{"id":117566,"date":"2026-10-01T16:07:14","date_gmt":"2026-10-01T20:07:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/?p=117566"},"modified":"2026-10-01T16:07:14","modified_gmt":"2026-10-01T20:07:14","slug":"doomsday-equation-november-13-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/bible-resources\/bible-and-science\/doomsday-equation-november-13-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"Doomsday Equation: 13 November 2026, and What Went Right"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class='booster-block booster-read-block'>\n                <div class=\"twp-read-time\">\n                \t<i class=\"booster-icon twp-clock\"><\/i> <span>Read Time:<\/span>8 Minute, 57 Second                <\/div>\n\n            <\/div><p>In 1960, three scientists picked a date for the end of the world. Not a vague guess. An exact day, worked out with maths and printed in one of the most respected science journals on Earth.<\/p>\n\n<p>The date was Friday, 13 November 2026.<\/p>\n\n<p>That is about six weeks from now. So it is fair to ask what they meant, and whether anyone should be worried.<\/p>\n\n<p>The short answer is no. The longer answer is much better. It turns out the &#8220;doomsday equation&#8221; is really a story about what a good warning is for.<\/p>\n\n<h2>What Is the Doomsday Equation?<\/h2>\n\n<p>The paper came out in the journal <em>Science<\/em> in November 1960. It was written by Heinz von Foerster, a physicist at the University of Illinois, and two of his students, Patricia Mora and Lawrence Amiot.<\/p>\n\n<p>Its full title is long. Read it slowly, because it gives the whole game away: &#8220;Doomsday: Friday, 13 November, A.D. 2026. At this date human population will approach infinity if it grows as it has grown in the last two millennia.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n<p>The team gathered 24 estimates of the world&#8217;s population, reaching back about 2,000 years. They noticed something odd. Growth was not just fast. The speed itself kept speeding up. Each time the human family doubled, the next doubling came sooner.<\/p>\n\n<p>When they drew a line through those points and followed it forward, it bent up and up until it shot straight off the top of the page. Mathematicians call that kind of curve hyperbolic. The point where it breaks, where the numbers run to infinity, is called a singularity. On their graph, the singularity landed in 2026.<\/p>\n\n<p>The paper&#8217;s most famous line was written to sting: &#8220;Our great-great-grandchildren will not starve. They will be squeezed to death.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n<p>If stories like this leave you wondering what holds the future together, this free guide was made for that feeling.<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"convertkit-form wp-block-convertkit-form\" style=\"\"><script async data-uid=\"6491fb8269\" src=\"https:\/\/bgodinspired.kit.com\/6491fb8269\/index.js\" data-jetpack-boost=\"ignore\" data-no-defer=\"1\" data-no-optimize=\"1\" nowprocket><\/script><\/div>\n\n\n<h2>Why Friday the 13th?<\/h2>\n\n<p>Here is the detail most of the scary headlines leave out. 13 November was von Foerster&#8217;s birthday. He was born in Vienna on 13 November 1911. So &#8220;doomsday&#8221; was set to fall on what would have been his 115th birthday.<\/p>\n\n<p>That tells you something about the man. He was a serious scientist. He helped build cybernetics, the study of how systems steer and correct themselves, and he founded a research lab to study it. He was also known for his love of magic. When other scientists wrote in to point out holes in the maths (one complaint: a baby still takes nine months, no matter what the curve says), people who knew him could hear the grin in his replies.<\/p>\n\n<p>So was it a joke? Not quite. It was a serious point wearing a joke&#8217;s clothes. Writing about the paper this year, the historian Alan MacEachern suggested that this was the stage magician&#8217;s trick: get the world to look at a serious problem by making it look absurd.<\/p>\n\n<h2>Will the World End on 13 November 2026?<\/h2>\n\n<p>No. Nobody serious thinks it will. Neither did the authors.<\/p>\n\n<p>Look at that title again. Doomsday only arrives &#8220;if it grows as it has grown.&#8221; The whole paper hangs on that one word, <em>if<\/em>. It was never a prophecy about what would happen. It was a picture of where the road went if nothing changed.<\/p>\n\n<p>Something did change.<\/p>\n\n<p>For a long time the curve was eerily right. According to MacEachern, real population numbers kept tracking the forecast through the 1970s and 1980s. Then, around 1993, they began falling behind it, and the gap has only grown since.<\/p>\n\n<p>Today there are a little over 8 billion people. The United Nations expects the total to peak around 10.3 billion in the mid-2080s and then slowly come down. That is a lot of people. It is not infinity, and it is not a curve shooting off the page.