Mikado14 wrote:The doomsday clock is a socio-political creation from post WWII. It setting is strictly conjecture, by someone and I don't know who/whom, ...
Mikado
The timepiece hangs at the University of Chicago and has been reset 18 times in the last 60 years to reflect a changing sense of security in a nuclear world. (The eighteenth time just this past Wednesday).
In 1945, a group of atomic scientists (Manhattan Project) founded the newsletter Bulletin of Atomic Scientists to promote their concerns about the danger of nuclear technology to politicians and the public.
The newsletter eventually evolved into a magazine that is still in circulation and the group is currently based out of Chicago. The scientists are all important authorities on nuclear technology and the world has relied on the Doomsday Clock to gauge the status of nuclear threat.
The people behind the Bulletin include some of the most prominent scientists and professors in the world. For the most recent change of the minute hand, for example, the Bulletin's board of directors consulted with its board of sponsors, which is composed of 18 Nobel Prize laureates, including Stephen Hawking, who took part in the press release Wed the 17th.
They not only look at nuclear threat, but also global climate changes and environmental degradation.
It IS a literal clock, but also figurative clock, and has been featured in many novels.
I think Kevin has heard of it, and maybe was being philosophical. At least that's my opinion.
LBL