates In the 1950s, the ''Bulletin'' was involved in the formation of the

Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs The Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs is an international organization that brings together scholars and public figures to work toward reducing the danger of armed conflict and to seek solutions to global security threats. It was f ...

, annual conferences of scientists concerned about nuclear proliferation, and, more broadly, the role of science in modern society.

History

Founders and contributors

The founder and first editor of the ''Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists'' was

biophysicist Biophysics is an interdisciplinary science that applies approaches and methods traditionally used in physics to study biological phenomena. Biophysics covers all scales of biological organization, from molecular to organismic and populations. Bi ...

Eugene Rabinowitch Eugene Rabinowitch (1901–1973) was a Russian-born American biophysicist who is known for his work in photosynthesis and nuclear energy. He was a co-author of the Franck Report and a co-founder in 1945 of the '' Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists ...

(1901–1973). He founded the magazine with physicist Hyman Goldsmith. Rabinowitch was a professor of botany and biophysics at the

University of Illinois The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Uni ...

and was also a founding member of the Continuing Committee for the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs. In addition to Rabinowitch and Goldsmith, contributors have included:

Morton Grodzins Morton M. Grodzins (11 August 1917 – 7 March 1964) was a professor of political science at the University of Chicago, as well as a dean of the school and an editor at Chicago University Press. He is known for coining the term " tipping point" ...

Hans Bethe Hans Albrecht Bethe (; July 2, 1906 – March 6, 2005) was a German-American theoretical physicist who made major contributions to nuclear physics, astrophysics, quantum electrodynamics, and solid-state physics, and who won the 1967 Nobel ...

, Anatoli Blagonravov,

Max Born Max Born (; 11 December 1882 – 5 January 1970) was a German physicist and mathematician who was instrumental in the development of quantum mechanics. He also made contributions to solid-state physics and optics and supervised the work of a ...

Harrison Brown Harrison Scott Brown (September 26, 1917 – December 8, 1986) was an American nuclear chemist and geochemist. He was a political activist, who lectured and wrote on the issues of arms limitation, natural resources and world hunger. During Wo ...

Stuart Chase Stuart Chase (March 8, 1888 – November 16, 1985) was an American economist, social theorist, and writer. His writings covered topics as diverse as general semantics and physical economy. His thought was shaped by Henry George, by economic philos ...

Brock Chisholm George Brock Chisholm (18 May 1896 – 4 February 1971) was a Canadian psychiatrist, medical practitioner, World War I veteran, and the first director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO). He was the 13th Canadian Surgeon General and ...

E.U. Condon The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been d ...

Albert Einstein Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theor ...

E.K. Fedorov EK or Ek may refer to: Businesses and organizations * Ek Commando Knife Co., US knife manufacturer * Eastern Kentucky Railway (with reporting mark EK), now-defunct railway * Eastman Kodak (formerly with NYSE ticker symbol EK), US-based photogra ...

Bernard T. Feld Bernard Taub Feld (December 21, 1919 – February 19, 1993) was a professor of physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He helped develop the atomic bomb, and later led an international movement among scientists to banish nuclear wea ...

James Franck James Franck (; 26 August 1882 – 21 May 1964) was a German physicist who won the 1925 Nobel Prize for Physics with Gustav Hertz "for their discovery of the laws governing the impact of an electron upon an atom". He completed his doctorate i ...

, Ralph E. Lapp,

Richard S. Leghorn Richard is a male given name. It originates, via Old French, from Old Frankish and is a compound of the words descending from Proto-Germanic ''*rīk-'' 'ruler, leader, king' and ''*hardu-'' 'strong, brave, hardy', and it therefore means 'stron ...

J. Robert Oppenheimer J. Robert Oppenheimer (; April 22, 1904 – February 18, 1967) was an American theoretical physicist. A professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley, Oppenheimer was the wartime head of the Los Alamos Laboratory and is oft ...

Lord Boyd Orr John Boyd Orr, 1st Baron Boyd-Orr, (23 September 1880 – 25 June 1971), styled Sir John Boyd Orr from 1935 to 1949, was a Scottish teacher, medical doctor, biologist, nutritional physiologist, politician, businessman and farmer who was awarde ...

