Stephen Hawking memorial service appears to be catering for time travellers

Time travellers may be present at the memorial service for Stephen Hawking, with the charity set up in his name stating it cannot rule out the possibility.

A ballot set up to allow members of the public to attend the event appears to allow anyone born within the next two decades to apply, even though it is set to take place in June.

The service will see Hawking interred at Westminster Abbey between the graves of Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin.

Anyone wishing to go and pay their respects to the world-renowned theoretical physicist can apply via the public ballot.

The ballot closes on Tuesday 15 May at midnight, and there are up to 1,000 places available.

Travel blogger IanVisits noted the application form allows people born from 2019 to 2038 to apply, theoretically allowing “people born in the future to attend the service”.

“Look out for time travellers at the abbey,” he wrote.

Within 24 hours of opening, the ballot had already received around 12,000 applications from more than 50 countries including everywhere from the US to the tiny South Pacific nation of Tuvalu.

However, there have been no reports of potential attendees from the future yet.

“We cannot exclude the possibility of time travel as it has not been disproven to our satisfaction,” a spokesman for the Stephen Hawking Foundation told the BBC.

“All things are possible until proven otherwise.

“But so far we have had applications from all round the world, and we do mean round – there are no flat-Earthers here.”

The foundation has since warned potential time travellers “if you are travelling to the service from a different time, you will need to bring proof of where and when you were born”.

Hawking, who died in March at the age of 76, had previously floated the idea that time travel might be possible.

The physicist was considered one of the most influential scientists of his generation, making his name with theories on black holes and relativity. In March, thousands lined the streets of Cambridge for his funeral.

His final work, submitted before his death, was published in the Journal of High Energy Physics in collaboration with Belgian physicist Dr Thomas Hertog. It concluded the universe is more finite and simpler than previously imagined.

The news about Hawking’s memorial service chimes with an experiment he performed in 2009, when he held a “time travellers’ party” in an attempt to demonstrate the feasibility of time travel.

He prepared an invitation that read: “You are cordially invited to a reception for time travellers, hosted by Professor Stephen Hawking.”

The invitation listed not only the address as Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, but also the exact coordinates in time and space.

“I’m hoping copies of it, in one form or another, will survive for many thousands of years,” said Professor Hawking in a Discovery Channel documentary he made about the event.

“Maybe one day someone living in the future will find the information and use a wormhole time machine to come back to my party, proving that time travel will one day be possible.”

To ensure only time-travelling guests would show up, the celebrated physicist did not send out invitations until after the date had passed.

However, Professor Hawking was disappointed as no time travellers did, in fact, attend.

“What a shame,” he said. “I was hoping a future Ms Universe was going to step through the door.”