Stephen Hawking once threw a cocktail party for time travellers from the future

As the world mourns the loss of physicist, mathematician and The Simpsons guest star Stephen Hawking, some of his greatest moments are resurfacing on the internet.

There have been some ripper yarns around, but perhaps the most interesting is this one from the 2010 doco series Into the Universe.

Created forThe Discovery Channel, the series delved into the deeper mysteries of our existence and featured Hawking’s trademark wit.

When the idea of time travelling came up, he devised an experiment to disprove the theory.

He threw a cocktail party for time travellers, complete with balloons and Champagne.

The twist was that he sent out the invitations after the event – meaning the only way people could show up was if they had the ability to travel backwards through time.

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The lure of free grog and nibblies, as well as a yarn with Hawking, would have been enough to lure us there.

A shindig with Hawko (as is he was called by exactly no one) would have been a banger.

Even if they were “clean living”, surely someone from the future would think it was worth their time to head back in time for the event, right?

Well, if they did intend to attend, these party guests from the future must have gotten lost on the way.

Because no one turned up.

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In an interview with Michael Venables for Ars Technica in 2012, Hawking said the no-show was evidential proof that time travel didn’t exist.

“I sat there a long time, but no one came,” he said.

“Einstein's general theory of relativity seems to offer the possibility that we could warp space-time so much that we could travel back in time.

“However, it is likely that warping would trigger a bolt of radiation that would destroy the spaceship and maybe the space-time itself.”