So, as Jim Carry said in Dumb and Dumber, "You're saying there's a chance".................
I'm sure the good folks who designed the Elite Power Conditioner with super conducting gold magnets focusing electron beams for "liquid sounding music" understand/understood all the above mentioned properties of electrons. Otherwise, how could they fashion such a otherworldly device for a mere $80,000?
Unless of course you think they missed something. Could it be the device is not all its advertised to be?
I'd be shocked.
Are you familiar with the Infinite Improbability drive? Brilliant!
Infinite Improbability Drive
The
Infinite Improbability Drive is a
faster-than-light drive. 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 also an infinitesimally small probability of it being found very far from its point of origin (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] According to the Guide, the drive "passes through every conceivable point in every conceivable universe almost simultaneously;" in other words whoever uses it is "never sure where they'll end up or even what species they'll be when they get there" and "it's therefore important to dress accordingly". In the 2005 film, for instance, the first time the Improbability Drive is used, the entire ship ends up as a giant ball of yarn for a few seconds, and the main characters are rendered as animated yarn dolls.
The Guide's entry on the drive also states that it was invented "following research into finite improbability, which was 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". It further explains that many respectable physicists wouldn't stand for that sort of thing, "partly because it was a debasement of science, but mostly because they didn't get invited to those sort of parties."
The
Heart of Gold was the prototype ship for infinitely improbable travel. It is the Infinite Improbability Drive in
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy that saves
Arthur Dent and
Ford Prefect from very probable death by
asphyxiation in deep space after being thrown out of the
Vogon ship; the improbable odds against being rescued being 2276709 to one; the superscripted number incidentally being the telephone number of the Islington flat where Arthur went to a fancy dress party and first met—and totally blew it with—Trillian (in the film, the superscripted number is "2079460347" instead). Incidentally, Adams explained in the annotated volume of the original radio scripts that it was the eviction of Arthur and Ford out the spacelock of the Vogon ship that led to his own "invention" of the Infinite Improbability Drive. Adams realised that he had worked the story into a dead end, thinking in frustration that the only solutions would be "infinitely improbable." In a flash of insight and what Adams called "mental jiujitsu", the Infinite Improbability Drive was born.
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.
Adams developed the notion of the improbability drive having greater causal (and narrative) effects in later books. For example, when Zaphod's great-grandfather discusses his great grandson's career-to-date, he explains that Zaphod cannot escape his destiny now the improbability field "controls you".
Karey Kirkpatrick, who with Adams adapted the novel for the screen in 2005, described the improbability drive as a "
plot contrivance machine", allowing Adams to construct elaborate plotlines based on coincidences that would, in other narratives, be considered too improbable to be believed.
[2]