From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sub-Etha is a fictional computer network. Douglas Adams' science fiction comedy, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, mentions Sub-Etha as the vast telecommunications network used throughout the Milky Way for any kind of data transmission like hitchhiking a spaceship or browsing through the pages of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy itself.
The “ether” described in the book series is considered an outdated and de-bunked scientific concept. Originally suggested by Aristotle, it was used to justify the speed at which light travels, and explain why light acts as a wave, a fact which is somewhat counterintuitive to photon’s theoretical nature. The expression "Sub-Etha" is used to solve the problem of light being limited by a constant speed, a speed which would make timely communications impossible due to the vast distances described by Adams. Theoretically, if one could remove radiation from the constricting nature of the ether, light would move infinitely fast, thus resulting in (Sub)-Ether communications.
