THE BOOK: The Vortex derives it's picture of the whole Universe on the principle of extrapolated matter analysis. To explain, since every piece of matter in the Universe is in someway effected by every other piece of matter in the Universe, it is in theory possible to extrapolate the whole of creation, every Galaxy, every sun, every planet, their orbits, their composition, and their economic and social history from, say, one small piece of fairy cake. The man who invented the Total Perspective Vortex did so basically in order to annoy his wife. Trin Tragula, for that was his name, was a dreamer. A speculative thinker or, as his wife would have it, an idiot. And she would nag him incessantly about the utterly inordinate amount of time he would spend staring out into space or mulling over the mechanics of safety pins or doing spectrographic analysis of pieces of fairy cake. 'Have some sense of proportion' she would say, thirty-eight times a day. And so he built the Total Perspective Vortex, just to show her. And in one end he plugged the whole of reality as extrapolated from a fairy cake, and in the other end he plugged his wife, so that when he turned it on, she saw in one instant the whole infinity of creation, and herself in relation to it. To Trin Tragula's horror, the shock annihilated her brain. But, to his satisfaction, he realised he had conclusively proved that if life is going to exist in a Universe this size, the one thing it cannot afford to have a sense of proportion. And it is into this Vortex that Zaphod Beeblebrox has been put, and from which, a few seconds later, he emerges.
<We hear a hum and a click.>
ZAPHOD: Hi.
GARGRAVARR: Beeblebrox! You're...
ZAPHOD: Fine, fine, fine. Could I have a drink please?
GARGRAVARR: You've been in the Vortex?
ZAPHOD: You saw me, kid.
GARGRAVARR: You saw the whole infinity of creation?
ZAPHOD: The lot, baby, it's a real neat place, you know...
GARGRAVARR: You saw yourself in relation to it all?
ZAPHOD: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
GARGRAVARR: And what did you experience?
ZAPHOD: It just told me what I knew all the time. I'm a really great guy! Didn't I tell you, baby? I am Zaphod Beeblebrox!