Doomsday device

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See also: Doomsday Device

Many hypothetical doomsday devices are based on the fact that salted hydrogen bombs can create large amounts of nuclear fallout.

A doomsday device is a hypothetical construction — usually a weapon — which could destroy all life on the Earth, or destroy the Earth itself (bringing "doomsday", a term used for the end of planet Earth).

Doomsday devices have been present in literature and art especially in the twentieth century, when advances in science and technology allowed humans to imagine a definite and plausible way of actively destroying the world or all life on it (or at least human life). Many classics in the genre of science fiction take up the theme in this respect, especially The Purple Cloud (1901) by M.P. Shiel in which the accidental release of a chemical gas kills all people on the planet.^[1]

After the advent of nuclear weapons, especially hydrogen bombs, they have usually been the dominant components of fictional doomsday devices. RAND strategist Herman Kahn proposed a "Doomsday Machine" in the 1950s which would consist of a computer linked to a stockpile of hydrogen bombs, programmed to detonate them all and bathe the planet in nuclear fallout at the signal of an impending nuclear attack from another nation. Such a scheme, fictional as it was, epitomized for many the extremes of the suicidal logic behind the strategy of mutually assured destruction, and it was famously parodied in the Stanley Kubrick film from 1964, Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. It is also a main topic of the movie Beneath the Planet of the Apes, in parallel with the species extermination theme. Most such models either rely on the fact that hydrogen bombs can be made arbitrarily large (see Teller-Ulam design) or that they can be "salted" with materials designed to create long-lasting and hazardous fallout (e.g. a cobalt bomb).

1 In popular culture
2 See also
3 References
4 External links

[edit] In popular culture

See also: Doomsday film

Use of this concept has occurred several times in popular entertainment.

In the film Dr. Strangelove, the Soviet Ambassador, upon learning that the Americans could not call back a bomber set to deliver nuclear weapons inside the Soviet Union, informs the President that Soviet Premier Kissoff had ordered the creation of a doomsday device. Though fully functioning, he hadn't informed the world because he was hoping to save the announcement for the upcoming party congress.
In the Star Trek episode The Doomsday Machine, a conical planet killer goes on a planet destroying rampage, its projected path threatening "...the very heart of the Federation". It is eventually stopped by the USS Enterprise (NCC-1701) and the USS Constellation (NCC-1017) at System L374.
In Kurt Vonnegut's novel Cat's Cradle, a doomsday substance called ice-nine is created with the capability to freeze all the water on Earth.
In the novel Life, the Universe and Everything by Douglas Adams, the supercomputer Hactar was asked by the Silastic Armorfiends of Striterax to "create the ultimate weapon." When he asked them what they meant by ultimate, he was told to "look it up in the dictionary", and concluded that they wanted him to destroy the universe. He thus created the Supernova bomb, capable of linking all the cores of all the stars in the universe together in a massive universe-engulfing supernova.
In the television cartoon series The Flintstones, the comic sidekick character The Great Gazoo appears in the show because he was sent to earth as punishment for creating a doomsday button which could destroy not just the planet it was on, but the whole universe, i.e. it could annihilate everything in existence.
In Robert McCammon's novel, Swan Song, the President of the United States, delusional and believing himself God fallen from heaven, decides that evil has won on Earth (after the nuclear holocaust he helped induce) and the planet must therefore be purged using the Talons of Heaven. This concept involves firing a massive payload of nuclear weapons at the poles, knocking the earth off its axis, causing massive icecap melting and subsequent flooding.
Occurs occasionally in Futurama. Professor Farnsworth in particular is known to possess several doomsday devices, which (ironically) infrequently come in handy for saving the universe (as in 'Time Keeps on Slippin'', where he is forced to part with one of them with the rueful reflection "I suppose I could part with one and still be feared.")
On The Simpsons episode You Only Move Twice, the character Hank Scorpio threatens the United Nations with a doomsday device. In order to prove he isn't bluffing, he destroys the 59th Street Bridge near the UN headquarters.
In the Bionic Woman series episode "Doomsday is Tomorrow", an elderly scientist rigs a government-built facility as a doomsday device that is triggered by non-peaceful use of nuclear power. Jamie Sommers and a Soviet agent work together to try and disable it, while a rogue Middle Eastern nation conducts an atmospheric nuclear test. The doomsday device spreads an element in the earth's atmosphere to make the final explosive device completely effective in killing all living beings on Earth, but the scientist counted on an attempt to stop it: the trigger for the device is the US government's attempt to stop the device with an element they believe (incorrectly) will counteract the "euthenium-J".
In the popular superhero cartoon of Spider-Man several Cold War era heroes such as Captain America battle the villain Red Skull many years after his attempt to create a doomsday device.
In the TV comedy Whoops Apocalypse a numerical overload of a space invaders game almost causes a nuclear alert and the Russians' doomsday device mistakes a crashing space rocket for a missile and starts a nuclear war that results in the end of the world. There is also a super bomb invented called the Quark Bomb, which is powerful enough to destroy an entire country (so the US decide to base their tests in Europe).
In the animated television series Exosquad, the leader of Neosapiens, Phaeton, tried to destroy the Earth with a doomsday device as a revenge for the destruction of Mars.
The real time strategy game Total Annihilation features a heavy defensive installation, mounted with three different kinds of lasers, named the "Doomsday Machine". It is a 3rd level unit built by the Core.
In June 2004, the satirical newspaper The Onion published a fictional article "confirming" the existence of a doomsday weapon called a Thanatos Device. Based on the principle of resonance, it was described as an anti-temporal device which operated by emitting bursts of theta-amplitude pseudoparticles.
In 2005, melodic death metal band Arch Enemy released an album titled "Doomsday Machine".
In the film The Pink Panther Strikes Again, Chief Inspector Dreyfus kidnaps the brilliant Professor Fassbender and forces him to construct a doomsday machine, in order to blackmail the entire world into assassinating Clouseau. The pink-laser-emitting death-ray is used to vaporize the United Nations building as a demonstration of its power.
Many villains in the long running Gundam anime have made use of orbital doomsday weapons, commonly gigantic laser cannons which use an intricate system of mirrors to aim at a target.
In the Matthew Reilly book Temple, a doomsday device consisting of a pair of nuclear warheads and the non-existent element Thyrium is capable of oblitirating a large section of earth (Reportedly 1/3 of the Earth's mass). This would knock the planet out of orbit and create a cloud covering the entire planet and would wipe out the world's population.
In the Discworld story The Last Hero by Terry Pratchett, Cohen the Barbarian plans to detonate an explosive called Agatean Thunder Clay at the Hub, to show the gods how annoyed he is with them. Unknown to him, this would disrupt the Discworld's standing magical field, thereby rendering it impossible for it to exist.

Use of multiple nuclear weapons causing the destruction or virtual destruction of all life on Earth as a type of doomsday scenario has been used in several fictional stories, including Nevil Shute's On the Beach and David Graham's Down to a Sunless Sea.