Michael Polanyi Michael Polanyi (; hu, Polányi Mihály; 11 March 1891 – 22 February 1976) was a Hungarian-British polymath, who made important theoretical contributions to physical chemistry, economics, and philosophy. He argued that positivism supplies ...

, Louis Ridenour,

Bertrand Russell Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) was a British mathematician, philosopher, logician, and public intellectual. He had a considerable influence on mathematics, logic, set theory, linguistics, a ...

Nikolay Semyonov Nikolay Nikolayevich Semyonov (or Semënov), (russian: Никола́й Никола́евич Семёнов; – 25 September 1986) (often referred to in English as Semenoff, Semenov, Semionov, or Semyonova) was a Soviet physicist and chem ...

Leó Szilárd Leo Szilard (; hu, Szilárd Leó, pronounced ; born Leó Spitz; February 11, 1898 – May 30, 1964) was a Hungarian-German-American physicist and inventor. He conceived the nuclear chain reaction in 1933, patented the idea of a nuclear ...

Edward Teller Edward Teller ( hu, Teller Ede; January 15, 1908 – September 9, 2003) was a Hungarian-American theoretical physicist who is known colloquially as "the father of the hydrogen bomb" (see the Teller–Ulam design), although he did not care for ...

A.V. Topchiev Av (also Menachem Av, ; from Akkadian ''ʾAbū'' "father") is the eleventh month of the civil year and the fifth month of the ecclesiastical year on the Hebrew calendar. The name comes from Araḫ Abu, "month of Abu", from the Babylonian calenda ...

Harold C. Urey Harold Clayton Urey ( ; April 29, 1893 – January 5, 1981) was an American physical chemist whose pioneering work on isotopes earned him the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1934 for the discovery of deuterium. He played a significant role in the ...

, Paul Weiss,

James L. Tuck James Leslie Tuck OBE, (9 January 1910 – 15 December 1980) was a British physicist. He was born in Manchester, England, and educated at the Victoria University of Manchester. Because of his involvement with the Manhattan Project, he was unable ...

, among many others. ''The Atomic Age'', pp. xv–xviii In 1949, the Educational Foundation for Nuclear Science incorporated as a not-for-profit

501(c)(3) A 501(c)(3) organization is a United States corporation, trust, unincorporated association or other type of organization exempt from federal income tax under section 501(c)(3) of Title 26 of the United States Code. It is one of the 29 types of ...

organization to serve as the parent organization and fundraising mechanism of the ''Bulletin''. In 2003, the Board of Directors voted to change the foundation's name to Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

Purpose

The ''Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists'' began as an emergency action undertaken by scientists who saw urgent need for an immediate educational program about atomic weapons. The Atomic Age, p. vii The intention was to educate fellow scientists about the relationship between their world of science and the world of national and international politics. A second was to help the American people understand what nuclear energy and its possible applications to war meant. The ''Bulletin'' contributors believed the atom bomb would only be the first of many dangers. The aim of the ''Bulletin'' was to carry out the long, sustained effort of educating people about the realities of the scientific age. The ''Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists'' seeks to educate citizens, policy makers, scientists, and journalists by providing non-technical, scientifically sound and policy-relevant information about nuclear weapons, climate change, and other global security issues. The ''Bulletin'' also serves as a reliable, high-quality global forum for diverse international opinions on the best means of reducing reliance on nuclear weapons. Since its inception in 1945, the ''Bulletin'' has sought to educate the American public of the continual danger posed by nuclear weapons and other global dangers, most recently adding climate change and disruptive technologies in the life sciences to the list of concerns. The ''Bulletin'' leadership consists of three boards, and it wa
announced
on October 25, 2018 that California Governor

Jerry Brown Edmund Gerald Brown Jr. (born April 7, 1938) is an American lawyer, author, and politician who served as the 34th and 39th governor of California from 1975 to 1983 and 2011 to 2019. A member of the Democratic Party, he was elected Secretary of S ...

is joining the organization as executive chair.