<\/p>\n\n<p>And here is the twist. As MacEachern tells it, the way out the authors pointed to was for humanity to cut the birth rate roughly in half. Today, the global birth rate is a little less than half of what it was in 1960.<\/p>\n\n<h2>Did the Warning Actually Work?<\/h2>\n\n<p>It would make a tidy story to say one paper saved the world. That would not be true. Birth rates fell for many reasons, in many places, at once. More babies lived past infancy, so families no longer needed to have as many. More girls went to school. People moved to cities. Family planning became easier to get. No single article in a journal turned all of that.<\/p>\n\n<p>But the shape of what happened is still worth noticing. A warning was given. People changed course, for a hundred different reasons in a hundred different places. And the end that was drawn on the graph did not come.<\/p>\n\n<p>That is what makes this doomsday date different from most. Most predicted endings fail because they were simply wrong. This one is failing because the world it described did not stay the same.<\/p>\n\n<h2>Some Warnings Are Meant to Be Wrong<\/h2>\n\n<p>There is a quiet kind of success that almost never gets celebrated.<\/p>\n\n<p>A smoke alarm that wakes you up is &#8220;wrong&#8221; about your house burning down, because you got up and put the fire out. A doctor who says &#8220;keep going like this and you&#8217;ll be in hospital in five years&#8221; is delighted to be wrong. It is the same reason scientists watch places like Yellowstone so closely: <a href=\"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/nature-and-creation\/yellowstone-supervolcano-warning-signs\/\">the warning signs would come weeks first<\/a>, and a warning that arrives in time is the whole point. The goal of a good warning is not to come true. It is to make itself unnecessary.<\/p>\n\n<p>One of the oldest stories in the world turns on exactly this. A reluctant prophet named Jonah is sent to Nineveh, the great city of an empire his own people feared. He walks in and gives a warning with a deadline: forty days, and the city falls. No &#8220;if&#8221; in it at all.<\/p>\n\n<p>The city listens. From the king down to the poorest street, people change how they live. The forty days come and go. The city is still standing.<\/p>\n\n<p>You would expect the prophet to be relieved. Instead he is furious. And the reason he gives is the real twist of the story. He says he knew this would happen. He had run away in the first place because he knew God is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and quick to call off a disaster. He suspected all along that the warning was really an invitation.<\/p>\n\n<p>It is an old picture of a God who would rather be &#8220;wrong&#8221; about the ending than see it come true.<\/p>\n\n<h2>What to Do With a Doomsday Headline<\/h2>\n\n<p>Over the next six weeks you will probably see this date again, likely with a frightening picture next to it. When you do, it might help to remember three things:<\/p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>The 1960 paper was an &#8220;if,&#8221; not a &#8220;when.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>The date was a birthday joke carrying a serious point.<\/li>\n<li>The future it described is not the one we are heading for, partly because people changed.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n<p>If bigger fears about the future have been sitting heavily on you lately, here is a gentle piece on <a href=\"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/bgodinspired-news\/fear-of-war-un-global-risk-report\/\">how to carry a fear you can&#8217;t fix<\/a>. And if you are not sure how much worry you are carrying, the free <a href=\"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/how-anxious-am-i\/\">How Anxious Am I? check<\/a> takes a few minutes.<\/p>\n\n<p>A warning that comes true is a tragedy. A warning that turns out wrong because people listened is one of the quietest pieces of good news there is. If you happen to think of it on Friday, 13 November, that is the part worth remembering. The ending on the graph did not come, because the world turned.<\/p>\n\n<p><em>Sources: von Foerster, Mora and Amiot, &#8220;Doomsday: Friday, 13 November, A.D. 2026,&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.researchgate.net\/publication\/9785147_Doomsday_Friday_13_November_AD_2026_At_this_date_human_population_will_approach_infinity_if_it_grows_as_it_has_grown_in_the_last_two_millenia\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Science, 1960<\/a>; Alan MacEachern for The Conversation, via <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2026-09-scientists-friday-november-doomsday.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Phys.org<\/a>; and a 2025 re-examination of the hyperbolic growth pattern on <a href=\"https:\/\/arxiv.org\/abs\/2508.11038\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">arXiv<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n<h2>Questions People Ask About the Doomsday Equation<\/h2>\n\n<h3>What is the doomsday equation?