World War III | EPFL Graph Search

Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?

Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of GraphSearch.

World War III or the Third World War, often abbreviated as WWIII or WW3, are names given to a hypothetical worldwide large-scale military conflict subsequent to World War I and World War II. The term has been in use since at least as early as 1941. Some apply it loosely to limited or more minor conflicts such as the Cold War or the war on terror. In contrast, others assume that such a conflict would surpass prior world wars in both scope and destructive impact. Due to the development of nuclear weapons in the Manhattan Project, which were used in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki near the end of World War II, and their subsequent acquisition and deployment by many countries afterward, the potential risk of a nuclear apocalypse causing widespread destruction of Earth's civilization and life is a common theme in speculations about a third world war. Another primary concern is that biological warfare could cause many casualties. It could happen intentionally or inadvertently, by an accidental release of a biological agent, the unexpected mutation of an agent, or its adaptation to other species after use. Large-scale apocalyptic events like these, caused by advanced technology used for destruction, could render most of Earth's surface uninhabitable. Before the beginning of World War II in 1939, World War I (1914–1918) was believed to have been "the war to end all wars". It was popularly believed that never again could there possibly be a global conflict of such magnitude. During the interwar period, World War I was typically referred to simply as "The Great War". The outbreak of World War II disproved the hope that humanity might have "outgrown" the need for widespread global wars. With the advent of the Cold War in 1945 and with the spread of nuclear weapons technology to the Soviet Union, the possibility of a third global conflict increased. During the Cold War years, the possibility of a third world war was anticipated and planned for by military and civil authorities in many countries.

About this result

This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.

Related publications (15)

Related units (2)

Related concepts (11)

Related lectures (32)

Patents, War and Peace. The resilience of the international patent order through the First World War

Nicolas Christophe Chachereau

By the end of the 19th century, an international order had emerged for patents, allowing business actors to use patents in many countries concurrently, and thus supporting a new phase in the development of industrial capitalism. Centered on Europe in spite ...

2023

Exile and Resilience. Studies at the camp d’internement universitaire in Lausanne

Salvatore Aprea

The essay investigates the intellectual production developed by Italian refugees hosted in the military internment camp opened in Lausanne in January 1944 and active until the spring of 1945, when the refuges returned to Italy. In the complex and controver ...

2021

Under the title "State Fiction" (2014–2021) the artist's long-term research focusses on the zone that divides the two Koreas, a locus of congealed international Cold War interests and a source of improbable images. After an internationally brokered armisti ...

self-published2021

Nuclear holocaust

A nuclear holocaust, also known as a nuclear apocalypse, nuclear Armageddon, or atomic holocaust, is a theoretical scenario where the mass detonation of nuclear weapons causes globally widespread destruction and radioactive fallout. Such a scenario envisages large parts of the Earth becoming uninhabitable due to the effects of nuclear warfare, potentially causing the collapse of civilization and, in the worst case, extinction of humanity and/or termination of all biological life on Earth.

Aftermath of World War II

Two global superpowers, the Soviet Union (USSR) and the United States (US), rose in the aftermath of World War II. The war's aftermath was also defined by the rising threat of nuclear warfare, the creation and implementation of the United Nations as an intergovernmental organization, and the decolonization of Asia and Africa by European and east Asian powers, most notably by the United Kingdom, France, and Japan.

Doomsday Clock

The Doomsday Clock is a symbol that represents the likelihood of a human-made global catastrophe, in the opinion of the members of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Maintained since 1947, the clock is a metaphor for threats to humanity from unchecked scientific and technological advances. A hypothetical global catastrophe is represented by midnight on the clock, with the Bulletins opinion on how close the world is to one represented by a certain number of minutes or seconds to midnight, assessed in January of each year.

Introduces Quantum Field Theory, explaining the Klein-Gordon equation and vector representations.

Explores symmetries in quantum field theory, focusing on transformation rules and Casimir operators.

Explores the Suez Crisis of 1956, analyzing power struggles, political strategies, and the fear of a third world conflict during the Cold War.