The Doomsday Clock is not a real clock in the traditional sense of the term. However, it does keep track of time in a very special way. The Doomsday Clock was established over a century ago to measure how far away we are to catastrophic disaster that would result in the end of the world.
In 1947 the Board of Directors of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists created the Doomsday Clock to tell how far away from midnight we are in the nuclear war situation. The board had set midnight as the "time" when the world would no longer exist because of the outbreak of nuclear war.
Over the course of the past sixty years, the time has been adjusted according to the current condition in the world. The time has ranged from 17 minutes before midnight in 1991 to only 2 minutes until midnight in 1953. As of January 2007, the time has remained 5 minutes before midnight. However, the time can be reviewed and adjusted on an as needed basis.
In the history of the Doomsday Clock, because the nuclear situation has stabilized, the board uses other factors to determine the time. In addition to the nuclear threat, other factors that go into the time include climate-changing technologies and "new developments in the life sciences and nanotechnology that could inflict irrevocable harm".
Since the Doomsday Clock came into effect, many events have occurred to increase or decrease the time on the Doomsday Clock. Some of the events include 1949 when the Soviet Union tested its first nuclear bomb, 1963 when a partial testing ban was put into place, 1972 when the SALT I treaty was signed and 1990 with the fall of the Berlin Wall. Surprisingly, one of the major nuclear events of the past fifty years, the Cuban Missile Crisis, did not have an impact on the Doomsday Clock. The reason was the events of the crisis took place and were resolved so quickly, the Board of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists could not change the time quick enough.
The Doomsday Clock has been around for over sixty years and has been a good gauge of the current events in the world, and the impact they have on the future of the world. For as long as situations exist that can cause harm to the world, the Doomsday Clock will continue to record the time - hopefully, never striking midnight!