WEBVTT - How to Catch a Time Traveler 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:07.200 Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to 0:00:07.400 --> 0:00:14.240 Forward Thinking. Hey there everyone, and welcomed up Forward Thinking, 0:00:14.240 --> 0:00:17.440 the podcast that looks at the future and says it's astounding, 0:00:17.760 --> 0:00:22.120 time is fleeting. I'm Jonathan's Stricklin and I'm Joe McCormick. 0:00:22.200 --> 0:00:24.400 And you know what, Jonathan, I give you a hard 0:00:24.440 --> 0:00:27.240 time about a lot of your lyrics, but I think 0:00:27.280 --> 0:00:30.800 that one was highly appropriate and enjoyable. Yeah. I think 0:00:30.800 --> 0:00:33.600 so too, because today we're gonna be talking about a 0:00:33.600 --> 0:00:36.839 really specific aspect of time travel that I wanted to 0:00:36.880 --> 0:00:39.720 do an episode about for a while. Okay, and why 0:00:39.800 --> 0:00:44.640 is that, Joe? How do you catch a time traveler? Well, 0:00:44.720 --> 0:00:47.639 I guess you have to be really careful. I mean 0:00:47.720 --> 0:00:50.239 someone's going to be able to stop time, or or 0:00:50.680 --> 0:00:52.800 change times, or or zip through time, and would make 0:00:52.840 --> 0:00:56.200 it pretty tricky. Do you mean, like like physically catch 0:00:56.200 --> 0:00:58.320 a time traveler just just figure out that a time 0:00:58.360 --> 0:01:00.360 traveler was around. I mean you'd have to have some 0:01:00.440 --> 0:01:03.400 kind of very clever bait, like, uh, I don't know 0:01:03.440 --> 0:01:06.600 what to time travelers eat? Oreos? You can catch me 0:01:06.680 --> 0:01:09.080 using oreos. I think if you had a sonic screwdriver, 0:01:09.160 --> 0:01:12.280 that'd be a good a good start. I thought at 0:01:12.319 --> 0:01:13.800 least one of you was going to make some kind 0:01:13.800 --> 0:01:16.160 of poke ball joke, like you got to catch them 0:01:16.160 --> 0:01:20.880 all chrono poke ball. You severely under thread old. I 0:01:20.920 --> 0:01:26.199 am okay, No, I don't mean physically catching time travelers 0:01:26.280 --> 0:01:28.800 like in a big bear hug or a net. I 0:01:28.840 --> 0:01:32.960 mean finding evidence of time travelers because okay, So we've 0:01:32.959 --> 0:01:37.080 talked on the podcast in in previous Adventures through the 0:01:37.160 --> 0:01:40.560 Mind space about whether or not time travel is a 0:01:40.640 --> 0:01:46.160 technological possibility, and basically the answer has always been maybe, 0:01:46.520 --> 0:01:50.720 we don't know, like like like a very thin maybe 0:01:51.040 --> 0:01:55.440 sure uh, or more specifically, the question of what kinds 0:01:55.480 --> 0:02:00.160 of time travel are technically possible for humans, because, for example, well, 0:02:00.440 --> 0:02:04.200 we know based on the theory of relativity that you 0:02:04.240 --> 0:02:06.360 can travel into the future. All you have to do 0:02:06.400 --> 0:02:09.040 to do that is go really really fast, or or 0:02:09.080 --> 0:02:12.880 you can just wait right. Yes, we are all time 0:02:12.919 --> 0:02:16.480 travelers can travel into the future faster than the other people. 0:02:16.560 --> 0:02:19.480 If you get into spaceship going the speed of light 0:02:19.560 --> 0:02:21.720 ship a long loop journey, and then come back, you 0:02:21.919 --> 0:02:24.240 will have traveled into the future. Time time will have 0:02:24.320 --> 0:02:27.440 passed more slowly for you relative to the people who 0:02:27.600 --> 0:02:31.200 stayed behind, But traveling into the past, we don't have 0:02:31.240 --> 0:02:34.480 any laws of physics that seem to indicate that that's possible. Well, 0:02:34.520 --> 0:02:37.760 I mean, there's sort of all these scenarios you can 0:02:37.800 --> 0:02:41.920 construct based based on relativity. You can come up with 0:02:41.960 --> 0:02:45.440 the way that, well, if this were possible, we could 0:02:45.440 --> 0:02:48.240 go into the past. We just don't know if it's possible, right, Like, 0:02:48.280 --> 0:02:52.120 for example, if we were able to travel faster than 0:02:52.120 --> 