A search of the Internet for them comes up empty.
Remember, though, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
[Update a few minutes later]
Related: If a time traveler encountered a smart phone.
3 thoughts on “Time Travelers”
Comments are closed.
Proof and absense don’t commute, but absence of evidence is evidence of absence.
Probability(there are time travelers, given that we haven’t looked for evidence yet) = probability (there are time travelers, given that we’ll see evidence) times probability(we’ll see evidence) plus probability(there are time travelers, given that we won’t see evidence of them) times (probability(we won’t see evidence)). A = B*C+D*(1-C).
So,
(B-A)*C + (D-A)*(1-C) = 0
(D-A) = -(B-A)*C/(1-C)
C and (1-C) are both positive, so if (B-A) is positive (i.e. finding evidence would increase the expected probability of time travelers existing) then (D-A) is negative (i.e, finding no evidence decreases the expected probability of time travelers existing).
Yes, it’s actually more correct to say “Absence of evidence is not proof of absence,” but it doesn’t sound as clever.
There are definitely time travellers. You see one every time you look in the mirror; you are traveling forward in time, your mirror image is a view of a billionth of a second in the past.