Back in 1960, a study in the journal Science named an exact day when humanity would reach its limit: Friday, November 13, 2026. That date is now just a month off, and the old paper is making the rounds once more.
There’s no need to fill the pantry with canned food. The paper exists, and it really does name that date. The real-world data, however, have moved in another direction entirely.
An equation that ran off to infinity
Austro-American physicist Heinz von Foerster and his co-authors studied how the human population had grown over the preceding centuries. Their conclusion was that the growth wasn’t merely exponential but super-exponential, so on paper the number of people on Earth would head toward infinity.
The researchers didn’t pull their punches. As the study put it: “Our grandchildren will not starve. They will be crushed.”
Few peer-reviewed journals have printed a sentence that dramatic. It goes a long way toward explaining why the paper comes back into circulation every time its deadline draws near.
What the forecast actually captures
Taken literally, the prediction isn’t a description of the end of the world. It’s more useful as a snapshot of the anxieties of its era, chiefly overpopulation and running out of resources.
After that, the trend changed course. Since the 1990s, birth rates have dropped considerably, and von Foerster’s curve no longer lined up with the reality it was meant to model.
According to UN projections, the world’s population should top out at roughly 10.3 billion by 2084 and then start to shrink. That’s a peak, not a race toward infinity.
The dangers on researchers’ radar today
Scientists are still asking what could wipe out humanity. The list of suspects is simply different now.
A recent study in The Lancet ranks nuclear conflict and the malicious use of artificial intelligence among the biggest threats to human survival by 2100. Population growth no longer tops the list of concerns.
Feel free to circle November 13 on your calendar. Just think of it as the day a 66-year-old equation hit its deadline while the planet still had plenty of space.