0:02:54.960 the speed of light, we would technically be traveling back 0:02:55.000 --> 0:02:58.160 in time, right, Or if you could create a wormhole 0:02:58.280 --> 0:03:02.280 or create these closed time like curves, you could theoretically 0:03:02.320 --> 0:03:04.200 travel into the past. We just don't know if we 0:03:04.240 --> 0:03:06.200 can do that. But there's one way that we in 0:03:06.240 --> 0:03:09.400 the present here could look for evidence of whether or 0:03:09.440 --> 0:03:13.120 not traveling into the past will ever be possible. And 0:03:13.200 --> 0:03:20.040 that method is, drumroll bela look for people from the future. Okay, gotcha. So, 0:03:20.280 --> 0:03:23.799 in other words, look for evidence that people have done this, 0:03:24.200 --> 0:03:26.960 people from the future have come back, and if we 0:03:27.000 --> 0:03:29.960 find that evidence, then that suggests that in fact, time 0:03:30.000 --> 0:03:33.919 travel is possible. Yeah, totally. So there there could be 0:03:34.000 --> 0:03:39.080 time travelers from the future walking amongst us today. But 0:03:39.520 --> 0:03:42.000 if they're there, how do we find them. That's the 0:03:42.120 --> 0:03:45.280 question that we're gonna ask today. Okay, And I'd say 0:03:45.320 --> 0:03:47.920 the first place we should start, because it's the most obvious, 0:03:48.040 --> 0:03:50.400 is that maybe we won't have to find them. Maybe 0:03:50.440 --> 0:03:54.440 they will just identify themselves willingly, for example, publicly on 0:03:54.560 --> 0:04:01.240 internet forum. Yeah, this is in person. Yeah, well you know, 0:04:01.480 --> 0:04:04.560 I mean, you've got stuff to do. Uh. So there's 0:04:04.600 --> 0:04:08.240 a famous story of a character I guess it is 0:04:08.240 --> 0:04:11.080 the best way of putting it, named John Tetoor or 0:04:11.160 --> 0:04:13.600 John Tighter, depending on how you want to pronounce the name. 0:04:14.040 --> 0:04:18.200 I always said, Yeah, I've heard it both ways. This 0:04:18.400 --> 0:04:24.240 was a persona that was let's say invented. I'm gonna 0:04:24.279 --> 0:04:27.080 go that far, because I think the evidence pretty much 0:04:27.240 --> 0:04:31.200 points to hoax. He was an internet storyteller. Yeah, before 0:04:31.200 --> 0:04:33.640 we closed the book, let's tell the story briefly and 0:04:33.680 --> 0:04:36.280 then and then say what our conclusion. Sure, alright, So 0:04:36.360 --> 0:04:39.640 the story is that this person traveled back in time 0:04:39.720 --> 0:04:43.120 from the year two thousand and thirties six to warn people, 0:04:43.160 --> 0:04:45.320 well really not even to warn people, but he did 0:04:45.400 --> 0:04:49.400 warn people to harold. He happened to post on the 0:04:49.440 --> 0:04:52.360 Internet while he was taking care of some business. Yeah, 0:04:52.440 --> 0:04:54.760 that business was that he said that in two thousand 0:04:54.800 --> 0:04:57.560 thirty six the world was on the verge of of 0:04:57.600 --> 0:05:01.760 a collapse because of a legitimate problem, that is in 0:05:01.880 --> 0:05:06.160 the Unix operating system, that being a date problem. Now, 0:05:06.200 --> 0:05:09.719 you guys remember the whole y two K debaccle, right, yeah, yeah, 0:05:09.720 --> 0:05:12.839 the idea that programmers had set a two digit year 0:05:13.360 --> 0:05:16.600 in a lot of programming languages, which works fine until 0:05:16.680 --> 0:05:20.960 you hit the year two thousand, because suddenly nine changes 0:05:20.960 --> 0:05:24.200 to zero zero, and all of a sudden, everyone's banking 0:05:24.279 --> 0:05:27.600 is very confused, right, right, All the computer systems are 0:05:27.640 --> 0:05:30.200 working as if the clock has reset, kind of like 0:05:30.240 --> 0:05:33.279 if you've ever played an old style pinball game and 0:05:33.360 --> 0:05:37.320 the the score turns, so it goes back to zero 0:05:37.400 --> 0:05:39.120 and suddenly it doesn't know that you made a high 0:05:39.120 --> 0:05:44.000 score anymore. Think of that except for worldwide consequences. Sure, 0:05:44.080 --> 0:05:47.120 and they two K bugs specifically