Time Traveler Convention Planned for Saturday, May 7

livescience.com...

If you're into time travel, mark your calendar for Saturday, May 7, 2005, when the first Time Traveler Convention will be held at MIT. Or if you miss it, perhaps you can wait a few years and attend anyway. That's kind of what organizer Amal Dorai is banking on.
While scientists have not figured out the practical specifics of time travel, they also haven't ruled it out as a possibility.

Dorai, a graduate student in electrical engineering and computer science, hatched a rather ingenious plan to test the concept. Though obviously a stunt, the whole idea is a mindbender worthy of any scientifically inclined mind.

"We are doing this as a very low-risk, low-cost way to investigate the possibility of time travel," Dorai told LiveScience. "Of course the odds are against us, but imagine the scientific discovery we would have on our hands if a time traveler shows up. Of course, no time travelers doesn't rule out the possibility of time travel; they could have just decided not to come to our convention."

The gathering will be held at MIT's East Campus Courtyard. Dorai gave the specific coordinates for anyone needing to plug them into some futuristic machine: 42:21:36.025°N, 71:05:16.332°W.

Though perhaps someone already has attendance figures, they were not available when this article was filed.

The convention's plans sound pretty loose.

like time travel???

is john titor your god???

if so, you will love this...

ENJOY!!!

if anyones late to the conference, doesn't that prove time travel is impossible ? I mean, geez its MIT for cryin out loud !

Maybe they will show up but not give any indication to thier presence due to some future law to preserve the "Timeline" or somesuch. Who knows, if Time Travel is possible I'm sure we have some Timetravellers amoung us right now, but if it isn't it will not stop us from arguing about it till the end of the world

Am I the only one who caught this?

Though perhaps someone already has attendance figures, they were not available when this article was filed.

I hear the program for the event is very detailed, listing all speakers, even random audience questions, right down to the minute and second, hehe....

The scheduling must be a nightmare, what with all the temporal pardoxes and such. And what happens if some guy meets his own grandmother at the con and, well, you know...

I all ready went. It was pretty Zoinkers.... Especially with all those maximum science chicks that MIT has. Such lovely cerebellums, oh yeah!!! Wink, Wink. The refreshments were a little bland however. If you get the chance, do go. I'll be the one in back with the dark cloak and glasses. Hope you had a good time... or will have as the case may be.

Forgive me for sounding thick. But you are giving the game away by doing this in advance.

i would have thought by staging this retrospectivly would eliminate the chance of a fraudster showing up.

by giving the time and location in advance a lunatic could turn up and give you all a load of BS.

By posting this a week AFTER the event i would have thought was safer because the time traveller would have to go back in time to go to your meeting.

Doing it in advance is the perfect excuse for fraudsters and debunkers to carve you all a new one.

I went to this year's convention last year. It's so overrated. I'm thinking of meeting myself there and telling myself not to stay for the whole thing. The time convergence speech didn't have anything new to add that hadn't been covered allready. Or actually nothing that hasn't been covered in the future...same thing.

glad to see you ATSers enjoyed this find...

you know, i liked your jokes

I think there is a thread already on this... or maybe someone just posted this stuff in another thred... read this about a week or so ago.

I believe the plan is to gather a group of five or more time travelers, travel back in time to the convention, sit in the front row and heckle the speakers by finishing their sentences for them.

Then again, if time travel is possible and this does happen perhaps the time travelers read it here and got their heckling idea from me...hang on, head exploding...tequila...beer....much better.

Spiderj

If you go, make sure not to eat MIT campus food. I gave a presentation there once, and I ate lunch beforehand...it was a really nasty bacon cheeseburger, and I had to stop in the middle of the presentation.

Sorry to go off topic a bit, but yea, MIT food sucks.

I'll go like 40 years from now. I don't have they time or money currently, but then I'll have all the time in the world.

awesome post! im a john titor fan!!!

Originally posted by balon0
awesome post! im a john titor fan!!!

Titor is probably there right now, but can't be verified, because there is a 4% timeline divergence, and he's probably really in Las Vegas tonight. Er... Sorry next week.

Yeah, this is the parallel universe one to go with the one on the other thread that some ATS members have been to in the future already.

Seventh dimension visitors assemble at Skull & Bones Chat on 23 April at 14:00 EST and we shall depart as a group.

Originally posted by MaskedAvatar
Yeah, this is the parallel universe one to go with the one on the other thread that some ATS members have been to in the future already.

Seventh dimension visitors assemble at Skull & Bones Chat on 23 April at 14:00 EST and we shall depart as a group.

Say Hey, Avatar! Didn't we run into each other, in a virtual sort of way, going too and from the soiree, next month?

Originally posted by Lysergic
... read this about a week or so ago.

Yeah, Grady read this post then travelled back 41/2 days to be the first poster.

This part of the MIT culture, we're a little wacky, but it's all in good fun. No one is really expecting anything to happen, but if it does, this is the best place for it. So all the publicity is being done, not for now, but for the future People will be able to google the party and come. Also, there is a scheduled time for the arrival of time travelers. Arrangments have been made to prevent any time/space mishaps. And our food does not suck!

A little mre info from the Official Site-- it IS a lark, but not totally so. They are asking for your help.

I notice one bad assumption: interesting point that there only needs to be one Time Travelers Convention ever ... But wouldn't you choose Vegas or San Francisco 1968 or Swinging London? How about Jurassic South Dakota? Why, with all of eternity stretching before you, would you choose to hold that 1 convention in Cambridge Mass 2005?


What is it?

Technically, you would only need one time traveler convention. Time travelers from all eras could meet at a specific place at a specific time, and they could make as many repeat visits as they wanted. We are hosting the first and only Time Traveler Convention at MIT on Saturday, and WE NEED YOUR HELP!

Why do you need my help?

We need you to help PUBLICIZE the event so that future time travelers will know about the convention and attend. This web page is insufficient; in less than a year it will be taken down when I graduate, and futhermore, 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. This convention can never be forgotten! We need publicity in MAJOR outlets, not just Internet news. Think New York Times, Washington Post, books, that sort of thing. If you have any strings, please pull them.

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.

You can also make an absolute commitment to publicize the convention afterwards. In that case, bring a time capsule or whatever it may be to the party, and then bury it afterwards.