Doomsday study calculated humanity's end on Friday 13 November 2026...

Story by Patrick Drews

The so-called Doomsday study is already 66 years old, but it is probably the best-known study about the end of the world. In 1960 researchers used a mathematical formula to calculate the end of humankind for Friday 13 November 2026. The article with the provocative title "Doomsday: Friday, 13 November, A.D. 2026" was written by Austrian-American physicist Heinz von Foerster and his research team and published in the prestigious journal Science.

Key message and background of the Doomsday study

The researchers analyzed historical data on the world population over the past two millennia and fitted a growth curve to it. Their projection was that if the then current growth rate of humans on Earth were extrapolated unchanged into the future, the curve would reach an infinite value in November 2026.

So by tomorrow, Friday, people would have multiplied to infinity. The mathematicians' logical conclusion was that on this day humanity would, purely in mathematical terms, "crush" itself through overpopulation.

The study caused a worldwide stir at the time, and that was exactly the intention. By pinning the date to a Friday the 13th, Heinz von Foerster mainly wanted to draw attention to the issue of overpopulation, which was being intensely debated then. Until the early 1990s the curve matched the actual figures remarkably well. After that global population growth slowed significantly, which is why current projections tend to expect stabilization at around 10 billion people.

The problem with such predictions is always the same: past trends are simply projected into the future. This overlooks the fact that people respond to problems and adapt. That also applies to 13 November 2026. Humanity has developed differently from what was calculated 66 years ago.

So if you are now thinking you can finally tell your boss what you really think because everything will be over on Friday anyway, you might want to think again.