Friday, 13 November 2026. As the day draws near, an old prophecy about the destruction of the Earth is being talked about on social media and in various Arab media outlets. The talk is spreading again on the back of a scientific study published 66 years ago. But did the researchers really say the world would end on 13 November? Or is there a mathematical calculation of population growth behind it, whose meaning has been muddled?
The source is a study published in the US journal Science on 4 November 1960. Its three authors were Heinz von Foerster, Patricia Mora and Lawrence Amiot, and its title was “Doomsday: Friday, 13 November”, naming that Friday as the day of reckoning.
The researchers analysed the historical trend of world population growth. By their calculation, if the rate at which population had grown over about two thousand years continued unchanged, the number of people would mathematically reach infinity in November 2026.
That does not mean everyone on Earth would vanish on that day. Although the title used the word “doomsday”, the aim was to point to a theoretical limit of population growth.
The calculation behind the study
Austrian-American physicist Heinz von Foerster prepared the study with Patricia Mora and Lawrence Amiot, researchers in the electrical engineering department of the University of Illinois.
They used various historical estimates of world population, including 24 estimates made between the start of the Christian era and 1958, and analysed them to understand how population had changed at different points in history.
The researchers did not treat population growth as a process running at a fixed rate. They used the idea of hyperbolic growth, in which not only does the population grow, but the rate of growth itself rises over time.
The core idea of the model was that people’s capacity to communicate, cooperate, form social ties and build alliances creates room for new inventions. Through these, people can overcome some limits of their environment, and their ability to survive and reproduce grows too.
Applying this equation to the historical data, the researchers arrived at a particular mathematical result: the model reached a singularity, a point of mathematical infinity, in the year 2026.87. Converted to the calendar, that falls in mid-November, which is where the 13 November in the title came from.
In other words, the researchers said that if the past trend of population growth continued without change, their mathematical model would reach infinite population at that point.
No forecast of the world’s end
The title may read like a prophecy of the end of the world or the extinction of humankind, but the researchers were saying something else.
They did not speak of an asteroid striking the Earth, the Sun exploding, or devastating earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. Nor did they set a date for humankind to die out in a natural disaster.
“Infinity” here did not mean that the number of people on Earth would actually become infinite. It meant the theoretical result obtained by extending a particular mathematical model into the future.
In reality, population cannot become infinite at any given moment. The researchers assumed in their model that the conditions and trends behind population growth would stay the same. A model of this kind, which does not take account of the environment, resources and other things that affect population, cannot give a full picture of the real world. Those factors can change birth and death rates and alter the course of population growth.
A 1964 newspaper cutting revives the talk
Alongside the old study, an article published in the Egyptian newspaper Watani has also come back into discussion. Written by Michel Takla and published on 29 November 1964, its headline also spoke of the world ending on 13 November 2026.
Various Egyptian media outlets have recently republished pictures of the old cutting, and more than six decades on it has caught people’s interest again.
But a newspaper article is not the same as original scientific research. The population study linked to 13 November 2026 was published in 1960 by Heinz von Foerster and his colleagues. It was not Takla’s research.
Recent media reports also describe the content of Takla’s article in different ways. Some link it to the population growth study; others bring in solar activity, climate change and natural disasters.
So it is wrong to roll these together and present them as one scientific theory. Until the full text of the original article is checked and compared with the scientific sources, these claims cannot be treated as established fact.
What science says about solar activity
Some reports on Takla’s article claim that unusual solar activity may occur on 13 November 2026, causing disturbances in the Earth’s magnetic field and various natural disasters.
But the real existence of solar storms cannot be equated with a claim that the world will be destroyed on a particular day.
Solar activity is a normal natural process. The Sun goes through regular cycles in which its level of activity changes. At times it produces coronal mass ejections, powerful releases of solar material, and solar flares. These can affect the Earth’s magnetic field.
A strong solar storm can disrupt communications, satellites and navigation systems, and there is a risk of damage to power supplies. But such risks do not mean the Sun will destroy the Earth on a particular day.
No scientific link has been established between the population study published in Science in 1960 and any solar activity, or geological or climate disaster, on 13 November 2026.
No reason to panic over 13 November
Astronomer Emad Mujahed has spoken about whether there is any astronomical danger to the Earth on 13 November 2026.
He said solar activity is at its peak this year, but that this is a natural phenomenon scientists have known about for decades and is nothing sudden or unexpected.
Solar activity follows natural cycles, Mujahed said, and solar storms have existed since the beginning of the universe. With scientific and technological progress, scientists can now observe, monitor and forecast these events better than before.
He added that there is no known or expected astronomical event on 13 November that could give cause for concern or panic about the Earth’s safety.
He also rejected the idea of fixing a date for the end of the world through mathematical equations or astronomical models. According to Mujahed, there is nothing in astronomy or cosmology that points to the end of the world drawing near.
In his view, the claims circulating about 13 November are not based on statements by astronomers or on any scientific warning. They are being spread by various people and organisations through various channels, and they have no scientific basis.
Why the 1960 calculation proved wrong
The main weakness of the old calculation was its assumption that the past trend of population growth would continue in the same way. But the world’s demographic, social and economic conditions have changed greatly in recent decades, with a direct effect on birth rates, death rates and population growth.
According to demographic data, the growth rate of world population peaked in the 1960s and has been falling slowly since then. As a result, the real course of population growth did not match the mathematical model the 1960 researchers used.
When the study was published, the world’s population was about 3 billion. Today it is more than 8 billion, which is nowhere near the infinity the model assumed.
Recent United Nations estimates also give a different picture. The World Population Prospects 2024 report of the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs says the world’s population was about 8.2 billion in 2024. It may rise to about 10.3 billion by the mid-2080s and then fall slowly to about 10.2 billion by 2100.
According to the UN projections, the chance that world population peaks within this century has grown, partly because birth rates in several of the world’s most populous countries are falling faster than expected.
This is changing the nature of concern about population. In many countries the big challenges now are not only overpopulation but falling birth rates, longer life expectancy and a growing number of older people.
All in all, the 1960 study was an analysis of population growth based on a mathematical model. There is no scientific basis for reading it as a prophecy of the end of the world, and scientists have no evidence that the world will end on 13 November 2026.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report