Since I have finished the book, I am going to write about the most interesting chapter in the book and tell what I liked or disliked about it.
Chapter 5
"Bistromathics itself is simply a revolutionary new way of understanding the behavior of numbers...so it is now realized that numbers are not absolute, but depend on the observer's movement in restaurants," (47). With that statement Douglas Adams created a new technology and gave the otherwise unusual ship a sense of science. This chapter, despite being barely 3 pages, was one of my favorite chapters in the whole book. Adams creates several ridiculous mathematical terms and gives them all proper definitions and makes them scientific. He does this, of course, while still inserting sly humor into the book. "Numbers written on restaurant checks within the confines of restaurants do now follow the same mathematical laws as numbers written on any other pieces of paper in any other parts of the Universe. This single statement took the scientific world by storm. it completely revolutionized it. So many mathematical conferences got held in such good restaurants that many of the finest minds of a generation died of obesity and heart failure and the science of math was set back by years," (48,9). He manages to create a lot of prgress than take it all right away.
Bistromathics set up the Bistromathic Drive, the drive which propelled Slartibartfast's ship and allowed him to cross giant distances in the universe without danger. This explanation keeps the universe bound by science without using magic to propel things. The numbers created from Bistromathics also help explain other strange phenomenons in the Universe like the Somebody Else's Problem field, a field which makes somebody else's problem invisible to those who do not see it.
I did not like that there were so few chapters like this one. I expect it may have become overkill if there were more and perhaps the fact that it is only one makes it more special.
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