Did You Know the World Is Ending Again on Friday the 13th?

Apparently, humanity has another date with doomsday. A scientific paper published in 1960 identified 13 November 2026 as the day the world’s population would approach infinity. But before cancelling your plans, there is rather more to this extraordinary prediction than the headlines suggest.

The world is apparently ending again, this time on Friday 13 November 2026. Remarkably, the date comes from a genuine scientific paper published 66 years ago in one of the world’s most respected journals. However, the mathematics behind the prediction tells a very different story from the suggestion that humanity is about to disappear.

A scientific prediction of the apocalypse?

On 4 November 1960, the scientific journal Science published a paper with an extraordinary title:

Doomsday: Friday, 13 November, A.D. 2026.

Its authors were Austrian-American scientist Heinz von Foerster and researchers Patricia M. Mora and Lawrence W. Amiot.

Unlike the familiar prophecies of religious figures, mystics or self-proclaimed fortune tellers, this prediction was supported by mathematical calculations and historical population figures.

The researchers examined how the world’s population had grown over approximately 2,000 years, using 24 historical estimates to construct a mathematical model.

Their findings suggested that human population growth was not simply increasing exponentially. Instead, the rate of growth itself was accelerating.

Project that trend far enough into the future, they argued, and something extraordinary happened.

Their mathematical model suggested that the human population would approach infinity in the year 2026.

The paper even identified Friday 13 November as its headline date.

But did the scientists genuinely believe billions of people would suddenly disappear?

Not quite.

What did the researchers actually discover?

The researchers were investigating an important question: why had human population growth behaved differently from that of many other species?

In nature, populations frequently encounter limits imposed by food, available space and competition for resources.

Humans, however, have repeatedly developed new technologies, improved agriculture, expanded infrastructure and found ways of supporting increasingly large populations.

The researchers considered whether greater population numbers could themselves encourage innovation and cooperation, allowing human populations to grow even faster.

They developed a mathematical model based on what is known as hyperbolic growth.

Unlike ordinary exponential growth, which increases at a constant proportional rate, this mathematical curve accelerates towards a point at which its calculated value becomes unbounded.

That point is called a mathematical singularity.

In this particular model, the critical year was calculated as 2026.87, with an estimated uncertainty of approximately 5.5 years.

It was not a precise forecast of an event at a particular hour, nor evidence that the world would physically end.

Rather, it demonstrated the extraordinary consequences of extending historical population growth trends indefinitely.

There was also a deliberately provocative element to the paper.

Discussing fears of food shortages and overpopulation, the authors wrote:

Our great-great-grandchildren will not starve to death. They will be squeezed to death.

The exaggerated language attracted attention, but the underlying concern about humanity’s future population was serious.

The researchers argued that societies needed to consider ways of managing population growth rather than assuming that technological progress could accommodate limitless expansion.

Their paper was a scientific investigation, accompanied by humour and dramatic presentation, rather than a supernatural prophecy.

So why hasn’t the population reached infinity?

The simplest explanation is that the world changed.

Although population growth accelerated dramatically during much of the twentieth century, the rate of growth subsequently began to slow.

According to Our World in Data, the annual global population growth rate peaked at approximately 2.3% in 1963.

By 2020, that figure had fallen below 1%.

Falling fertility rates, changes in family size, improved access to education and contraception, urbanisation and wider social and economic developments have all contributed to this transformation.

The global population is still increasing, but no longer at the accelerating rate assumed by the 1960 mathematical model.

Interestingly, the original calculations continued to provide relatively accurate population projections for several decades.

It was around the early 1990s that actual population figures began to fall noticeably below the model’s forecasts.

The model had described historical growth remarkably well, but the assumptions behind its predictions were no longer holding true.

And that highlights one of the most important lessons of the story.

A mathematical model can accurately describe the past without being a reliable guide to the future.

What does modern science predict?

The United Nations presents a dramatically different outlook.

According to its World Population Prospects 2024, the global population is expected to reach approximately 10.3 billion during the mid-2080s.

Rather than approaching infinity, the UN projects that the world’s population will peak before the end of the century and then begin gradually declining.

These forecasts are themselves projections rather than guarantees. Future population trends will depend on fertility, mortality, migration and other developments.

