A 1960 Science paper predicted doomsday for Friday, 13 November 2026

The 1960 forecast

The paper, titled "Doomsday: Friday, 13 November, A.D. 2026", appeared in Science on 4 November 1960 under the names of Heinz von Foerster, Patricia M. Mora and Lawrence W. Amiot. The authors reviewed population estimates covering the previous two thousand years and found that the time needed for world population to double kept getting shorter between year 0 and 1958. Extending that trend gave a value of 2026.87, plus or minus 5.5 years, which the model read as population growth heading toward infinity. The formula gave no exact day, so von Foerster chose Friday, 13 November, which the New York Times reported at the time was his birthday. Von Foerster, an Austrian-born physicist, was born in Vienna in 1911, moved to the United States in 1949 and died in 2002. The paper aimed to draw attention to overpopulation, not to predict a disaster such as climate change, an asteroid, a supervolcano, nuclear war or a pandemic.

How the curve held and then broke

The projected curve tracked real population growth until the early 1990s, and one report places the point where the real population fell behind it at around 1993. Growth was fastest in 1963, when it passed 2% a year, but it had dropped below 1% a year by 2020 as families chose to have fewer children. Demographers wrote letters calling the work ridiculous and obviously absurd, according to historian Alan MacEachern writing for The Conversation. Others pointed out in Science that the time needed for world population to double cannot be shorter than nine months, the length of a pregnancy. An economist at the University of California in Santa Barbara wrote in Science that the underlying formula was basically sound but applied only to a limited period. Today the worldwide birth rate is just under half its 1960 level.

Where population stands now

Around 8.3 billion people live on Earth, according to the reports. The UN World Population Prospects 2024 report projects that world population will reach about 10.3 billion in the mid-2080s, then decline slightly, to about 10.2 billion by 2100. Many demographers now worry about too few people rather than too many, the opposite of the scenario von Foerster described. The gap between the 1960 model and the current projections is shown in the comparison below.

Current estimate (2026)8.3

Projected peak (mid-2080s)10.3

Current estimate (2026)

8.3 billion people

Projected peak (mid-2080s)

10.3 billion people

Data from the article text

Earlier end-of-the-world predictions

The articles recall that the approach of Halley's comet in 1910 caused panic over supposedly dangerous gases in its tail, and some merchants sold gas masks and protective products. Coverage also points to the 2012 Maya calendar scare as another failed forecast. The 1960 equation was reportedly cited in the Canadian parliament as an argument for pesticide use, and in American court debates on abortion. Paul Ehrlich's book The Population Bomb later predicted mass famine, showing how population warnings kept returning. The 1960 date of Friday, 13 November 2026 rests on a curve that real growth departed from in the early 1990s.