was not the only 0:05:47.400 --> 0:05:52.680 computer glitch that this sort of system was involved with, right, No, Generally, 0:05:52.760 --> 0:05:55.599 there was this idea that Unix based systems would have 0:05:55.600 --> 0:06:00.520 a similar problem in the year. Right. And so here's 0:06:00.520 --> 0:06:03.719 where the story gets really funny to me. So the 0:06:03.760 --> 0:06:07.320 story is that it's twenty six in his time, in 0:06:07.400 --> 0:06:09.800 two years, everything's going to really fall apart. And their 0:06:09.839 --> 0:06:12.560 big problem is that they don't have any technology that 0:06:12.680 --> 0:06:17.640 interfaces with this Unix system anymore. It's Unix. Yeah, So 0:06:17.680 --> 0:06:21.760 what they need to do is build a time machine 0:06:22.720 --> 0:06:26.480 to go back into time and get an IBM computer 0:06:26.839 --> 0:06:29.640 that can interface with these Unix systems, and with that, 0:06:29.880 --> 0:06:35.920 I guess, single computer fix everything so that catastrophe is averted. 0:06:36.160 --> 0:06:38.960 And so he was sent back to nineteen to get 0:06:39.040 --> 0:06:41.680 one of these machines, then did a quick stop over 0:06:41.720 --> 0:06:43.680 in two thousand in order to just you know, mess 0:06:43.720 --> 0:06:46.599 around a bit, uh, specifically to go and visit his 0:06:46.720 --> 0:06:50.520 three year old self in two thousand. Uh. Now, the 0:06:50.600 --> 0:06:54.760 first first indication of this time traveler at all was 0:06:54.920 --> 0:06:57.160 and I didn't even know this until we were researching 0:06:57.200 --> 0:07:00.880 this recently. I did a full podcast about John titor 0:07:01.040 --> 0:07:04.160 On on a sister podcast, Tech Stuff, many years ago. 0:07:04.960 --> 0:07:09.960 But Art bell received a facts and Art Bells was 0:07:10.400 --> 0:07:14.440 a radio host of Coast to Coast a m and 0:07:15.080 --> 0:07:19.680 the show was famous for let's say fringe topics. If 0:07:19.720 --> 0:07:23.000 it's three AM and you want to tell a story 0:07:23.000 --> 0:07:26.400 about how you saw a UFO land and werewolves got 0:07:26.400 --> 0:07:29.560 out of it and probed holes in your body, you 0:07:29.640 --> 0:07:33.520 call art Bell. Yeah, so the the facts is to 0:07:33.680 --> 0:07:37.280 art Bell, were essentially stating that it was a time 0:07:37.280 --> 0:07:40.360 traveler from the future and Y two K had caused 0:07:40.400 --> 0:07:44.640 worldwide devastation and uh and so this was when the 0:07:44.640 --> 0:07:46.600 facts has arrived, all right, by two thousand, when the 0:07:46.640 --> 0:07:48.640 forum stuff was happening. By the way, there are a 0:07:48.680 --> 0:07:51.080 lot of people who suggest that the facts has sent 0:07:51.200 --> 0:07:54.200 art Bell and the forum person were two different people, 0:07:54.720 --> 0:07:59.160 but both working from the same general idea. Um. Now, 0:07:59.200 --> 0:08:01.360 clearly by two else and we knew the Y two 0:08:01.440 --> 0:08:04.720 K bug didn't cause worldwide devastation because hey, we were 0:08:04.720 --> 0:08:07.720 still here. Yeah yeah, we spent you know, millions upon 0:08:07.760 --> 0:08:10.200 millions of dollars and lots of man hours and woman 0:08:10.240 --> 0:08:13.040 hours in order to fix the problem. So yeah, So 0:08:13.080 --> 0:08:16.400 in this case, the the new person who originally went 0:08:16.480 --> 0:08:20.800 under the handle time Travel underscore zero, I like it, 0:08:21.160 --> 0:08:26.240 wrote wrote in a Time Travel Institute forum about how 0:08:26.720 --> 0:08:29.440 I'm sorry I have to interrupt you because I love 0:08:29.520 --> 0:08:33.920 the idea that a genuine time traveler tried to register 0:08:34.040 --> 0:08:37.640 the account time travel, but it was already taken and 0:08:37.760 --> 0:08:43.480 so underscore zero obviously didn't register in time enough I 0:08:43.480 --> 0:08:47.520 don't see a problem with that. With time travel, that's 0:08:47.559 --> 0:08:50.280 totally true. He could have traveled back to before the 0:08:50.360 --> 0:08:53.040 user name was taken. Look, we all know from dr 0:08:53.120 --> 0:08:57.320 here that some events are inescapable the fixed points in 0:08:57.320 --> 0:08:59.840 our timeline, and perhaps the creation of that particular user 0:08:59.880 --> 0:09:01.920 hadle in that particular for him. So you know, there's 0:09:01.960 --> 0:09:04.679 just a weeping angel somewhere just typing and laughing. Ha 0:09:04.679 --> 0:09:08.440 ha ha. I'm sorry I interrupted you. So he made 0:09:09.559 --> 0:09:12.520 some predictions, Yeah, so, well he didn't. There weren't predictions. 