Published: 11:15 PM, 11 September 2026
Carlo Rovelli’s 85 Seconds To Midnight
Dr Kanan Purkayastha
C arlo Rovelli, a theoretical physicist who has made significant contributions to the physics of space and time and a proponent of loop quantum gravity, has recently penned a book titled ‘85 Seconds to Midnight: A physicist’s argument against rearmament’, published by Allen Lane in June, 2026.
In this book, Rovelli identified one real enemy: ‘our own irrationality’. Rovelli suggests that we are afraid of each other, and this triggers wars. Rovelli posed a question which we all deserve an answer to, because physicists were involved in making nuclear weapons. The question is: what if we stopped making nuclear weapons? Wouldn’t it be better for everyone?
Rovelli suggests that this book is a brief history of nuclear weapons. Two events that trigger the title of the book are as follows: in 2025, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists estimates that nuclear risk is at an all-time high and on January 27, 2026, the Doomsday Clock was set at 85 seconds to midnight, the closest the Clock has ever been to midnight in its history.
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ Science and Security Board (SASB), which sets the Clock, called for urgent action to limit nuclear arsenals, establish international guidelines for the use of artificial intelligence (AI), and negotiate multilateral agreements to address global biological threats. I assume that this has prompted Rovelli to write this book.
The first ten chapters of the book are organised according to the events that happened in the past. These are as follows: 1934 Enrico Fermi’s mistake; 1941 two geniuses in semi-secret conversations; 1942 why didn’t Germany build the bomb first; 1942 the Manhattan project; 1945 Hiroshima and Nagasaki-why use the bomb after the war has been won; 1949 the Russian atomic bomb; 1950 the balance of terror-the world saved by indiscipline; 1955 voices of reason; 1964 Chinese bomb and 2003 Libya renounces the atomic bomb and it ends badly.
The last four chapters of the book are about the twenty-first century in brief, the bad conscience of physicists, final words and a brief history.
It is not possible to discuss the book chapter by chapter, but I can highlight some topics here.
In 1934, physicist Enrico Fermi and his research colleagues were studying the effects of radioactivity on various substances, which had been discovered before by Marie Curie. Irradiating uranium, he dreamt of transforming one element into another. But Fermi did not realise that the uranium transformation he had observed was due to the break-up of nuclei.
The story spread to the scientific world that Fermi had discovered how to break atoms. In 1938, Fermi received the Nobel Prize for this experiment, and the Nobel citation mentioned that for the discovery of new elements, Fermi has received the Nobel Prize. But later on, Otto Hahn and Strassmann announced that the chemical analysis revealed the presence of barium in uranium bombarded with Fermi’s slowed neutrons. Later on, physicist Robert Frisch called the process ‘fission’. In fact, Fermi’s experiment was more important than what the Nobel Prize citation acknowledged, because when an atomic nucleus is hit by a neutron and breaks, it in turn emits neutrons and becomes clear that these neutrons can set off a chain reaction.
So, it is the discovery of a new source of energy. Rovelli suggests that physicist Enrico Fermi’s experiment led to the nuclear age. However, in his book ‘Destroyer of Worlds’, Frank Close gave Rutherford more credit because the first insight into nuclear energy, which is commonly called atomic energy, came from Rutherford.
Another important point touched on in this book is a semi-secret conversation between physicist Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg in 1941. By 1941, Germany had triumphed everywhere, and Hitler looked like the new ‘Alexander the Great’.
Historians talk about various hypothetical scientific errors, moral issues and hidden motivations. History also suggests, and rightly documented by Rovelli in his book, that Heisenberg recalled that in 1939 physicists concluded that ‘in principle atomic bombs could be built, but it would take several years…’ and also added that Heisenberg ‘did not report it to the Führer until two years later, and very carelessly.’
Because Heisenberg maintained that he ‘did not want the Führer to be so interested as to immediately order great efforts to build the atomic bomb.’ It is my understanding, cross-checking various historical documents, that the bomb was made in the United States and not in Germany for the reason that the Germans did not try seriously to make a bomb, though they had started the project hidden in a rock cellar beneath a church in Haigerloch, in southwestern Germany, which I have visited recently.
In short, the book focuses on lesser-known events and highlights the number of ‘misunderstandings and errors that were the basis of so many catastrophic political choices of the past.’ The book is a physicist’s plea for peace. Hope we all listen.
Dr Kanan Purkayastha is a UK-based academic who writes on science,
philosophy and education.
