1960 study predicted the end of the world on November 13, Friday

A 1960 scientific paper described Friday, November 13, 2026, as the date the world would reach ‘doomsday’. It predicted that the world’s population would become infinite, but the date has arrived and instead of reaching an unimaginable number, the world’s population stands at around 8.3 billion.

The prediction was made by three researchers — Heinz von Foerster, Patricia Mora and Lawrence Amiot — in a paper published in the journal Science in November 1960. Titled “Doomsday: Friday, 13 November, A.D. 2026”, the study examined population estimates dating back to around the first century AD.

The researchers noticed that the world’s population had not been growing at the same rate throughout history. As the centuries passed, it took less and less time for the population to increase by another billion. They used this pattern to work out how quickly the number of people could keep rising.

Their calculations suggested that if the trend continued, the population would reach infinity on November 13, 2026. In other words, the number of people would keep growing so rapidly that the mathematical formula could no longer give a finite figure.

The researchers linked this rapid growth to the way people help one another survive and develop. More people meant more shared knowledge and skills, which could improve living conditions and allow the population to grow further.

They also recognised that an infinite population was impossible in the real world. Limits such as the availability of food and space would prevent growth from continuing forever. Their main point was that the rapid rise in population could not go on indefinitely and that society would eventually need to change.

The paper mixed a serious warning with a touch of humour by choosing Friday the 13th as its predicted doomsday. Von Foerster, an Austrian-born physicist and an early figure in the study of cybernetics, was interested in how systems change and influence one another.

In reality, the population trend began to slow several years after the paper was published. Global population growth reached its highest rate in the 1960s, at around 2 per cent a year, and has declined since.

Fewer births in parts of Asia and Latin America, along with urbanisation, improved access to education and contraception, helped slow the increase. Advances in farming during the Green Revolution also helped prevent the large-scale famines that had been feared in the 1960s.

Today, population forecasts point to a gradual rise followed by a peak, rather than endless growth. The United Nations expects the world’s population to reach around 10 billion in the 2080s, while some independent estimates suggest it could peak earlier and at a lower level.