String theory, black holes, worm holes, relativity, movement at or near the speed of light, and the unimpeachable Back to the Future and Bill and Ted movies all suggest the possibility of time travel, or the reversibility of the arrow of time; but overcoming the technical and conceptual problems inherent in taking advantage of these insights could take centuries, millennia, or forever (whatever that means).
That, however, isn't stopping MIT graduate student Amal K. Dorai, 22, from inviting guests from the future to gather and groove in the here and now - well specifically at:
The Time Traveler Convention
May 7, 2005, 10:00pm EDT (08 May 2005 02:00:00 UTC)
(events start at 8:00pm)
East Campus Courtyard, MIT
3 Ames St. Cambridge, MA 02142
42:21:36.025°N, 71:05:16.332°W
If you are NOT a time traveler, and you have not already RSVP'd, then kindly buzz off ("to infinity and beyond"), however, because their event "can only hold so many people," and they are reserving some space for the guests of honor.
However, you CAN still help:
- the World Wide Web is unlikely to remain in its present form permanently. We need volunteers to publish the details of the convention in enduring forms, so that the time travelers of future millennia will be aware of the convention ... We need publicity in MAJOR outlets, not just Internet news. Think New York Times, Washington Post, books, that sort of thing.
...Great idea, I'd love to help! What should I do?
Write the details down on a piece of acid-free paper, and slip them into obscure books in academic libraries! Carve them into a clay tablet! If you write for a newspaper, insert a few details about the convention! Tell your friends, so that word of the convention will be preserved in our oral history! A note: Time travel is a hard problem, and it may not be invented until long after MIT has faded into oblivion. Thus, we ask that you include the latitude/longitude information when you publicize the convention.
Article comments
1 - DrKronos
Umm, It's still on then? I mean, after everything that's going to happen between now and tomorrow.
Oops, gotta go, time is pressing. Must run
2 - Eric Olsen
Dr K, don't tease and run
3 - Aaman
Interesting picture at the bottom of the page - the machine from Napoleon Dynamite, lol
4 - Victor Plenty
Gosh!
5 - Eric Berlin
I'm so setting my alarm clock for this in 2038.
Great story.
6 - Leslie
OOOOkay - obviously certain people haven't heard anything about a paradox! Duh! Were time travel possible, and let's pretend it is, if the occasional time-traveler decided to pay a social call to our esteemed year, 2005, they'd atleast have enough brains to NOT show up to some event welcoming time travelers!
7 - Eric Olsen
So how did it go? Update: The convention was a mixed success. Unfortunately, we had no confirmed time travelers visit us, yet many time travelers could have attended incognito to avoid endless questions about the future. We had a great series of lectures, awesome bands, and even a DeLorean. We regret having had to turn away visitors, but there were capacity restrictions governing Morss Hall. Thanks so much to the dozens of people who helped.