John Titor: Time Traveler

[Infinitenight2093]

From what I know, John Titor is the name a person claiming to be a time traveler from the year 2036. In his story, he claims that the world will soon discover it's first time machine with the help of CERN. This person has given diagrams and descriptions of the supposed time machine as well as describing how it works. I am not all that familiar with this story but in my opinion it doesn't sound that far-fetched. Titor has even described why backwards time travel paradoxes do not exist (infinite worldlines).

It is indeed a strange story (and a very clever one if untrue because he has stated that some of his predictions may not come true for us because of the shift between worldlines) but I don't see why it can't be true.

Is anyone more familiar with this story? and what are your opinions about it? such as, does it have any scientific merit? could it be at all possible? or is it all just complete rubbish?

thanks, B

[Strange]

I assumed it was all just a marketing ploy to sell his (SF) book. There is a long history of adventure/travel stories being written as if they were true; e.g. "I fond this old manuscript in a junk shop" or "Now my grandfather has passed away, it is safe to tell his story..."

[Infinitenight2093]

True, but whoever may be behind this story seems to have a high degree of scientific know-how (although not unlike many sci-fi writers today) unless they are just stolen models and ideas.

[tnjrp]

John "Razimus/Hoaxhunter" Hughston has done about a thousand miles of legwork to uncover the truth behind John Titor:
http://hoaxhunter.blogspot.com/

On the science bit, you might like to read what Dr. Michio Kaku says about Titor science claims:
http://hoaxhunter.blogspot.com/2009/...oaxhunter.html

[Strange]

True, but whoever may be behind this story seems to have a high degree of scientific know-how (although not unlike many sci-fi writers today) unless they are just stolen models and ideas.

There have been plenty of popular science books written with ideas about how time travel could work. Has he said anything that isn't covered by Davies, Hawking, et al?

[R.A.F.]

...whoever may be behind this story seems to have a high degree of scientific know-how...

Really?...I see no evidence of any such thing.

[Fortis]

The failed predictions regarding civil war, nuclear winter, and an end to the Olymic Games in 2004, would suggest that if he is a time traveller, then he didn't know his history.

[Van Rijn]

Is anyone more familiar with this story?

I'm familiar with it. Also, this isn't the first time it has come up on BAUT.

and what are your opinions about it?

My opinion is that it is an extraordinary claim, and would require extraordinary evidence. From what I've seen it looks just like I'd expect from somebody making up a story. What do you find compelling about this claim?

[HenrikOlsen]

The failed predictions regarding civil war, nuclear winter, and an end to the Olymic Games in 2004, would suggest that if he is a time traveller, then he didn't know his history.

Depends on which model for backwards time travel is used, it's e.g. consistent with the "you always travel back to a parallel timeline, never to your own past" which has as a consequence that your presense may alter the time after your arrival without making a contradiction because it's happening to another timetime that the one you came from so you aren't altering your past, in which case he may have known his history, but that isn't the one he's in.

[PetersCreek]

As I recall, he did in fact preemptively cite multiple timelines as being the reason some of his predictions might not come to pass.

[Paul Beardsley]

As I recall, he did in fact preemptively cite multiple timelines as being the reason some of his predictions might not come to pass.

Yes, coincidentally the very model of time travel I would choose if I were lying about travelling in time.

[KaiYeves]

I assumed it was all just a marketing ploy to sell his (SF) book. There is a long history of adventure/travel stories being written as if they were true; e.g. "I fond this old manuscript in a junk shop" or "Now my grandfather has passed away, it is safe to tell his story..."

Case in point being the Ology books.

[JustAFriend]

Rule #1: Anyone can CLAIM anything. (Fiction writers do it all the time.)

When they can't prove it, move on.

By the way, I've got a UFO and a dead alien buried in my backyard....but I'm not
going to tell you where it is because people will dig up my roses. See how it works?

[dgavin]

Ok so he traveled back in time? So Lets see his time machine that he is goign to use to get back to his own time....

[LotusExcelle]

What would be the point to traveling to a different past then your own? His parallelism is simply to excuse his wildly inaccurate guesses.

[Van Rijn]

What would be the point to traveling to a different past then your own? His parallelism is simply to excuse his wildly inaccurate guesses.

The guy who perpetrated this hoax said that the past before the time traveler's arrival was the same, or close enough that it didn't matter. The claim was that he had gone back for an old computer (IBM 5100) but the reasoning for it didn't make sense. Then again, he also apparently claimed that Y2K would be a major disaster. Sorry, that's so improbable that it only fits the Simpsons or Family Guy universes.