Nevertheless, they provide no scientific basis for expecting humanity to become extinct on 13 November 2026.

The problems posed by population pressures, environmental damage, resource consumption and unequal access to essential services remain important.

But they are very different from an impending mathematical apocalypse.

Remember when the Maya calendar was supposed to end the world?

Of course, this is hardly humanity’s first appointment with the apocalypse.

Perhaps the most famous recent example occurred on 21 December 2012.

For years, claims circulated that the ancient Maya civilisation had predicted the end of the world on that date.

Some theories involved catastrophic planetary alignments, destructive astronomical events or the arrival of a mysterious planet.

Films, documentaries and online discussions helped turn the supposed prediction into a global phenomenon.

There was just one rather significant problem.

The Maya had not actually predicted the destruction of the world.

The date marked the completion of an important cycle in the Maya Long Count calendar, rather than the end of time itself.

As the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian explains, there is no evidence that the ancient Maya regarded the completion of that calendar cycle as a prediction of global catastrophe.

Unsurprisingly, 21 December 2012 passed without the world ending.

The calendar had completed a cycle. Humanity carried on.

And then there was Harold Camping

Another highly publicised doomsday prediction came from American Christian broadcaster Harold Camping.

Camping announced that Judgement Day would occur on 21 May 2011, based on his interpretation of biblical chronology.

The prediction attracted international media coverage, while some followers spent substantial sums promoting the warning.

When 21 May arrived without the predicted events, Camping maintained that a spiritual judgement had taken place and pointed to 21 October 2011 as the date of the world’s physical destruction.

That date also passed uneventfully.

In March 2012, Camping publicly acknowledged that his predictions had been mistaken.

His experience illustrated how strongly people can become committed to a particular date, even when the evidence does not support the claim.

It also demonstrated that a failed doomsday prediction does not necessarily prevent another one from emerging.

And this time it’s Friday the 13th

Adding an extra layer of coincidence to the latest prediction is the date itself.

Friday 13 November 2026 really does fall on a Friday.

For generations, Friday the 13th has been associated with bad luck in Western superstition.

For some people, the combination of the number 13 and Friday is enough to inspire genuine anxiety.

Yet there is no scientific evidence that Friday the 13th is inherently more dangerous than any other date.

What makes the 2026 story particularly remarkable is that the supposedly unlucky date was not added by modern social media users looking for a dramatic headline.

It appeared in the original scientific paper published back in 1960.

Whether viewed as scientific humour, an attention-grabbing title or an extraordinary coincidence, it has certainly helped ensure the research is still being discussed more than six decades later.

Why are we fascinated by predictions of the world’s end?

Throughout history, people have attempted to identify when civilisation, humanity or the world itself might come to an end.

Some predictions emerge from religious beliefs, others from interpretations of ancient texts or calendars.

Still others, like the 1960 population study, emerge from scientific models taken to their theoretical limits.

Despite their very different origins, many share a common feature: an apparently precise date.

A specific deadline is memorable. It attracts attention, encourages discussion and gives people something tangible to anticipate.

But precision should not be confused with certainty.

A mathematical equation, an ancient calendar and a religious interpretation are very different forms of evidence, and none becomes more reliable simply because someone attaches a date to it.

The 1960 research also raises a wider question about modern forecasting.

Today, governments, economists, climate scientists and increasingly artificial intelligence systems use sophisticated models to project future developments.

These models can be extremely valuable.

But their conclusions depend on the quality of the evidence, the assumptions used and whether real-world conditions continue behaving as expected.

When those assumptions change, the predictions can change too.

So, is the world ending on 13 November 2026?

There is no credible scientific evidence that humanity will end on that date.

The original 1960 paper was genuine, its mathematical calculations were worthy of scientific attention, and its warning about population pressures reflected significant concerns of the period.

What it did not establish was a reliable date for the extinction of humanity.

Instead, it demonstrated how a mathematical model based on historical trends could lead to an extraordinary and ultimately unrealistic conclusion.

Perhaps the most useful lesson is not that scientists once calculated a date for doomsday.

It is that even convincing predictions can fail when the world changes.

So, barring an entirely unrelated catastrophe, Friday 13 November 2026 should arrive much like any other Friday.

And if history is any guide, humanity probably won’t have to wait very long before someone announces the next date for the end of the world.