... galaxy and/or universe as it exhists today, (recent) then ...
hehe, remember ...
And besides, its a shame you can't spell...
Anyway:
The Universe
One of the major selling points of that wholly remarkable
travel book, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, apart from its
relative cheapness and the fact that it has the words DON'T PANIC
written in large friendly letters on its cover, is its compendious
and occasionally accurate glossary. The statistics relating to the
geo-social nature of the Universe, for instance, are deftly set out
between pages nine hundred and thirty-eight thousand tree hundred
and twenty-six; and the simplistic style in which they are written
is partly explained by the fact that the editors, having to meet a
publishing deadline, copied the information off the back of a packet
of breakfast cereal, hastily embroidering it with a few footnotes in
order to avoid prosecution under the incomprehensibly tortuous
Galactic Copyright laws.
It is interesting to note that a later and wilier editor sent
the book backward in time through a temporal warp, and then
successfully sued the breakfast cereal company for infringement of
the same laws.
Here is a sample:
The Universe-some information to help you live in it.
1 AREA: Infinite.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy offers this definition of
the word "Infinite."
Infinite: Bigger than the biggest thing ever and then some. Much
bigger than that in fact, really amazingly immense, a totally
stunning size, real "wow, that's big," time. Infinity is just so big
that, by comparison, bigness itself looks really titchy. Gigantic
multiplied by colossal multiplied by staggeringly huge is the sort
of concept we're trying to get across here.
2 IMPORTS: None.
It is impossible to import things into an infinite area, there
being no outside to import things in from.
3 EXPORTS: None.
See Imports.
4 POPULATION: None.
It is known that there are an infinite number of worlds, simply
because there is an infinite amount of space for them to be in.
However, not every one of them is inhabited. Therefore, there must
be a finite number of inhabited worlds. Any finite number divided by
infinity is as near to nothing as makes no odds, so the average
population of all the planets in the Universe is also zero, and that
any people you may meet from time to time are merely the products of
a deranged imagination.
5 Monetary Units: None.
In fact there are three freely convertible currencies in the
Galaxy, but none of them count. The Altarian Dollar has recently
collapsed, the Flainian pobble Bead is only exchangeable for other
Flanian Pobble Beads, and the Triganic Pu has its own very special
problems. Its exchange rate of eight Ningis to one Pu is simple
enough, but since a Ningi is a triangular rubber coin six thousand
eight hundred miles along each side, no one has ever collected
enough to own one Pu. Ningis are not negotiable currency, because
the Galactibanks refuse to deal in fiddling small change. From this
basic premise it is very simple to prove that the Galactibanks are
also the product of a deranged imagination.
6 ART: None.
The function of art is to hold the mirror up to nature, and
there simply isn't a mirror big enough-see point one.
7 SEX: None.
Well, in fact there is an awful lot of this, largely because of
the total lack of money, trade, banks, art or anything else that
might keep all the nonexistent people of the Universe occupied.
However, it is not worth embarking on a long discussion of it
now because it really is terribly complicated. For further
information see Guide Chapters seven, nine, ten, eleven, fourteen,
sixteen, seventeen, nineteen, twenty-one to eighty-four inclusive,
and in fact most of the rest of the Guide.
Needless to say, theres too much to say that it could fit into one forum thread.