0:09:13.760 --> 0:09:17.000 He was talking about history, not predictions, right, So, first 0:09:17.000 --> 0:09:18.719 of all, he did say this was his get out 0:09:18.720 --> 0:09:21.120 of jail free card. He said that the time travel 0:09:21.160 --> 0:09:24.559 machine actually did not take one back to one's own time, 0:09:24.600 --> 0:09:27.720 but rather a parallel time that would be within one 0:09:27.800 --> 0:09:32.960 to two percent in uh, in agreement, Yeah, in agreement 0:09:33.000 --> 0:09:35.920 with their own So there'd be one or two percent 0:09:36.200 --> 0:09:40.839 deviation from the timeline, so certain things would be changed. Yeah, 0:09:41.000 --> 0:09:43.480 and also had kind of said that, you know, by 0:09:43.600 --> 0:09:48.079 going back and altering things, you could actually change the future. However, uh, 0:09:48.120 --> 0:09:50.840 there were some things that suggested that he suggested what 0:09:50.960 --> 0:09:54.360 we're going to happen, or said we're going to happen. Uh. 0:09:54.520 --> 0:09:58.199 Teacher also said that that the Olympics in two thousand four, 0:09:58.240 --> 0:10:00.480 that's the last one two thousand would be canceled, and 0:10:00.520 --> 0:10:03.760 then there was a little, uh you know, civil war 0:10:03.760 --> 0:10:07.520 in the United States by two thousand. He claimed that 0:10:07.559 --> 0:10:11.040 he had served in it. He said he was like 0:10:11.080 --> 0:10:17.400 a shotgun soldier or something something influenced at any rate. Uh. Yeah, 0:10:17.440 --> 0:10:20.160 that by two thousand thirteen there's a civil war happening 0:10:20.160 --> 0:10:23.720 in the United States. Obviously that has not happened either. Uh. 0:10:23.760 --> 0:10:27.199 He then said that by two thousand fifteen, I believe 0:10:27.240 --> 0:10:30.120 there was going to be a attack by the Russians 0:10:30.120 --> 0:10:31.920 in the United States, but seeing how's how the other 0:10:31.960 --> 0:10:34.400 ones haven't panned out, I wouldn't worry too much about that. 0:10:35.000 --> 0:10:38.120 Um So, yeah, he he was making these statements and 0:10:38.240 --> 0:10:42.200 was also really uh taking a pretty firm stance on 0:10:42.360 --> 0:10:44.680 things about, you know, the stuff that people shouldn't do, 0:10:44.760 --> 0:10:47.360 like they shouldn't eat beef because in the future mad 0:10:47.440 --> 0:10:50.400 cow disease was a real big problem, and that they 0:10:50.440 --> 0:10:53.840 needed to get off of that reliance upon beef now 0:10:54.080 --> 0:10:58.240 rather than than you know, court disaster in the future. 0:10:59.240 --> 0:11:02.960 Um So. The thing was that, you know, the predictions 0:11:02.960 --> 0:11:05.199 that's made so far have not panned out at all. 0:11:05.240 --> 0:11:07.240 It does look like it was pretty much a hoax. 0:11:07.240 --> 0:11:11.839 He also, uh, there was a John Tetor Foundation, a 0:11:11.880 --> 0:11:15.200 for profit limited liability company that was formed in Florida. 0:11:15.720 --> 0:11:19.840 The person who formed that is a lawyer, um, and 0:11:20.320 --> 0:11:24.680 his brother is a computer scientist. And yeah, I think 0:11:24.679 --> 0:11:26.960 I heard about this, didn't they. Like somebody hired a 0:11:27.000 --> 0:11:30.000 private investigator to look into this and found out that, 0:11:30.600 --> 0:11:33.679 like the guy thought it was this computer scientist, there 0:11:33.679 --> 0:11:36.439 are quite a few people who and at least through 0:11:36.480 --> 0:11:40.680 the circumstantial evidence suggests that the uh, the brother is 0:11:40.720 --> 0:11:44.920 in fact the the the brains behind John Tetar and 0:11:45.000 --> 0:11:48.880 the lawyer is the is the person trying to make 0:11:48.920 --> 0:11:52.480 money from it. Um. But I mean again, that's what 0:11:52.559 --> 0:11:54.640 we can say is there is a lawyer in Florida 0:11:55.080 --> 0:11:59.400 who does have a company, the John Teeter Foundation, that 0:11:59.480 --> 0:12:02.079 he formed, and he has a brother who's a computer scientist. 