This week's collection of whimsical and curious stories will go back to the topic of time. Specifically, time travel.
The time travelers' party - In 2009, famed physicist Stephen Hawking conducted a practical experiment to test if it is possible to travel backwards in time. To that end, he hosted a party for time travelers (which is just like a normal party, except that the invitations were sent after the event). Following the event, Hawking stated that he now has "[...] experimental evidence that time travel is not possible."
However, in defense of time travel, this format proposes eight other possible explanations for the absence of guests at his party:
Hawking was known to host dull parties
He hosted the party at Gonville and Caius college (i.e., the Slytherin among Cambridge colleges)*
He did not use ISO 8601in his invitation (i.e., year/month/day instead of the confusing US date format month/day/year)
He provided geo coordinates instead of absolute spatial coordinates. The earth will have travelled a long way in space from where it was in 2009!
He did not provide towels for his guests (see Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy)
He hosted his party at a bad time. 2009 is not a popular destination for time travelers who much rather like to take it easy and congregate on April 11th, 1954.
He did not advertise well. He should have printed the invitation onto something more durable than paper to survive long into the future, e.g., Stonehenge
His party was just not important enough. Time travelers are mostly too busy convincing a young Adolf Hitler to skip art school and instead pursue a career in tight-rope walking
Here is a brief video explaining the event:
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*To all readers who studied at Caius, you are very nice people! We obviously all know where Slytherin resides (looking at you, St. John's;)