<\/h3>\n<p>The doomsday equation is a formula published in the journal Science in 1960 by Heinz von Foerster, Patricia Mora and Lawrence Amiot. Using 24 estimates of world population covering about 2,000 years, it showed that human population growth had been speeding up so fast that, if the trend continued, the population would approach infinity on Friday, 13 November 2026.<\/p>\n\n<h3>Will the world end on 13 November 2026?<\/h3>\n<p>No. The 1960 doomsday paper never predicted that the world would end. Its title said human population would approach infinity on that date only &#8220;if it grows as it has grown in the last two millennia.&#8221; Population growth slowed dramatically after the 1960s, and the United Nations expects world population to peak at around 10.3 billion in the mid-2080s.<\/p>\n\n<h3>Why did Heinz von Foerster choose Friday 13 November 2026?<\/h3>\n<p>The year 2026 came from the maths of the population curve, but 13 November was Heinz von Foerster&#8217;s birthday. He was born in Vienna on 13 November 1911, so the doomsday date fell on what would have been his 115th birthday. The choice reflected his well-known sense of humour, even though the warning behind it was serious.<\/p>\n\n<h3>Why was the doomsday equation wrong?<\/h3>\n<p>The doomsday equation assumed human population would keep growing the way it had for the previous 2,000 years. Instead, birth rates fell around the world as more children survived infancy, more girls went to school, more people moved to cities and family planning spread. Real population numbers began falling behind the 1960 forecast in the early 1990s.<\/p>\n\n<h3>What is a hyperbolic growth curve?<\/h3>\n<p>A hyperbolic growth curve describes something that grows faster than exponential growth, because its rate of growth keeps speeding up. Followed forward on paper, a hyperbolic curve reaches infinity at a fixed point in time called a singularity. Real-world systems never actually reach that point, because something always changes first.<\/p>\n\n<h2>Discussion Question<\/h2>\n\n<p>Do scary predictions actually help people change course, or do they mostly make people tune out? Tell us what you think in the comments.<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"convertkit-form wp-block-convertkit-form\" style=\"\"><script async data-uid=\"6491fb8269\" src=\"https:\/\/bgodinspired.kit.com\/6491fb8269\/index.js\" data-jetpack-boost=\"ignore\" data-no-defer=\"1\" data-no-optimize=\"1\" nowprocket><\/script><\/div>\n\n\n<h2>Share This<\/h2>\n\n<p>&#8220;In 1960, scientists worked out that human population would hit infinity on Friday 13 November 2026. The date was the lead author&#8217;s birthday. It won&#8217;t happen, and the reason why is actually hopeful. https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/?p=117566&#8221;<\/p>\n\n<p>&#8220;Some warnings are meant to be wrong. A smoke alarm &#8216;fails&#8217; when you put the fire out. Loved this look at the 1960 doomsday equation and why it missed. https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/?p=117566&#8221;<\/p>\n\n<p>&#8220;The 1960 doomsday paper wasn&#8217;t a prophecy. Its title hides the escape hatch in one word: &#8216;if.&#8217; Worth a read before the scary headlines start. https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/?p=117566&#8221;<\/p>\n        <div class=\"booster-block booster-reactions-block\">\n            <div class=\"twp-reactions-icons\">\n                \n                <div class=\"twp-reacts-wrap\">\n                    <a react-data=\"be-react-1\" post-id=\"117566\" class=\"be-face-icons un-reacted\" href=\"javascript:void(0)\">\n                        <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/booster-extension\/\/assets\/icon\/happy.svg\" alt=\"Happy\" title=\"\">\n                    <\/a>\n                    <div class=\"twp-reaction-title\">\n                        Happy                    <\/div>\n                    <div class=\"twp-count-percent\">\n                                                    <span style=\"display: none;\" class=\"twp-react-count\">0<\/span>\n                        \n        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It won&#8217;t happen, and the reason is the best part.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":117565,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_wp_convertkit_post_meta":{"form":"-1","landing_page":"0","tag":"0","restrict_content":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[5226,3550],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-117566","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bgodinspired-science-news","category-bible-and-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117566","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117566"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117566\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":117570,"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117566\/revisions\/117570"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/117565"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}