Time Cube

Time Cube

The layout and writing style of the Time Cube website
Type of site	Personal web page and conspiracy blog
Created by	Otis Eugene "Gene" Ray
Commercial	No
Launched	1997; 24 years ago (1997)
Current status	Inactive (since 2016)

Time Cube was a personal web page, founded in 1997 by the self-proclaimed "wisest man on earth", Otis Eugene "Gene" Ray.^[1] It was a self-published outlet for Ray's theory of everything, also called "Time Cube," which polemically claims that all modern sciences are participating in a worldwide conspiracy to teach lies, by omitting his theory's alleged truth that each day actually consists of four days occurring simultaneously.^[2] Alongside these statements, Ray described himself as a "godlike being with superior intelligence who has absolute evidence and proof" for his views. Ray asserted repeatedly and variously that academia had not taken Time Cube seriously.^[3]

Otis Eugene Ray died on March 18, 2015, at age 87.^[4] Ray's website domain names expired in August 2015,^[5] and Time Cube was last archived by the Wayback Machine on January 12, 2016 (January 10–14).^[6]

Content[]

Style[]

The Time Cube website had no home page.^[1] It consisted of a number of web pages that contained a single vertical centre-aligned column of body text in various sizes and colors, resulting in the main pages being extremely long. Finding any particular passage was almost impossible without manually searching.^{[2][dead link]}

A large amount of self-invented jargon is used throughout, similar to verbal logorrhea: some words and phrases are used frequently but never defined, likely terms materially referring to the weakness of widely propagated ideas that he detests throughout the text, that are usually capitalised even when used as adjectives. In one paragraph, he claimed that because his own wisdom "so antiquates known knowledge," a psychiatrist examining his behavior diagnosed him with schizophrenia.^[7]

Various commenters have asserted that it is futile to analyze the text rationally, interpret meaningful proofs from the text, or test any claims.^[1][8]

Time Cube concept[]

Diagram illustrating an aspect of the Time Cube theory which Ray describes as "LIFE ENCOMPASSES A 4–16 CUBE PRINCIPLE"

Ray's personal model of reality, called "Time Cube," states that all of modern physics and education is wrong,^[2] and argues that, among many other things, Greenwich Time is a global conspiracy. He uses various graphs (along with pictures of himself) that purport to show how each day is really four separate days—SUN-UP, MID-DAY, SUN-DOWN, and MID-NIGHT (formerly morning, early afternoon, late afternoon, and evening)—occurring simultaneously.^[1][3]

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.

Although most of the concepts presented remain somewhat consistent throughout the various texts it is unclear what line of reasoning could have led to any of the conclusions that are presented.

Ray offered $1,000^[9] or $10,000^[3] to anyone who could prove his views wrong. Mike Hartwell of The Maine Campus wrote that any attempt to claim the prize would require convincing Ray that his theory was invalid. The proof would need to be framed in terms of his own model, thus deviating from any form of modern science. "Even if you could pull that off," Hartwell said, "Ray is probably broke."^[1]

Reception[]

Ray spoke about Time Cube at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology 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.^[3] John C. Dvorak wrote in PC Magazine that "Metasites that track crackpot sites often say this is the number one nutty site."^[2] He also characterized the site's content as "endless blather."^[2] 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] In May 2018, a video recording of the GT lecture^[12] was made available on the video sharing site YouTube. It is still available as of August 30, 2021.

A 2004 editorial in The Maine Campus student newspaper remarked upon what it called the site's "subtle little racist ideologies" which culminate in Ray describing racial integration as "destroying all of the races."^[1]

In 2005, Brett Hanover made Above God (also the name of one of Ray's websites which criticized the idea that God exists),^[13] a short documentary film about Ray and Time Cube,^[14] which won awards for Best Documentary at the Indie Memphis Film Festival and the Atlanta Underground Film Festival.^[15][16]

Cultural impact[]

Christopher Bowes has stated he was inspired to write the song "To the End of the World" with the pirate metal band Alestorm after learning of the Timecube.^[17] The song makes multiple references to the cube, and a supposed coverup of "the true nature of time", and was included in their 2017 album No Grave But the Sea.

In 2018 video game developers Tripwire Interactive released the "Infinite Onslaught" update for Killing Floor 2, reintroducing the playable character "D.A.R." from the first game. The update also added a number of cosmetic skins, one of which is exclusive to the D.A.R. character and is called "CHONN-E 5 Armor: Time Cube". The skin includes a sleeveless shirt featuring a reference to the 1986 film Short Circuit on the front and a diagram of the Time Cube on the back.^{[citation needed]}

The video game Caves of Qud features an item based on the Time Cube, described as a cube with "only four corners" that briefly stops time when activated and grants the player the "Cubic and Wisest Human" achievement in reference to Eugene.

References[]

External links[]

• Official website archived at the Wayback Machine
• 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.
• Gene Ray interviewed on Tech TV
• Knudsen, Fredrik (November 30, 2017). Time Cube | Down the Rabbit Hole – via YouTube.