doomsday device
See also: Doomsday Device
English edit
Alternative forms edit
Etymology edit
Coined as Doomsday Machine by military strategist Herman Kahn.[1]
Noun edit
doomsday device (plural doomsday devices)
- A hypothetical weapon (often a bomb) programmed to automatically be used in response to certain attacks, usually with very dire consequences (such as the annihilation of the world).
- 1964, Stanley Kubrick, Terry Southern, Peter George, Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, spoken by Narrator:
- For more than a year, ominous rumors had been privately circulating among high-level Western leaders that the Soviet Union had been at work on what was darkly hinted to be the ultimate weapon: a doomsday device.
- An extremely powerful weapon.
Synonyms edit
See also edit
References edit
- ^ Herman Kahn (1960) On Thermonuclear War, Princeton University Press, pages 144–145: “I would like to start this section on “not looking or being too dangerous” with some comments on the strategic theory of three conceptualized devices, which I will call the Doomsday Machine, the Doomsday-in-a-Hurry Machine, and the Homicide Pact Machine.”
Further reading edit
- doomsday device on Wikipedia.Wikipedia