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"I am first of all not a science fiction writer … I write, I suppose, what the Latin Americans call magic realism."
- Harlan Ellison
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| Infinite Improbability Drive | ||
| Generates a field in which anything, no mater how improbable, can exist. |
This mind-bendingly clever idea should force you to your knees, right this moment, where you will genuflect and hope that your awe finds its way to Douglas Adams, who unfortunately is no longer with us. I'm just going to give you a taste of it.
| "Please do not be alarmed," it said, "by anything you see or hear around you…We are now cruising at a level of two to the power of two hundred and seventy-six thousand to one against and falling, and we will be restoring normality just as soon as we are sure what is normal anyway. Thank you…" Ford was wildly excited. "Arthur!" he said, "this is fantastic! We've been picked up by a ship powered by the Infinite Improbability Drive!" |
| Technovelgy from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy,
by Douglas Adams. Published by Harmony Books in 1979 Additional resources -
|
There is a lot more material on this piece of technovelgy; however, you should certainly go to the source to read it - on the odd chance that you haven't actually read this book.
However improbable, there is a precursor to this idea; see the Probability Time Wave Tube from Elimination, a 1936 short story by John W. Campbell, Jr.
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and Technology from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
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| Marslink Proposed By SpaceX |
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'...they moved with the ease of dandelion puffs.'
'...some bored drone pusher in a remote driving centre...'
'These pods were programmed to hang in space in a hexagonal grid pattern...'
'...the meteor caught and halted just as a small boy catches a swift ball in his cap.'
'We have decided that it shall be but one ship... it must contain everything needed to take us through the generations.'
'You’re the robopsychologist of the plant, so you’re to study the robot itself...'