0:12:02.120 --> 0:12:07.520 That's all we can say definitively. However, based upon the predictions, 0:12:07.559 --> 0:12:10.760 it doesn't seem like this was a legitimate time traveler 0:12:10.800 --> 0:12:15.200 who came back and um, you know, used a car 0:12:15.360 --> 0:12:19.240 that had been outfitted with a time travel device on 0:12:19.320 --> 0:12:23.600 it so that he could um seamlessly fit into nineteen 0:12:23.679 --> 0:12:28.080 seventy five. You know, there's this. It was a pretty 0:12:28.120 --> 0:12:30.280 silly story, and of course his his point was that 0:12:31.240 --> 0:12:33.320 Teeter's point was that he could go back to nineteen 0:12:33.360 --> 0:12:37.679 seventy five, retrieve the computer, and then spend as much 0:12:37.720 --> 0:12:39.959 time as he wanted to in the past, because when 0:12:39.960 --> 0:12:42.480 he returns to the present, Yeah, it would just be 0:12:42.520 --> 0:12:45.880 a couple of seconds. So he said, oh, I came 0:12:45.920 --> 0:12:48.400 to two thousand, My mission is done. I'm done with 0:12:48.400 --> 0:12:50.959 my mission. What if he like died in two thousand 0:12:51.280 --> 0:12:53.880 and then never got to take the computer back. John 0:12:53.880 --> 0:12:56.880 Teeter clearly wasn't thinking this through. He was one of 0:12:57.440 --> 0:13:01.040 supposedly one of like eight people on a mission, but 0:13:01.160 --> 0:13:04.080 everyone had different parameters to their missions, and his was 0:13:04.120 --> 0:13:06.079 that he had to go back and get this IBM computer. 0:13:06.600 --> 0:13:09.000 So was he so this car of his that created 0:13:09.080 --> 0:13:12.000 singularities that took him through time? Did he also just 0:13:12.200 --> 0:13:16.400 drive this around take it through the Taco Bell? Yeah? Essentially, 0:13:16.800 --> 0:13:19.120 I mean it was supposed to be like the I 0:13:19.160 --> 0:13:21.760 remember that the requirements were that the car had to 0:13:21.800 --> 0:13:24.640 have a really good suspension because it was a gravity 0:13:24.760 --> 0:13:27.959 drive that was the time travel device. Yeah, I'm I'm 0:13:27.960 --> 0:13:29.720 telling you what the stuff that came out of this. 0:13:30.240 --> 0:13:33.120 The other thing to remember is that even if this 0:13:33.160 --> 0:13:36.160 were all possible, let's assume somehow that they were able 0:13:36.200 --> 0:13:39.160 to create a time travel like device, it would also 0:13:39.200 --> 0:13:41.760 have to travel through space because the Earth would not 0:13:41.960 --> 0:13:45.080 be in the position that it was in when he left. 0:13:45.960 --> 0:13:49.760 And then that's not the way cars travel through space, right, 0:13:49.880 --> 0:13:53.520 but not not through space, Okay, I would have this 0:13:53.600 --> 0:13:57.600 car just appear in the middle of of nothing. Okay, Well, 0:13:57.640 --> 0:13:59.880 I think maybe we can close the book on John 0:14:00.000 --> 0:14:02.560 heat Or it sounds to me like I maybe jump 0:14:02.640 --> 0:14:05.560 into conclusions here, but I think he wasn't a real 0:14:05.760 --> 0:14:09.400 time traveler. I'm gonna pretty much say I think that's 0:14:09.480 --> 0:14:13.400 that's skepticism. Yeah, okay, so of course he's not the 0:14:13.400 --> 0:14:15.880 only person who's ever claimed to be a time traveler 0:14:15.920 --> 0:14:17.720 from the future. But I guess we talked about him 0:14:17.720 --> 0:14:20.680 because he's the most famous. He's the one everybody's heard of, 0:14:20.920 --> 0:14:22.720 or at least he's he's one that we have lots 0:14:22.720 --> 0:14:25.280 of documentation for because it all I'll played out on 0:14:25.360 --> 0:14:28.520 internet forums, right, but all the stories are pretty much 0:14:28.600 --> 0:14:32.760 like his or less interesting. They make predictions that are 0:14:32.800 --> 0:14:34.840 either too vague and too far in the future to 0:14:34.880 --> 0:14:37.240 be verified, or they turn out not to be true. 0:14:37.960 --> 0:14:40.680 But that's not the only way to look for time 0:14:40.720 --> 0:14:43.000 travelers or to find one. Rather, if they just like 0:14:43.080 --> 0:14:45.640 come out and say, hey, I'm a time traveler, guys, yeah, yeah, 0:14:45.640 --> 0:14:47.800 if we we can, we can have other methods to 0:14:47.840 --> 0:14:51.120 find someone besides just hoping that they are going they 0:14:51.200 --> 0:14:54.320 announce themselves. Yeah, then their ego demands they that the 0:14:54.360 --> 0:14:57.520 world know them as time travelers. Right. Well, the other 0:14:57.600 --> 0:15:01.280 thing we could do is int them to show up somewhere, 0:15:01.560 --> 0:15:03.800 and in fact, we've done that lots of times. Well 0:15:03.800 --> 0:15:08.480 we haven't. Yeah, I've done episodes on time travel for 0:15:08.520 --> 0:15:10.080 text Stuff back in the day, and I said, listen, 0:15:10.120 --> 0:15:12.520 here's the thing. This podcast is going out. It will 0:15:12.560 --> 0:15:15.480 remain out there for quite some time. Here's an open 0:15:15.520 --> 0:15:18.440 invitation for a time traveler to go through and and 0:15:18.600 --> 0:15:21.480 visit how Stuff Works dot Com on this day. In fact, 0:15:21.480 --> 0:15:26.200 we're recording this on October twenty, two thousand fourteen, at 0:15:26.200 --> 0:15:28.880 around three forty five in the afternoon. If they want 0:15:28.920 --> 0:15:31.200 to come by, you have my permission to walk right 0:15:31.200 --> 0:15:36.000 into the studio right now uh nothing, but see that's 0:15:36.000 --> 0:15:40.000 just me doing it. I said five, they did, They've 0:15:40.040 --> 0:15:44.640 got the time so I haven't seen the five flip. 0:15:44.680 --> 0:15:48.200 Oh there just went Okay, Okay, so time travel it's 0:15:48.240 --> 0:15:50.800 never gonna happen, right, or at least completely. We can 0:15:50.840 --> 0:15:55.080 at least suggest that if it does happen, either anyone 0:15:55.160 --> 0:15:58.120 who does time travel doesn't listen to this podcast, which 0:15:58.160 --> 0:16:02.440 is a possibility, or or that there's some other reason 0:16:02.480 --> 0:16:05.240 why they wouldn't reveal themselves, or maybe they've got other 0:16:05.400 --> 0:16:07.920 stuff to do, like go to the m I T. 0:16:07.920 --> 0:16:11.920 Time Traveler convention. Right, I want to talk about this one. Okay, 0:16:12.120 --> 0:16:16.000 two thousand five May seven. If you're a time traveler, 0:16:16.240 --> 0:16:19.040 what are you doing? You're going to m I T 0:16:19.240 --> 0:16:24.080 Campus for an awesome, awesome party or what will be 0:16:24.120 --> 0:16:27.320 an awesome party because or what would have been an 0:16:27.360 --> 0:16:32.440 awesome party? I guess what will be then? What what 0:16:32.680 --> 0:16:35.040 wasn't an awesome party but could be an awesome party 0:16:35.080 --> 0:16:37.200 in the futures past. Okay, Okay, cut it out, cut 0:16:37.200 --> 0:16:39.800 it out. Don't get into the timmey wymy jokes. We're 0:16:39.840 --> 0:16:41.960 going down the road here, all right. Students at m 0:16:42.000 --> 0:16:45.240 I T and may have two thousand five, led by 0:16:45.280 --> 0:16:49.680 an electrical engineering and computer science grad student named Amal Dorai, 0:16:49.880 --> 0:16:53.320 held an official convention for time travelers. And I think 0:16:53.320 --> 0:16:56.160 this is just an awesome idea. A little side note, 0:16:56.360 --> 0:16:59.760 the original website for this event still exists. It is 0:17:00.080 --> 0:17:02.920 delightful and fully worth checking out. I think you should 0:17:02.920 --> 0:17:06.840 go look it up. But according to Dry, any real 0:17:06.920 --> 0:17:09.639 lifetime traveler was welcome to show up at the event 0:17:09.760 --> 0:17:13.119 without rs V ping. All non time traveling attendees had 0:17:13.119 --> 0:17:16.640 to rs VP, but the time traveler had to bring 0:17:16.840 --> 0:17:19.760 proof that he or she was from the future. He said, 0:17:20.119 --> 0:17:22.639 you know, anything that really seals the case will do, 0:17:22.760 --> 0:17:25.520 but we would prefer proof that's also of practical use, 0:17:25.600 --> 0:17:28.040 like a cure for AIDS, or a solution to world 0:17:28.119 --> 0:17:32.400 poverty or a cold fusion reactors. That's very deep thinking 0:17:32.400 --> 0:17:35.920 of him. I like that. Yeah. Uh so, in what 0:17:36.040 --> 0:17:39.199 I think was a very smart move, Dery and the 0:17:39.240 --> 0:17:43.600 people involved with the conference focused heavily on press, on 0:17:43.840 --> 0:17:46.840 getting the word out. This was a case where sort 0:17:46.880 --> 0:17:50.639 of shamelessly hounding media attention was not just understandable, but 0:17:50.720 --> 0:17:54.080 it was a vital part of the experiment. Right. Well, 0:17:54.119 --> 0:17:58.000 you know, because the website wasn't going to stick around forever. Hypothetically, 0:17:58.680 --> 0:18:01.920 that's what he said, but has uh so far. But 0:18:01.920 --> 0:18:03.359 but they did in no way of knowing that at 0:18:03.359 --> 0:18:06.120 the times right. I just want to read directly from 0:18:06.200 --> 0:18:09.800 their sort of frequently ask questions on the official website, 0:18:09.840 --> 0:18:12.520 because I think this is hilarious. So the question is, 0:18:12.520 --> 0:18:15.680 why do you need my help? They said, we need 0:18:15.760 --> 0:18:18.520 you to help publicize the events so that future time 0:18:18.560 --> 0:18:22.480 travelers will know about the convention and attend. This web 0:18:22.520 --> 0:18:25.080 page is insufficient. In less than a year, it will 0:18:25.080 --> 0:18:28.240 be taken down when I graduate, and furthermore, the World 0:18:28.359 --> 0:18:32.159 Wide Web is unlikely to remain in its present form permanently. 0:18:32.760 --> 0:18:35.639 We need volunteers to publish the details of the convention 0:18:35.720 --> 0:18:39.439 in enduring forms so the time travelers of the future 0:18:39.440 --> 0:18:42.600 millennial will be aware of the convention. This convention can 0:18:42.680 --> 0:18:46.159 never be forgotten. We need publicity and major outlets, not 0:18:46.240 --> 0:18:50.040 just Internet news think New York Times, Washington Post, books, 0:18:50.160 --> 0:18:52.720 that sort of thing. If you have any strings, please 0:18:52.760 --> 0:18:56.440 pull them. I love this plea because there's the there 0:18:56.520 --> 0:18:59.600 was the sphere. I guess that I don't know the 0:18:59.640 --> 0:19:02.760 Internet at the time. The Web is just this transient 0:19:03.960 --> 0:19:06.800 thing keep in mind, this was after the dot Com 0:19:06.960 --> 0:19:09.919 bubble burst, and so there was there was already a 0:19:10.160 --> 0:19:12.199 I mean, granted this was five years after that, but 0:19:12.240 --> 0:19:15.880 this was already a time where people had first saw 0:19:15.960 --> 0:19:19.560 the Internet as this this promised land, this this wild 0:19:19.600 --> 0:19:23.119 West where you could build anything. The dot Com bubble burst, 0:19:23.160 --> 0:19:25.600 and then suddenly we all began to be a little 0:19:25.600 --> 0:19:28.919 more cautious about it. So and of course we were 0:19:28.960 --> 0:19:32.159 also talking about what is the next iteration of the 0:19:32.160 --> 0:19:34.520 Worldwide Web, which were still kind of waiting for, whether 0:19:34.640 --> 0:19:37.400 that's the semantic Web or Back in two thousand five, 0:19:37.440 --> 0:19:40.359 we were still even thinking about the possibility of like 0:19:40.400 --> 0:19:43.359 a virtual web where we would have more of a 0:19:43.359 --> 0:19:47.080 a an experience where you're navigating like in the movies 0:19:47.200 --> 0:19:50.919 where suddenly you're you're using a head a head mounted 0:19:51.000 --> 0:19:55.720 display and you're your physically moving past things. And ultimately 0:19:55.720 --> 0:19:59.639 we all said, you know that that