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The Infinite Improbability Drive is a fictional faster-than-light drive in Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series of books. The most prominent usage of the drive is in the starship Heart of Gold. It is based on a particular perception of quantum theory: a subatomic particle is most likely to be in a particular place, such as near the nucleus of an atom, but there is a fantastically small probability of it being found a long way away, for example close to a distant star. Thus, a body could travel from place to place without passing through the intervening space (or hyperspace, for that matter), if you had sufficient control of probability.[1] In the Guide, it is described like this: Fictional technology is proposed or described in many different contexts for many different reasons: Exploratory engineering seeks to identify if a prospective technology can be designed in detail, and simulated, even if it cannot be built yet - this is often a prerequisite to venture capital funding, or investigation in weapons...
Faster-than-light (also superluminal or FTL) communications and travel are staples of the science fiction genre. ...
Douglas Noël Adams (11 March 1952 – 11 May 2001) was an English author, comic radio dramatist, and musician. ...
The cover of the first novel in the Hitchhikers series, from a late 1990s printing. ...
One of the fictional ships called the Starship Enterprise from Star Trek, one of the most famous fictional starships. ...
Heart of Gold is a fictional spaceship in The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. ...
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Scene from Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope depicting the inside of the Millenium Falcon when entering hyperspace. ...
| “ | The Infinite Improbability Drive is a wonderful new method of crossing interstellar distances in a few seconds; without all that tedious mucking about in hyperspace. As the Improbability Drive reaches infinite improbability, it passes through every conceivable and non-conceivable point in every conceivable and non-conceivable universe simultaneously. In other words, unless you set the coordinates of where you want to end up, you're never sure where you will end up or even what species you will be when you get there. It's therefore important to dress accordingly. It was discovered by lucky chance, and then developed into a governable form of propulsion by the Galactic Government's research team on Damogran. This, briefly is the story of its discovery.
The principle of generating small amounts of finite improbability by simply hooking the logic circuits of a Bambleweeny 57 Sub-Meson Brain to an atomic vector plotter suspended in a strong Brownian Motion producer (say a nice hot cup of tea) were of course well understood-and such generators were often used to break the ice at parties by making all the molecules in the hostess' undergarments leap one foot simultaneously to the left in accordance with the theory of indeterminacy. Many respectable physicists said they would not go to stand for that sort of thing, partly because it was a debasement of science, but mostly because they did not get invited to those sort of parties. Another thing they couldn't stand was the perpetual failure they encountered in trying to construct a machine which could generate the infinite improbability field needed to flip a spaceship across the mind-paralyzing distances between the farthest stars, and in the end they grumpily announced that such a machine was virtually impossible. Then one day, a student who had been left to sweep up the lab after a particularly unsuccessful party found himself reasoning this way. If, he thought to himself, such a machine is a virtual impossibility, than it must logically be a finite improbability. So all I have to do in order to make one is to work out exactly how improbable it is, feed that figure into the finite improbability generator, give it a fresh cup of really hot tea...and turn it on! He did this, and was rather startled to discover that he had managed to create the long-sought-after golden Infinite Improbability generator out of thin air. It startled him even more when just after he was awarded the Galactic Institutes's Prize for Extreme Cleverness he got lynched by a rampaging mob of respectable physicists who had finally realized that the one thing they really couldn't stand was a smart-ass.
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History The Guide itself explains that generating finite levels of improbability using an electronic brain and a strong Brownian motion producer (say, a cup of hot tea) was very well understood, but that scientists lacked the means to create a drive that could produce the infinite improbability field required to allow a ship to travel anywhere instantaneously. It was generally concluded that such a drive was virtually impossible. Improbability is the modal probability employed by Douglas Adams in The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. ...
Three different views of Brownian motion, with 32 steps, 256 steps, and 2048 steps denoted by progressively lighter colors. ...
Tea leaves in a Chinese gaiwan. ...
Eventually, a student reasoned that the infinite improbability drive had to be a finite improbability to be a virtual impossibility. After working out exactly how improbable, he fed that value into the finite improbability generator, gave it a really hot cup of tea, and managed to generate the infinite improbability generator out of thin air. After winning the Galactic Institute's prize for extreme cleverness, he was later lynched by other scientists who had been trying to make the generator for years, who finally worked out that what they really could not stand was a smart-ass. In describing the invention of the drive, Douglas Adams exemplifies the principle of bootstrapping. Douglas Noël Adams (11 March 1952 – 11 May 2001) was an English author, comic radio dramatist, and musician. ...
In physics, the term bootstrap model is used for the class of theories that assume that very general consistency criteria are sufficient to determine the whole theory completely. ...
The Heart of Gold was the prototype ship for infinitely improbable travel. The principle is that as its drive reaches infinite improbability, the ship passes simultaneously through every conceivable and non-conceivable point in every conceivable and non-conceivable universe (in other words, when one activates the Infinite Improbability Drive, the ship is literally everywhere at once). It is then possible to decide at which point you actually want to be when improbability levels decrease.
It is the infinite improbability drive in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy that saves Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect from certain death by asphyxiation in deep space after being thrown out of the Vogon ship; the improbable odds against being rescued being two raised to the power of the Islington (London) flat phone number where Arthur had met Tricia McMillan, aka Trillian, who is aboard the Heart of Gold with Zaphod Beeblebrox. The cover of the first novel in the Hitchhikers series, from a late 1990s printing. ...
Martin Freeman as Arthur Dent, waking up at the beginning of the movie. ...
Ford Prefect is a fictional character in the radio series (and subsequent books, television series, and so on) The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by the British author Douglas Adams. ...
Asphyxia is a condition of severely deficient supply of oxygen to the body. ...
This is a list of races, fauna and flora featured in various incarnations of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. ...
Islington is an inner-city district in north London. ...
Zooey Deschanel as Trillian from the film adaptation. ...
Mark Wing-Davey as Zaphod Beeblebrox, from the TV adaptation. ...
In the third book, the Infinite Improbability Drive is discovered to be the Golden Bail of Prosperity in the Wikkit Gate. It is stolen by the white Krikkit robots, however, it was returned and the Heart of Gold returned to operational status.
An earlier attempt at using the improbability drive, Starship Titanic, was also mentioned. In theory, the infinite improbability drive would make it infinitely improbable that anything would go wrong. It was not successful, however, ending in a "Spontaneous Massive Existence Failure." This was due to the fact that, in these earlier times when the nature of improbability was less well understood, it was not appreciated that any event that is infinitely improbable will, by definition, occur almost immediately. Front cover of the box from the original US Windows 95 CD-ROM release of Starship Titanic, by Simon & Schuster Interactive. ...
Total existence failure (TEF) is the hypothetical event of an object suddenly and spontaneously disappearing in a quantum anomaly The phrase is credited to Douglas Adams, with his tale of the fate of the Starship Titanic in his book, Life, the Universe and Everything TEF is often used in reference...
Because of such problems with the infinite improbability drive, efforts were made to find an alternative. For example, since it is well known that nothing travels faster than bad news, research was done and a prototype drive system created. However, spaceships powered with bad news were soon found to be so profoundly unwelcome whenever they arrived anywhere that it really was not worth the trip. Eventually we learn that IID has been superseded by the Bistromathic drive, based on the alternative mathematics used by waiters in restaurants, which has the advantage of not having improbable side effects or improbable things going wrong. The Starship Bistromath is more maneuverable than the Heart of Gold, but it seems that the Heart of Gold is still the faster of the two. The Bistromathic Drive is a fictional type of starship propulsion system in Douglas Adams Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. ...
A waiter in a resort setting A waiter is one who waits on tables, often at a restaurant or a bar. ...
Toms Restaurant, a restaurant in New York made familiar by Suzanne Vega and the television sitcom Seinfeld A restaurant is an establishment that serves prepared food and beverages to order, to be consumed on the premises. ...
Effects Unfortunately, human beings are accustomed to travelling at normality (probability 1:1), and can be fairly distressed by events around them whilst the improbability drive is working: losing limbs, turning into sofas, planets spontaneously becoming fruitcakes, nuclear missiles metamorphosing into sperm whales and bowls of petunias. The starship Heart of Gold was somewhat insulated against this by having an improbability-proof drive room, allowing the pilots to remain more or less normal during the flight. Probability is the chance that something is likely to happen or be the case. ...
The most important side effects of infinite improbability travel were that hyperspace express routes became largely obsolete, and that the History department of the University of Maximegalon finally gave up trying to figure out the universe, as completely impossible things were increasingly commonplace.
Adams developed the notion of the improbability drive having greater causal (and narrative) effects in later books. For example: when Zaphod's grandfather discusses his great-great-great-great grandson's career-to-date he explains that he (Zaphod) cannot escape his destiny now the improbability field "controls you". This could be an early nod to the reverse-temporal abilities of the guide in the last book - although this may be good luck on Adams's part.
Inclusion in Madness Combat In the Madness Combat series of flash cartoons the Improbabilty Drive is what created Tricky the Clown and always threatens Hank's life.
References - ^ Michael Lockwood (2005). The Labyrinth of Time: introducing the universe. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0199249954.
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