[Question Liberal Authority]

"The Universe is a very big thing that contains a great number of planets and a great number of beings. It is Everything. What we live in. All around us. The lot. Not nothing. It is quite difficult to actually define what the Universe means, but fortunately the Guide doesn't worry about that and just gives us some useful information to live in it.

Area: The area of the Universe is infinite.

Imports: None. This is a by product of infinity; it is impossible to import things into something that has infinite volume because by definition there is no outside to import things from.

Exports: None, for similar reasons as imports.

Population: None. Although you might see people from time to time, they are most likely products of your imagination. Simple mathematics tells us that the population of the Universe must be zero. Why? Well given that the volume of the universe is infinite there must be an infinite number of worlds. But not all of them are populated; therefore only a finite number are. Any finite number divided by infinity is zero, therefore the average population of the Universe is zero, and so the total population must be zero.

Art: None. Because the function of art is to hold a mirror up to nature there can be no art because the Universe is infinite which means there simply isn't a mirror big enough.

Sex: None. Although in fact there is quite a lot, given the zero population of the Universe there can in fact be no beings to have sex, and therefore no sex happens in the Universe."

— Douglas Adams

[irishtenor]

No sex? I’m leaving.

[gitmo]

I always wondered if the population couldn’t be defined as infinite. If the number of uninhabited worlds is finite, then the same mathematical trick would tell you the percent uninhabited is zero. Therefore, since infinity minus zero is infinity, then there are an infinite number of inhabited worlds. Some number of beings on each of those times an infinite number of worlds would yield an infinite population.