sounds stupid, but 0:19:59.680 --> 0:20:01.560 at the time that was really one of those things 0:20:01.640 --> 0:20:04.320 we were thinking about. It's it's definitely more cinematic than 0:20:04.720 --> 0:20:07.880 scrolling and clicking on a web page, but in anywhere 0:20:07.960 --> 0:20:10.840 at any rate. I love those nineties hacker movies where 0:20:10.840 --> 0:20:14.560 the hackers used game controllers and then that you encounter 0:20:14.600 --> 0:20:17.520 a skull and crossbones and that's that's the security firewall 0:20:17.640 --> 0:20:22.119 and yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway, so the dery and the 0:20:22.119 --> 0:20:25.360 people organizing the conference asked people to try to create 0:20:26.359 --> 0:20:28.920 a big name for this conference so that it would 0:20:28.920 --> 0:20:31.840 be remembered into the future, and to leave records in 0:20:31.880 --> 0:20:36.160 obscure places like physical lasting records. Right, so write down 0:20:36.240 --> 0:20:39.240 the details about the party and then just hide them 0:20:39.240 --> 0:20:43.000 in library books all over the place, or or carve 0:20:43.080 --> 0:20:46.359 them into clay tablets or right or or or you know, 0:20:47.080 --> 0:20:49.920 put a new face on Rushmore that says party at 0:20:49.920 --> 0:20:53.720 my place and time travelers. Yeah. So they eventually did 0:20:53.760 --> 0:20:56.640 get plenty of coverage in the press, including a subsequent 0:20:56.760 --> 0:21:00.919 rite up in Nature News called Time Travelers Snow Conference. 0:21:01.280 --> 0:21:05.720 Oh well, I mean, you know, that's obviously we all 0:21:05.840 --> 0:21:08.760 failed in our attempt to publicize this, and the time 0:21:08.800 --> 0:21:11.840 travelers of the future just didn't know about it. That's 0:21:11.880 --> 0:21:14.560 one way of interpreting it. Obviously, you can tell yes 0:21:14.600 --> 0:21:18.280 from the title nobody no time travelers showed up. But 0:21:18.600 --> 0:21:23.000 from what I hear, it was a great party. Yeah. 0:21:23.040 --> 0:21:26.320 Another party that happened was put on by Stephen Hawking. 0:21:26.560 --> 0:21:29.199 This was this was the best way of going about this. 0:21:29.280 --> 0:21:31.800 I think Hawking's affair to remember, and I think he 0:21:31.880 --> 0:21:36.360 added a really clever twist to this. So on June nine, 0:21:36.400 --> 0:21:40.399 Stephen Hawking held a party in Cambridge. All existing time 0:21:40.400 --> 0:21:43.560 travelers were invited, so he must have had a lot 0:21:43.600 --> 0:21:46.480 of food and drink on hand. I hope. I don't 0:21:46.480 --> 0:21:51.800 know how many time travelers you expect to be. You 0:21:51.920 --> 0:21:54.280 gotta cast a wide net. Yeah, it's really hard to 0:21:54.320 --> 0:21:57.119 tell the caterers. I mean, just like any Facebook event, 0:21:57.240 --> 0:22:00.040 you invite you know, three times more people than and 0:22:00.119 --> 0:22:02.480 actually fit into the venue because you know, not a 0:22:02.520 --> 0:22:04.240 lot of people are gonna hit maybe and that means 0:22:04.240 --> 0:22:06.920 they're not showing up. Right. Okay, so all the time 0:22:06.960 --> 0:22:10.840 travelers were invited, but the catch was Hawking didn't issue 0:22:10.880 --> 0:22:14.320 the invitation for the party until after the party was 0:22:14.320 --> 0:22:17.160 scheduled to take place, which is well after until after 0:22:17.200 --> 0:22:20.040 the party actually happened, right, Because that's the that's the 0:22:20.080 --> 0:22:22.080 best thing, you know, is the idea that well, with 0:22:22.200 --> 0:22:25.879 time travel it doesn't matter when you announced the party, 0:22:25.920 --> 0:22:28.080 as long as you make it clear enough that the 0:22:28.080 --> 0:22:31.080 party was going to happen. And uh and the time 0:22:31.080 --> 0:22:33.119 travelers would be able to travel back in time to 0:22:33.240 --> 0:22:36.320 when the party was actually happening and arrived there. So 0:22:36.640 --> 0:22:39.600 theoretically of time travel is possible, and if people were 0:22:39.760 --> 0:22:41.480