My Time Travel Experiment

[RArvay]

I was wondering how to prove or disprove whether or not people could travel backward in time. Suddenly an idea occurred to me. Since I could not find a way to travel backward in time, maybe somebody in the future could do it, and travel backward in time to the present day.

So here is what I did. This past July I went to my local newspaper and put in an advertisement. The advertisement was paid in advance and legally contracted for performance, such that it will be published on July 30, 3014, a thousand years into the future.

It simply said, “I am living in the year 2014. If you are living in the year 3014, you have probably figured out how to travel backward in time. If you do so, and contact me, I will place a small amount of money in a special trust account which you can access on the 30th of July, 3014. With compound interest, this should make you a very wealthy man when you return to the future. This offer is valid only for the first person to respond. Bring with you, to [my address] incontrovertible proof that you live in the year 3014.”

I told my wife that since it is now September, 2014, and no one has responded, I conclude that backward time travel will be impossible for the next thousand years.

She got a funny look on her face, and I asked why.

She said, you know, I just remembered—there was a guy who showed up at our door last January wearing a strange costume, and carrying some weird looking gadgets. He had a newspaper in his hand, and he said that he was here responding to an advertisement. I called you at work and asked you if you knew anything about it, but you said that you had not placed any advertisements in the newspaper. The guy then said, “I knew it was too good to be true,” and went away.

Warning: Read this first. This account is not true.