A 50,000-year time capsule in space...

Danny Yavuzkurt (ayavuzk@fas.harvard.edu)
Fri, 16 Apr 1999 15:37:01 -0400

the article:
http://www.mercurycenter.com/svtech/news/breaking/internet/docs/344236l.htm

This is amazing.. KEO (www.keo.org) is sending up a time-capsule satellite designed to wait 50,000 years, then return to Earth.. and is including with it many CD-ROMs of messages from people who visit its website.. and it's free.. this sounds like a great opportunity to put in our thoughts about the future and messages to our future counterparts... and.. an opportunity to test an idea I've had for a long time...

Here's my idea.. perhaps if more people participate, it could work... if only one did it, they might not listen, but if many did it, it could have a greater chance of doing *something*..

Assuming time travel is invented sometime in the future, perhaps within the next 50,000 years, what would happen if one made an indestructible message to the inhabitants of the future, who would presumably hold time-travel technology under their control, asking them to travel back to OUR time?... assuming time-travel isn't tightly controlled by then, and assuming they're irresponsible enough to do it (chuckle), we should see results as soon as we enter the message.. if we see no results, then we can assume that time travel will be impossible and can forget about trying to create it.

Of course, if it *is* possible, but we don't see results within a timeframe we like, and give up on it, then we've of course negated the possibility of its existence by believing it to be impossible..

Fun mental experiment, eh?.. why don't we see if it works?..