h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

28-May-00
001.17 N 103.50 E


And so it is...


The debate on the structure of our trusty old universe, first ignited when science logically deduced that everything came out of nothing from the event of cosmic proportions - the big bang.... no! no! no!... it should be THE Big Bang (TBB), has arrived at some outcome, well at least for now.


The winning side: The Flatties, the ones advocating that the universe is boringly flat.


And the losers: The Curvies, the advocates of the closed and open structures. [Uh-uh, I'm afraid that the 2 close/open theories in cosmology do not translate directly to the political conceptual dimension of the conservatives Vs. the radicals].


The incriminating pieces of evidence - pictures taken by a telescope on board a balloon hovering over the Antarctic in the project BOOMERANG (Balloon Observations of Millimetric Extragalactic Radiation and Geophysics). The images were then examined by a team of cosmologist and viola!, yup... they then pronounced the universe F-L-A-T. Details at: http://spacescience.com/headlines/y2000/ast27apr_1.htm


Although it has been highly speculated that this wasn't the case. The truth: the team of hedonistic cosmologists were indeed goofing around with a boomerang with a bunch of yet another stubbornly south-pole-bound explorers. A tragic glitch in Newton's Laws of Motion resulted in the collision of 2 bodies: the accelerating boomerang and the stationary forehead of an unsuspecting cosmologist. Thereafter, the Laws sought to reassert themselves with the strict application of cause and effect. The effects and aftermath were: a broken cheap boomerang, a possible million-dollar lawsuit against the makers of the boomerang and an unconscious cosmologist who then transcended beyond the linearity of space-time during his comatose state, travelled to the beginning of time, caught a glimpse of the structure of the infant universe and noted that it was flat. There.


So, er... what does this cosmic revelation mean? Should Microsoft be split up? Would clones have a longer or shorter life span? Would the Flatties be incorporated, any chance of an IPO? Should i sell my technology stocks? Will the fares for buses and trains go up? Is there a god?


It is believed that Stephen Hawking is currently working to frame these questions into relevant equations. The solutions would be published in his next best-seller.


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YES!! or X+3Y-24-the number you first thought of + how many stars are in the part of the sky I am looking at

does that answer your questions?

Hmm........
*Looks cross-eyed while neurons scramble frantically*
Er..hmm....
*fishes out trusty 8-yr-old Casio calculator*


42!!

Corr!! I heard those cogs turning!!
Sorry only 10% for trying!! the answer was actuall 69½ to be precise but then thats cause there was a fraction of a star in the sky and I decided to use it!!
Your calculators too small buy a new one!!

Now... what about the stars whose ancient photons have been waylaid by interstellar dust, junk and photons-robbers, rendering them way beyond visibility even by the big-giant-eye aka Hubble in the sky?... and what about brown dwarfs? neutron starts? black holes?...

cognitive overload............

Its quite simple the night sky is a big black sheet with holes in it and a big spot light being shone through the holes, there are no invisible stars!!!

*surprised that you could be so dim!*