Oddball Time Cube theorist piques interest, elicits mixed response

"Warning!!! Creation is cubic, but you are educated singularity stupid by academic bastards."

So reads the first line of www.timecube.com, a collection of thoughts by one Gene Ray, who posits that linear time is a lie and that the harmonic time cube appears everywhere in nature. It was precisely that point that Ray attempted to make before an audience of students last Thursday night.

Ray, who is somewhat of an internet celebrity and who has spoken about his theories only once before, at a lecture at MIT in 2002, was invited to speak at Tech by fourth-year Industrial Engineering major Eoin Grosch.

According to Ray, nature is cubic. The globe can be encompassed by a cube, with the four sides representing night, sunrise, day and sunset. The human head is a cube with the face serving as one corner. Life is cubic with the four stages of baby, child, parent, and grandparent.

Ray also places heavy emphasis on natural balance through the existence of opposites: male and female, proton and electron, black and white.

From this, Ray has reached some conclusions about the state of modern society. He claims that his cubic theory will lead to innovations such as the safe disposal of nuclear waste and an end to water pollution and that any failure to realize that theory is a conspiracy on the part of academia.

"He mentioned that if people don't come to realize that time is cubic...that we're all going to become cannibals," Grosch. "He thinks the world's going to break down if we don't realize that we're educated stupid."

The event, which was held in the Instructional Center's Tennenbaum auditorium, was sponsored by Badical Industries, an unchartered campus organization "dedicated to increasing student happiness."

However, Grosch, who is the founder of Badical Industries, was the primary reason for Ray's appearance.

Though Grosch and the other students present at Thursday's seminar may have found Ray's ideas convoluted, it was this confusion that first drew Grosch to contact Ray through his website.

"When I first started reading [the website, I thought], this is retarded, this guy must be a joke. And then I saw an email link, so I emailed Dr. Ray, and I asked him to come to Georgia Tech," Grosch said. "I wanted to know more about the Time Cube and [wanted to] see if he could explain it clearly, and I thought it would be an interesting thing to do."

The seminar was a two-hour presentation divided between time for Ray to lecture on his theory and for students to either ask questions or argue for or against the Time Cube. On his website, Ray offers $10,000 to anybody who can successfully disprove his theory.

Grosch estimated that 230 people attended, mostly students, although that decreased throughout the presentation as people gradually trickled out the door.

Some students who attended said that they had also first heard about Ray through his website and wanted to listen to his ideas firsthand.

"Most people are drawn to his site because of his rants [and] the odd way that he writes, and he leaves out articles like 'the'," Grosch said. "He told me, 'Hey, I'm pretty good at manipulating people'...He goes to the extreme to get people to pay attention."

Grosch also pointed out that Ray does have a following of hardcore "cubers" who take his theories to heart, though it was unlikely that more than a few were in attendance.

Though Grosch spoke to several faculty members to try and get them to attend the lecture, there were none present.

"I was kind of disappointed," Grosch laughed. "It would've been interesting. Dr. Ray might've put them on the spot."

Aside from problems with the sound equipment and Ray's tendency to mumble into his microphone, Grosch thought that the event went well.

"People had a good time, and maybe it opened their minds, you know?" he said. "I got some emails, and also just people stopped and thanked me for bringing the wisest human to the Georgia Tech campus."

"I enjoyed it, actually," said Alex Rudnick, a fourth-year Computer Science major. "Time Cube makes a lot more sense when explained in person. Now I think of it just as a metaphor that this fellow's taken a bit too far, and maybe he's a bit too convinced of his own reasoning abilities."

Rudnick said he was annoyed at people who didn't appreciate Ray, regardless of how they felt about his ideas.

"I mean, he's a man with a theory. That's something most people don't have these days, is a theory," he said.

Some students, however, passed off Ray's theories as nonsense and left the theater in the middle of the seminar.

"I noticed that a lot of people walked out in disgust," said Martin Robinson, a fourth-year Computer Science major. "I suppose they either thought that Gene Ray was the butt of too many jokes or that his theories were bunk. I think that, in general, people were very respectful."

Others disagree, citing the mocking and insulting gestures from some members of the audience.

"I honestly felt very sorry to see a man who is out of touch with reality, ridiculed by uptight students who had nothing better to do with their time than destroy an old man," said Whitney Rudin, a first-year Biology major. "I feel Badical Industries did not mean any disrespect...In the end, sadly it was nothing more then a freak show."

Rudin cited one incident in particular, when a student stormed out of the theater in protest. Grosch said he followed the student out into the hall.

"He thought it was cruel that we were parading him around in front of everybody as an idiot. But I said to him that this wasn't my intention and that I just wanted to give him the opportunity to speak here," Grosch said. "I think most people kind of took it lightly, which I don't blame them for doing, because the whole Time Cube thing is beyond me, and Dr. Ray can't really explain it, either."

However, "I also think that Gene Ray was enjoying himself quite a bit. It is easy to see that he likes to speak to students," Robinson said. "I'm glad we live in a society where people like Gene Ray are not locked up and beaten, but instead respected in their own way."

For more information about the Time Cube event, visit timecube.shim.net.