[LotusExcelle]

Its quite absurd. I would think that *if* it were possible you'd be just as likely end up in a universe in which earth never formed.

[Van Rijn]

If there actually was a time traveler, and he wanted to give some real evidence for it over the internet, he could provide references to things that can't be predicted with any existing techniques, and aren't going to be dependent on human actions, but could be later verified. For instance, he could provide a list of significant earthquakes, with epicenter, magnitude, and date/time or sunspot maps for specific dates and times.

[HenrikOlsen]

Ok so he traveled back in time? So Lets see his time machine that he is goign to use to get back to his own time....

Why would he need one if he never planned to going back?
For that matter why do you think it should be possible to go forward in time (at faster than 1s/s), even if it was possible to go back.

What would be the point to traveling to a different past then your own? His parallelism is simply to excuse his wildly inaccurate guesses.

The point of parallelism is to invent a paradox-free version of backwards time travel.

Or did you mean why go? Because you'd prefer to live in a world with a different outcome of something you think you can change.

Its quite absurd. I would think that *if* it were possible you'd be just as likely end up in a universe in which earth never formed.

And that's the nice thing about wildly speculating, no one knows. But the best stories tend to be those where you end up on a timeline identical to your own past at the time of arrival, but that arrival is what splits off the parallel.

[Fortis]

If there actually was a time traveler, and he wanted to give some real evidence for it over the internet, he could provide references to things that can't be predicted with any existing techniques, and aren't going to be dependent on human actions, but could be later verified. For instance, he could provide a list of significant earthquakes, with epicenter, magnitude, and date/time or sunspot maps for specific dates and times.

But maybe they work by a form of reverse astrology, where by being of a cheerful disposition and not experiencing a money making opportunity, I modify the orbit of Mars in order to reflect that?

[Celestial Mechanic]

But maybe they work by a form of reverse astrology, where by being of a cheerful disposition and not experiencing a money making opportunity, I modify the orbit of Mars in order to reflect that?

Congratulations on this, your 4,000th post!

[Fortis]

Congratulations on this, your 4,000th post!

Why thank you.

[tnjrp]

If there actually was a time traveler, and he wanted to give some real evidence for it over the internet, he could provide references to things that can't be predicted with any existing techniques, and aren't going to be dependent on human actions, but could be later verified

Indeed such would be pretty good since it's unlikely that the Haitian quake for example would've occured on a significantly different date in a radically different location in any timeline that's as close to ours as Titor seems to claim his was. Possessing this level of evidence would require some preparation however and I should think the time traveler should have been planning to "expose" himself at some point prior to coming back in time.

[karadan]

Well, according to Titor, the US should be in the midst of a civil war by now.

It was a great story when it came out.

[tnjrp]

No wonder he volunteered to come back in order to get to another timeline

[captain swoop]

Tell me who is going to win the Grand National for the next 5 tears or what shares to buy.

[mugaliens]

Tell me who is going to win the Grand National for the next 5 tears or what shares to buy.

In so doing it would alter demand and therefore change the outcome, rendering the information useless.

[Spoons]

I remember reading about this years ago - I thought he disappeared, sorry, travelled back to his own time when the going got tough with all the questions he was getting.

It seems like everything he said was made unfalsifiable by his use of the many worlds hypothesis.

It was a really entertaining story though, along with all the threads and websites about it back in the day.

[Spoons]

If anyone's interested, I'm willing to spend a few hours this evening digging around for any statements he may have made on physics which should be falsifiable, regardless of the many worlds hypothesis. It could be the only was to truly falsify his claims. Though even then any supporters could claim he just forgot or misstated the facts.

[captain swoop]

In so doing it would alter demand and therefore change the outcome, rendering the information useless.

How would putting a few modest bets well spread on a horse that was going to win anyway change the outcome of the race?

Even better would be an accumulator on the days racing at somewhere obscure like Lingfield or Redcar. That way you make a big killing and it appears to be chance, Accumulators come off quite often.
A Spread bet would be even better.

Buying shares today and hanging onto them for six months wouldn't change the outcome of the world markets, as you know millions of shares are traded every minute.

Buy a few paintings by a still 'undiscovered' artist and sell them for a fortune in 20 years time. My old art teacher at college had the opportunity to by several LS Lowery paintings when he was a student but never bothered as he didn't like his work. Roll on 30 years later he wishes he had.