Board of Sponsors

The ''Bulletin'''s Board of Sponsors is composed of accomplished science and security leaders from around the world. Members of the Board of Sponsors weigh in on critical issues, including the setting of the organization's

. As of October 2018, the ''Bulletin'''s Board of Sponsors lists 14 Nobel Laureates.

Science and Security Board

The ''Bulletin'' Science and Security Board is composed of globally-recognized leaders who have specific areas of expertise in nuclear risk, climate change, and disruptive technologies. Members of the Science and Security Board provide the ''Bulletin'' organization and editorial staff with perspectives on trends and issues in their respective fields. Among their duties is the annual setting of the Doomsday Clock, with input from the Board of Sponsors.

Doomsday Clock

Once the Soviet Union developed atomic weapons, the concern surrounding the world's destruction was a great fear of the scientists working on the ''Bulletin.'' The proximity of nuclear devastation was a popular interest and, as a result, ''Bulletin'' co-editor Hyman Goldsmith asked landscape artist

Martyl Langsdorf Martyl Suzanne Schweig Langsdorf (March 16, 1917 – March 26, 2013) was an American artist who created the Doomsday Clock image for the June 1947 cover of the ''Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists''.Yardley, William (April 10, 2013)Martyl Langsdor ...

to create a cover for the June 1947 magazine. Langsdorf, who was married to Manhattan Project physicist Alexander Langsdorf, first considered using the symbol for uranium but then realized that a clock would better convey "a sense of urgency." The resultant Doomsday Clock, which only has bullets labeling the numbers in the upper left hand corner, has been featured on the cover of the ''Bulletin'' many times since its creation. The proximity of the minute hand to midnight has been the ''Bulletin'' leadership's way of warning the public about manmade threats to humanity; the Clock is a metaphor, not a prediction. When it began in 1947, the minute hand was 7 minutes to midnight; in 1953, when the Soviet Union continued to test more and more nuclear devices, it was 2 minutes to midnight. This proximity to midnight of the Doomsday Clock during the early 1950s shows the concern that the ''Bulletin'' contributors had about the Soviet Union and the nuclear arms race. The warnings of the ''Bulletin'' continued throughout the 1950s and 1960s, and the focus of the efforts shifted slightly from warning about the dangers of nuclear war to the necessity of disarmament. In 2007, the leadership began taking

anthropogenic climate change In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to ...

into account in its Clock discussions. Throughout the history of the Doomsday Clock, it has moved closer to midnight, and farther away, depending upon the status of the world at that time. The Doomsday Clock has been getting closer to midnight since 1991, when it was set to 17 minutes to midnight after the superpowers reached agreement on a nuclear arms reductions. the Doomsday Clock stands at 100 seconds to midnight. It is the closest approach to midnight, exceeding that of 1953 and 2018. The decision to move the hand of the Clock is made by the ''Bulletin'' Science and Security Board, which meets in person twice a year, with subcommittees meeting more often; the announcement of the decision is made each January. Each November, just prior to the Science and Security Board's fall discussion, the ''Bulletin'' hosts an annual dinner and meeting in Chicago; both events are open to the public. Reflecting international events dangerous to humankind, the Clock's hand has been adjusted 20 times since its inception in 1947, when it was initially set to seven minutes to midnight (11:53pm).

Present

In more recent years, articles of the ''Bulletin'' have focused on many topics, ranging from the dangers of radiation following the

Chernobyl disaster The Chernobyl disaster was a nuclear accident that occurred on 26 April 1986 at the No. 4 reactor in the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, near the city of Pripyat in the north of the Ukrainian SSR in the Soviet Union. It is one of only two n ...

