‘End of the world’ prophecy for 13 November 2026 resurfaces
By the AFREEQUE newsroom, based on BBC
Illustrative image · RDNE Stock project · Pexels · Licence PexelsA study published in 1960 by physicist Heinz von Foerster in the journal Science predicted world population growth tending towards infinity in November 2026, fuelling rumours for weeks of an ‘end of the world’ on Friday 13 November on social media and in Arab media. According to the BBC, the prophecy is based on a mathematical model rather than an announced catastrophe.
The prophecy of an ‘end of the world’ on Friday 13 November 2026, drawn from a 66-year-old American scientific study, has resurfaced on social media and in several Arab media outlets, BBC News Arabic reports. The founding paper, signed by three researchers and published on 4 November 1960 in the journal Science under the title ‘Doomsday: Friday, November 13’, predicted a human population tending mathematically towards infinity in November 2026.
The study originated with Austrian-American physicist Heinz von Foerster, who conducted it with Patricia Mora and Lawrence Amiot in the electrical engineering department of the University of Illinois, in the United States. The three researchers drew on 24 historical estimates of world population, from the beginning of the Christian era to 1958, to build a model of ‘hyperbolic growth’: not only does the population increase, but the rate of increase accelerates over time. Their hypothesis was that humans' ability to communicate, cooperate and form societies enabled them to overcome certain environmental constraints and increase their chances of survival and reproduction.
The date of 13 November 2026 therefore corresponds to the theoretical infinity of this demographic model, and not to the annihilation of humanity announced by a planetary catastrophe, according to BBC News Arabic.
