John Husselbee: View from the front row

Stanislav Petrov is credited with being the man who saved the world from nuclear war on 26 September 1983. He was the duty officer at the command centre for the Oko nuclear early-warning system when the computers reported a handful of missiles were heading to the Soviet Union from the US. Petrov, who died in September 2017, correctly decided the report was in fact a computer error as a first-strike nuclear attack was likely to involve hundreds of missiles. This is obviously an extreme example but it demonstrates the continued importance of human insight and experience rather than relying...