Researchers use social media to search for time travelers
Source: Craig Manning
Someone visiting our time from the future would probably have a social media presence, and would probably be tweeting or posting on Facebook about events they shouldn’t know about just yet.
Hop in your DeLorean and gun it to 88, folks: time travel is back in the conversation among technology experts.
Scientists still may not be getting close to actually discovering time travel, but that hasn’t stopped them from trying to prove that it could be a possibility and a reality in the future. In fact, according to an article recently published by the website RedOrbit.com, researchers from Michigan Technological University are turning to social media in an effort to discover secret time travelers. In the researchers’ estimation, someone visiting our time from the future would probably have a social media presence, and would probably be tweeting or posting on Facebook about events they shouldn’t know about just yet.
To search for possible time travelers, members of the Michigan Tech team established a pair of search terms that only truly entered the common lexicon in 2013 or 2013 �C “Pope Francis” and “Comet ISON” �C and then began using those terms to peruse social media posts, blogs, or other internet communications from before those terms became common. The researchers focused on posts made between January 2006 and September 2013, leaning more heavily toward older dates.
The study was a unique one to be sure, and unfortunately for true time travel believers, researchers found no proof that any resident bloggers or Facebook enthusiasts knew about either Pope Francis or Comet ISON before they were supposed to. ISON was the first comet to ever bear that name, and no mentions of the rock were found online prior to the comet’s discovery in 2012. Similarly, before Jorge Bergoglio was selected as the new Pope early last year, no pope had ever selected the name “Francis.” One blogger did make mention of a “Pope Francis” prior to last year, but the comment was made in speculation based on knowledge of which names popes are allowed to select.
Robert Nemiroff, the astrophysics professor who headed up the Michigan Tech study, wasn’t terribly disappointed with the project’s lack of concrete findings. He called the research cycle “a lot of fun” and theorized that no one else had ever undertaken a similarly out-of-the-box look at time travel.
The search was also inherently limited in scope, thanks to the necessarily narrow selection of search terms. Nemiroff and his partner in crime, a graduate student named Teresa Wilson, fully scoured the internet using social media tools, search engines, and more, but all they have really proved is that time travelers, if they exist, haven’t seen fit to discuss popes or comets in their social media comments. With that in mind, Nemiroff and Wilson’s study could be replicated using different search terms in the future.
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