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"I realized there was a heavy-duty change coming in biology, and I could write a really compelling novel about catastrophic evolution, punctuated equilibrium."
- Greg Bear

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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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
  More Ideas and Technology by Douglas Adams
  Tech news articles related to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
  Tech news articles related to works by Douglas Adams

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