"Don't Panic and Carry a Towel"

My all time favorite quote from that wholly remarkable book, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and perhaps my favorite quote of all time.

The universe. Some information to help you live in it.

1: ‘Area’. Infinite. As far as anyone can make out.
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’s impossible to import things into an infinite area, there being no outside to import things in from.

3: ‘Exports’. None.
See ’Imports’.

4: ‘Rainfall’. None.
Rain cannot fall because in an infinite space there is no up for it to fall down from.

5: ‘Population’. None.
It is known that there are an infinite number of worlds, but that not everyone 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, if every planet in the universe has a population of zero, then the entire population of the universe must also be zero, and any people you may actually meet from time to time are merely the products of a deranged imagination.

6: ‘Monetary Units’. None.
In fact, there are three freely convertible currencies in the universe, but the Altairian Dollar has recently collapsed, the Flainian Pobble Bead is only exchangeable for other Flainian Pobble Beads, and the Triganic Pu doesn’t really count as money. It’s exchange rate of six Ningis to one Pu is simple, but since a Ningi is a triangular rubber coin six-thousand, eight-hundred miles long each side, no one has ever collected enough to own one Pu. Niginis are not negotiable currency because the Galactic Banks refuse to deal in fiddling small change. From this Basic premise it’s very simple to prove that the Galactic Banks are also the products of a deranged imagination.

7: ‘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.

8. ‘Sex’. None.
Well - actually, there is an awful lot of this. Largely because of the total lack of money, trade, banks, rainfall, or anything else that might keep all the nonexistent people in the universe occupied. However, it’s not worth embarking on a long discussion of it now, because it really is, terribly complicated. For further information See Chapters Seven, Nine, Ten, Eleven, Fourteen, Sixteen, Seventeen, Nineteen, Twenty-One to Eighty-Four inclusive, and… most of the rest of the book.

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The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy