85 Seconds to Midnight

A warning to humankind from one of the world’s greatest physicists


'What drives these pages is the guilty conscience of my profession, theoretical physics. My sole aim is to help avert what seems to me to be the unintended, yet scarcely avoidable, end point of the current politics of the governments we have elected: nuclear war.'

The world is rearming and embroiled in endless conflict. The Doomsday Clock has now been set to 85 seconds to midnight, with the risk of nuclear war the highest it has ever been. Why do we always fail to learn from the past?

In this urgent book, acclaimed physicist Carlo Rovelli reframes the history of nuclear weapons: from how the atomic bomb was born to why Germany didn't build it and why the US used it, to the narrowly averted disasters of the Cold War and the political brinkmanship careering out of control today.

As he grapples with the legacy of his scientific forebears, Rovelli spotlights the true nature of the decisions being made by leaders around the world today. A timely and ardent warning, this searing reckoning with short-sighted politics is essential reading for anyone seeking sanity at our moment of greatest peril.

Review

A comprehensive and soberingly clear-eyed account of the political logic that has governed the development, production and employment of nuclear weapons since fission was discovered, and a desperate warning to bring that logic under our control before it destroys us all -- Michael Frayn

Chilling... The title of Rovelli’s book comes from the 2026 edition of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists that set the Doomsday Clock at 85 seconds to midnight, the closest we’ve ever been to nuclear catastrophe. For Rovelli, the stupidity of our leaders has increased that risk ― Guardian

We turn to Carlo Rovelli for accessible, popular physics. His latest book is that again, but with so much more – it’s anti-nuclear, anti-rearmament, anti-war – in a few short and lively pages.... He stands on the shoulders of Einstein and others ― Morning Star

About the Author

Carlo Rovelli is an internationally acclaimed writer whose books, including Seven Brief Lessons on Physics, The Order of Time, Helgoland and White Holes,have been number one bestsellers around the world and translated into over forty languages. As a theoretical physicist, he has made significant contributions to the physics of space and time and he is currently directing the quantum gravity research group of the Centre de physique théorique in Marseille, France.