One in Six Chance of Worldwide Nuclear War: Physicist’s Post Goes Viral

With the Russia–Ukraine war still raging, physicist and cosmologist Max Tegmark has estimated the odds of global nuclear war in the near future at one in six, in an article and a social media post that went viral.

The Swedish-American MIT professor made the prediction in an Oct. 8 post on LessWrong, a rationalist community blog created by American artificial intelligence researcher Eliezer Yudkowsky.

SpaceX founder Elon Musk is among those who share Tegmark’s concerns.

“Nuclear war probability is rising rapidly,” Musk wrote in response to the Tweet from Tegmark linking to his blog post. Tegmark had praised Musk for “urging de-escalation.”

Thanks in part to Musk’s attention, Tegmark’s Tweet went viral. It has been shared nearly 34,000 times on Twitter alone.

SpaceX Chief Engineer Elon Musk waves during a joint news conference with T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert (not pictured) at the SpaceX Starbase, in Brownsville, Texas, on Aug. 25, 2022. REUTERS/Adrees Latif

Musk, who has used his Starlink satellites to assist Ukraine following Russia’s invasion, has been criticized by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.), and others for urging the pro-Ukraine West to pursue a peaceful resolution to the conflict, with concessions to both Ukraine and Russia.

In a Tweet responding to Musk’s recommendations, Zelenskyy adviser and psychological warfare expert Oleksiy Arestovych posted a doctored, clearly satirical, image of the tech titan in handcuffs.

In the last few days, Russian President Vladimir Putin has blamed Ukraine for an Oct. 8 explosion that destroyed part of the Kerch Bridge, a key supply line between Russia and Crimea.

Russia responded on Oct. 10 by hitting cities across Ukraine with cruise missiles. A Russian cyberattack targeted airports across the United States on the same day.

“The Crimea bridge attack and predictable subsequent escalation happened after I’d done my original analysis,”