GoKawiil1960 'doomsday' population prediction by physicist Heinz von Foerster falls on Nov 13, 2026
Physicist Heinz von Foerster published a 1960 paper in Science projecting that human population growth would reach an infinite, unsustainable point on November 13, 2026. The forecast assumed that growth trends observed up to that time would continue unchanged, leading him to predict humanity would be 'squeezed to death' rather than starve. In practice, population growth slowed after the baby boom ended shortly after his paper appeared, and the prediction never materialized.
GoKawiil's interpretation of the reporting above, not reported fact.
The anniversary highlights a recurring pattern in long-range forecasting, echoing Thomas Malthus's 18th-century warnings, where models built on exponential extrapolation tend to fail once real-world variables shift. Coverage of the date coincided with an unrelated Microsoft outage affecting Outlook and other services, which some commentators noted ironically lined up with the long-predicted 'end of the world' date. The episode could serve as a reminder for analysts to treat long-term demographic or systemic projections with caution.
- Heinz von Foerster's 1960 Science paper predicted a population crisis point on November 13, 2026.
- His model, like Malthus's earlier theory, assumed unchanging growth trends that did not hold up over time.
- The date coincided with a major Microsoft service outage, prompting coincidental comparisons to his doomsday forecast.
Source: arstechnica.com, 2026-11-13
Published there as: “It's the end of the world as we know it, per a physicist's 1960 prediction”
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