Na ficção de celulose mais antiga, o termo 'universo' era usado de forma intercambiável com 'galáxia'. Mesmo quando eles sabiam melhor, uma galáxia era ocasionalmente referida como um universo insular. No entanto, é claro que Hubbard, no momento em que ele escreveu este livro, sabia a diferença e estava usando a palavra "universo" no sentido moderno.
Jonnie had been amazed to find in other texts that there were four hundred billion suns in this galaxy alone and that this universe contained more than a hundred billion galaxies. And he had sixteen universes to look at.
Os diferentes universos têm leis físicas ligeiramente diferentes.
Yes, the Psychlos listed radium and even gave it an atomic number of eighty-eight, but they noted it as a rare element. And they had dozens of elements numbered and listed above eighty-eight. Nothing made it plainer than the difference in these tables that he was dealing with an alien planet in an alien universe. Some of the metals were compatible. But on the whole the distribution was different and even atomic formation seemed at variance.
Quanto à existência de múltiplos universos, Hubbard dá uma explicação vaga de pseudo-ciência ligada à tecnologia de teletransporte dos alienígenas.
The mathematics of the text were quite beyond him. They were Psychlo mathematics a long way in advance of what he had studied. The symbols made his head spin.
The history section at the start of the book was perfunctory. It simply stated that a hundred thousand years ago a Psychlo physicist named En had untangled the riddle. Prior to this, it was thought that teleportation consisted of converting energy and matter to space and then reconverting it in another place so it would assume its natural form. But this had never been proven. En had apparently found that space could exist entirely independent of time, energy, or mass and that all these things were actually separate items. Only when combined did they make up a universe.
Space was dependent only upon three coordinates. When one dictated a set of space coordinates one shifted space itself. Any energy or mass contained in that space thereupon shifted with that space shift.
In the matter of a motor such as this freighter had, it was just an enclosed housing in which space coordinates could be changed. As the coordinates changed, the housing was forced to go along, and this gave the motor power.