Everyone has heard about the so-called doomsday. If not in the past, then at least in recent days, because the entire press abroad and, inevitably, the press at home, took the fateful date of January 23, 2024, information that the hand of the clock reached only 90 seconds before the nuclear apocalypse. The closest in the history of mankind. Sorry, apocalyptic clock. Now, aside from the pompous name meant to terrify the Earthlings, I suggest you look at what happened to this watch.

As you well know, in 1945, with the explosion of the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, humanity entered a new era. Nuclear. Or, if you prefer, the one where she could destroy herself for the first time in her history.

Also in 1945, Albert Einstein, Robert Oppenheimer and other scientists who worked on the Manhattan Project founded a non-profit organization that produced a scientific publication called the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

His purpose? To write about what the new nuclear era meant, and to draw public attention to the dangers associated with it. Two years later, in 1947, the two co-founders of the organization, Eugene Rabinovitch and Hyman Goldsmith, came up with the spectacular idea of ​​apocalyptic watches.

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And then the watch I was talking about appeared. It shows only the last 20 minutes and was originally set at 7 minutes from 00:00, the time when the clock, if reached by a single tab, kicks up the dust.

How does this watch work? Who is behind the decision to move the timer forward or backward today? Why the warnings of those who coordinate it are very controversial, we suggest you see in the new edition of the 2nd season of the “Strange Stories” podcast.

Plot: Adrian Nicolae | Sound design: Adi Jacob

Music: Epidemic Sound | Image: Jacquelyn Martin/AP/Profimedia [Edited]