to the impact of the fall of the Soviet Union. In the wake of the Soviet Union's collapse, other articles have focused on issues such as military spending and the continued funding of missile defense systems designed to thwart nuclear attacks but that in reality may not work. With the ever-growing number of nuclear power plants and the demand for nuclear energy as a solution to climate change, the publication has focused a great deal on the costs and problems surrounding nuclear energy. In 2015, the ''Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists'' unveiled the Nuclear Fuel Cost Calculator. Although the arms race and the Cold War, which were focuses of the ''Bulletin'' for many of the earlier years, are no longer occurring, the publication still focuses on the nuclear dangers that exist in the world today. As more countries such as Pakistan and India have tested nuclear weapons, the ''Bulletin'' has focused on the dangers posed by these countries. The ''Bulletin'' bi-monthly "Nuclear Notebook" is written by

Federation of American Scientists The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) is an American nonprofit global policy think tank with the stated intent of using science and scientific analysis to attempt to make the world more secure. FAS was founded in 1946 by scientists who w ...

experts Hans Kristensen and Matt Korda and tracks the number of nuclear weapons in the world by country. Robert "Stan" Norris, who was a founding co-author of the Nuclear Notebook, retired from the Notebook in 2018, although he is still a senior fellow at FAS. In 2015, the ''Bulletin'' added the Nuclear Notebook Interactive, an infographic that illustrates which countries have nuclear weapons and when they got them, and how many nuclear warheads they have in any given year. All nine nuclear-armed states are featured: the United States, Russia, China, India, Pakistan, France, Britain, Israel, and North Korea. In the 21st Century, articles have covered threats to humanity from a variety of sources. The potential dangers of nuclear weapons and energy, military and political developments in the Post-Cold War world, political unrest in the Middle East (and its attendant potential for proliferation risks of nuclear and chemical weapons), myriad negative

consequences of climate change The effects of climate change impact the physical environment, ecosystems and human societies. The environmental effects of climate change are broad and far-reaching. They affect the water cycle, oceans, sea and land ice (glaciers), sea ...

, cyber warfare, and changes wrought by emerging technologies have all been examined in the ''Bulletin'' in the most recent years. Examples include North Korea, Middle East, Syria, Fukushima, Cybersecurity, and Climate Change. In January 2015, longtime Executive Director and Publisher

Kennette Benedict Kennette Benedict is a University of Chicago lecturer and Senior Fellow in its Energy Policy Institute. From 2005–2015, she was Executive Director and Publisher of the ''Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists'', where she also writes monthly column Be ...

retired.

Rachel Bronson Rachel () was a Biblical figure, the favorite of Jacob's two wives, and the mother of Joseph and Benjamin, two of the twelve progenitors of the tribes of Israel. Rachel's father was Laban. Her older sister was Leah, Jacob's first wife. Her ...

took over as president and CEO of the organization. The editor of the ''Bulletin'' is John Mecklin.

Next Generation Initiative

As part of the ''Bulletin'' work to engage new audiences in issues related to nuclear threats, climate change, artificial intelligence, and biological threats, the publication launched its Next Generation Initiative to encourage young and emerging scholars to engage on these issues. Programs under the initiative have included writing workshops for graduate and undergraduate students, as well as the Voices of Tomorrow feature, which publishes articles and multimedia projects from emerging scholars and experts working in the ''Bulletin'' interest areas. Two Voices of Tomorrow authors, Emma Bastin and Yangyang Cheng, had their work republished in ''

Teen Vogue ''Teen Vogue'' is an American online publication, formerly in print, launched in January 2003, as a sister publication to ''Vogue'', targeted at teenagers. Like ''Vogue'', it included stories about fashion and celebrities. Since 2015, following ...

.'' The capstone of the initiative is the Leonard M. Rieser Award, selected each December by the ''Bulletin''s editorial team from among the year's Voices of Tomorrow submissions. The recipient of the Rieser Award receives $1,000 and a subscription to the ''Bulletin''s bi-monthly magazine. In 2018, Erin Connolly and Kate Hewitt shared the award for their article "American students aren't taught nuclear weapons policy in school. Here's how to fix that problem." Recent recipients include Yangyang Cheng, Nikita Perumal and Moritz Kütt.

