Tardis Optional: Time Travelers Invited To Stephen Hawking Service

Stephen Hawking's ashes will be interred at Westminster Abbey this June. He'll take his place among giants — between Sir Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin. Applications to attend a Service of Thanksgiving are open to the public, and anyone — including people born in 2038, can apply. A thousand spaces are available.

Hawking was a theoretical physicist who changed the way scientists think about the universe with his early work on black holes. He died in March 2018, and was probably modern day's most well-known scientist — partly for his work, but also for his prevalence in pop culture. Hawking used a wheelchair and voice synthesizer due to his significant disabilities from ALS, or Lou Gehrig's disease.

The time warp in the memorial service application was first spotted by London blogger IanVisits. He writes on his blog that Hawking had once thrown a party for time travelers, sending out invitations after the fete, to see if anyone would show up. Spoiler: no one did, yet.

Hawking said the fact that no one showed up to the June 2009 party was "experimental evidence that time travel is not possible," according to the BBC.

Applications close May 15 at midnight.

Copyright 2018 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.