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

A doomsday prediction from 1960 has resurfaced as Friday, November 13, 2026 arrives. According to The Independent, the late Heinz von Foerster and two colleagues at the University of Illinois published the forecast in the journal Science under the title “Doomsday: Friday, 13 November, AD 2026.” The Conversation identifies the authors as Heinz von Foerster, Patricia M. Mora, and Lawrence W. Amiot, and reports the paper appeared on November 4, 1960.

The authors argued that human population was growing faster than exponential and would approach infinity on that date, effectively annihilating the species. As von Foerster put it, his descendants would be “squeezed to death.” The Week reports the equation was built from population estimates from about 400 BC until 1958 and predicted the population would exceed 25 billion by 2020, though the researchers did not calculate when humanity would run out of food, land, or energy.

The Independent notes November 13, 2026 would have been von Foerster’s 115th birthday and says he deliberately engineered the equation to produce the result. The Conversation says the article received widespread public attention, with stories in Time and The New York Times, and became the subject of Pogo comic strips. It was also cited in a 1963 Canadian Parliamentary committee hearing and a 1971 U.S. Supreme Court abortion case.

The prediction appeared accurate for decades. The Conversation says its projections were better than most demographers’ through the 1970s and 1980s, but around 1993 the global population began falling behind the forecasts. The Week reports the global birth rate is now slightly less than half what it was in 1960. The Independent attributes the shift to the “demographic transition,” noting that people in richer, healthier, better-educated societies have fewer children, so the falling birth rate outweighed the falling death rate.

The Independent describes the paper as a cautionary tale about scientific prediction and advocacy, warning that models can predetermine their outcomes. The Conversation concludes that people will probably not wake up on November 13 “squeezed to death."