Online editions

The ''Bulletin'' has had a public-access website available online for some years, with a subscription magazine that comes out 6 times per year and is currently published by Taylor & Francis Online. An e-newsletter is also available without charge by signing up via the ''Bulletin'' website. Backfiles of the subscription magazine are available in the John A. Simpson Collection. The backfile from the first (1945) issue through the November 1998 issue of the ''Bulletin'' has also been made available free of charge via Google Books. November/December 2008 was the last print edition of the ''Bulletin'', which became all-digital only that year.

SAGE Publications SAGE Publishing, formerly SAGE Publications, is an American independent publishing company founded in 1965 in New York by Sara Miller McCune and now based in Newbury Park, California. It publishes more than 1,000 journals, more than 800 books ...

began publishing the ''Bulletin'' subscription magazine in September 2010;

Taylor & Francis Taylor & Francis Group is an international company originating in England that publishes books and academic journals. Its parts include Taylor & Francis, Routledge, F1000 Research or Dovepress. It is a division of Informa plc, a United Ki ...

took over from Sage in January 2016.

Indexing

The journal is indexed in the ''

Journal Citation Reports ''Journal Citation Reports'' (''JCR'') is an annual publicationby Clarivate Analytics (previously the intellectual property of Thomson Reuters). It has been integrated with the Web of Science and is accessed from the Web of Science-Core Colle ...

'', which states that the journal has a 2016

impact factor The impact factor (IF) or journal impact factor (JIF) of an academic journal is a scientometric index calculated by Clarivate that reflects the yearly mean number of citations of articles published in the last two years in a given journal, as ...

of 0.452, ranking it 71st out of 83 journals in the category "International Relations" and 32nd out of 41 journals in the category "Social Issues".

Awards

* Finalist for 2009 Lumity Technology Leadership Award * 2007

National Magazine Award The National Magazine Awards, also known as the Ellie Awards, honor print and digital publications that consistently demonstrate superior execution of editorial objectives, innovative techniques, noteworthy enterprise and imaginative design. Or ...

for General Excellence under 100,000 circulation sponsored by the

American Society of Magazine Editors The American Society of Magazine Editors (ASME) is an industry trade group for magazine journalists and editors of magazines published in the United States. ASME includes the editorial leaders of most major consumer magazine in print and digital e ...

with the

Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism The Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism is located in Pulitzer Hall on the university's Morningside Heights campus in New York City. Founded in 1912 by Joseph Pulitzer, Columbia Journalism School is one of the oldest journalism ...

* 2006 Silver Excel Award for Magazine Excellence, 20,000 or Fewer for the July/August, September/October, and November/December 2005 issues sponsored by the Society of National Publications * 2002 Nuclear-Free Future Award * 1992 Olive Branch Award for articles by

David Albright David Albright, M.Sc., is an American physicist and a weapons expert who is the founder of the non-governmental Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), its current president, and author of several books on proliferation of atom ...

and Mark Hibbs from the N.Y.U. Center for War, Peace and the News Media * 1990 Olive Branch Award from the N.Y.U. Center for War, Peace and the News Media * 1989 Olive Branch Award from the N.Y.U. Center for War, Peace and the News Media * 1988 Olive Branch Award from the N.Y.U. Center for War, Peace and the News Media * 1987 Olive Branch Award from the N.Y.U. Center for War, Peace and the News Media * 1987

* 1983 Forum Award for the ''Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists'' and Ruth Adams, editor sponsored by the Forum on Physics and Society

American Physical Society The American Physical Society (APS) is a not-for-profit membership organization of professionals in physics and related disciplines, comprising nearly fifty divisions, sections, and other units. Its mission is the advancement and diffusion of k ...

Notes and references

The records of the ''Bulletin'' are kept at the Special Collections Research Center of the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

Library.

External links

*
The John A. Simpson Archive
at

Digitized Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
on

Google Books Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google Inc. that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bulletin Of The Atomic Scientists Political science journals Physics journals Intelligence websites Nuclear weapons policy Anti–nuclear weapons movement Publications established in 1945 Taylor & Francis academic journals Science advocacy organizations Bimonthly journals 1945 establishments in the United States Existential risk organizations