Time Cube
|
The layout and writing style of the Time Cube website. | |
| Web address |
timecube.com until August 2015 Archived at archive.org/web[1] |
|---|---|
| Commercial | No |
Type of site | Personal web page |
| Available in | English |
| Created by | Gene Ray |
Alexa rank |
 517,356 (April 2014)[2] |
Time Cube was a personal web page operated by self-proclaimed "wisest man on earth" Otis Eugene "Gene" Ray, founded in 1997.[3] It served as a self-publishing outlet for Ray's theory of everything, called "Time Cube", which claims that all current sciences are part of a worldwide conspiracy to teach people lies; the theory's ultimate truth (and what the conspirators are said to be covering up) is that each day actually consists of four days.[4] Alongside these statements Ray described himself as a "godlike" being with superior intelligence who has "absolute" evidence and proof for his views. Academia has not taken Time Cube seriously.[5]
Ray's website domain names expired in August 2015.[6]
Content
Style
The Time Cube website had no home page or separate sections.[3] It consisted of a single web page that contained a vertical column of centered body text of various sizes and colours.[4]
Ray used cryptic language that included insults and non-sequitur lines such as "Belly-Button Logic© Works. When Does Teenager Die? Adults Eat Teenagers Alive, No Record Of Their Death." The narrative weaved in and out of his metaphysical ideas with numerous unique digressions.[3] In one paragraph he claimed that because his own wisdom "so antiquates known knowledge", a psychiatrist examining his behaviour diagnosed him with schizophrenia.[7]
Some have claimed it is futile to analyze the text rationally, locate meaningful proofs in the text, or verify any evidence.[8][3]
Time Cube concept
Ray's personal model of reality, called "Time Cube", insists that all of modern physics and education is wrong,[4] arguing among many other things that Greenwich Time is a global conspiracy. He utilized various graphs (along with pictures of Ray) that purport to show how each day is really four separate days—sunup, midday, sundown and midnight (formerly morning, early afternoon, late afternoon and evening)—occurring simultaneously.[3][5]
The following quotation from the website illustrates the recurring theme:
When the Sun shines upon Earth, 2 – major Time points are created on opposite sides of Earth – known as Midday and Midnight. Where the 2 major Time forces join, synergy creates 2 new minor Time points we recognize as Sunup and Sundown. The 4-equidistant Time points can be considered as Time Square imprinted upon the circle of Earth. In a single rotation of the Earth sphere, each Time corner point rotates through the other 3-corner Time points, thus creating 16 corners, 96 hours and 4-simultaneous 24-hour Days within a single rotation of Earth – equated to a Higher Order of Life Time Cube.
Ray has offered $1,000[9] or $10,000[5] to anyone who can prove his views wrong. Skeptics realized that to win the prize you would also need to convince Ray that his theory was wrong. It would require an answer framed in terms of his own model, and thus one that deviates from any form of modern science. "Even if you could pull that off," The Maine Campus argued, "Ray is probably broke."[3]
Reception
Ray spoke about Time Cube at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in January 2002 as part of a student-organized extra-curricular event during the Independent Activities Period.[10] He repeated his $10,000 offer for professors to disprove his notions at the event; none attempted it.[5] John C. Dvorak wrote in PC Magazine that "Metasites that track crackpot sites often say this is the number one nutty site."[4] He also characterized the site's content as "endless blather".[4] Asked by Martin Sargent in 2003 how it felt to be an Internet celebrity, Ray stated that it was not a position he wanted, but something he felt he had to do as "no writer or speaker understands the Time Cube".[8] Ray also spoke about Time Cube at the Georgia Institute of Technology in April 2005, in a speech in which he attacked the instruction offered by academics.[11]
A 2004 editorial in The Maine Campus student newspaper remarked upon the site's "subtle little racist ideologies" which culminate in Ray describing racial integration as "destroying all of the races".[3]
In 2005, Brett Hanover made Above God, a short documentary film about Ray and Time Cube,[12] which won awards for Best Documentary at the Indie Memphis Film Festival and the Atlanta Underground Film Festival.[13][14]
References
- ↑ https://archive.org/web/
- ↑ "Timecube.com Site Info". Alexa Internet. Retrieved April 1, 2014.
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 The Maine Campus: Timecube.com: Where reality as we know it is a lie, Mark Hartwell, The Maine Campus, September 24, 2004. Retrieved July 25, 2010.
- 1 2 3 4 5 Dvorak, John C. (December 22, 2003). "Don't Call Them Crackpots". PC magazine.
- 1 2 3 4 "Truth is cubic?", by Kate Duffy,The Phoenix, Swarthmore College, September 19, 2002. Archived by the Internet Archive, archive copy retrieved July 25, 2010.
- ↑ "Time Cube is gone", Adi Robertson, September 2, 2015, The Verge. Retrieved February 15, 2016.
- ↑ , "My wisdom so antiquates known knowledge, that a psychiatrist examining my behavior, eccentric by his academic single corner knowledge, knows no course other than to judge me schizoprenic."
- 1 2 Unscrewed with Martin Sargent on TechTV, season 1, episode 15 (aired June 18, 2003). "Sargent: Gene, how do you feel about being an Internet celebrity? I mean, you're huge on the web. Ray: Well, it's not a position I wanted, it's something I had to do. I'm not a writer or speaker, but no writer or speaker understands the Time Cube."
- ↑ "Timecube.com Picture". Archived from the original on August 18, 2015. Retrieved September 14, 2014.
- ↑ "IAP 2002 Activity: Time Cube Lecture / Debate". Retrieved April 5, 2007.
- ↑ "Oddball Time Cube theorist piques interest, elicits mixed response", by Joshua Cuneo, The Technique. Georgia Institute of Technology. April 22, 2005. Retrieved July 25, 2010.
- ↑ Above God, Brett Hanover official site. Retrieved July 25, 2010.
- ↑ "Act One among the big winners at Indie Memphis", by Chris Herrington, October 28, 2005, Memphis Flyer. Retrieved July 25, 2010.
- ↑ "Memphians Premiere New Film at Nashville Film Festival", Michael Finger, April 18, 2008, Memphis Flyer. Retrieved July 25, 2010.
External links
- Bei Dawei. "'Proving Human Stupidity': Time Cube, Gnosis, and the Challenge of Radical Cosmology" (PDF). Library of Hsuan Chuang University. Archived from the original (PDF) on November 8, 2014. Retrieved March 4, 2015.