Babel Fish

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The Babel Fish is "probably the oddest thing in the Universe." By putting this small yellow fish into one's ear one can instantly understand anything said in any language; this is how Arthur Dent is able to understand the other beings he encounters on his travels. The Babel fish has lead to important profound consequences for the Universe; apart from the philosophical implications the Babel fish has started more and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of creation.

[edit] What the guide says

"The Babel fish is small, yellow and leech-like, and probably the oddest thing in the Universe. It feeds on brainwave energy received not from its own carrier but from those around it. It absorbs all unconcious mental frequencies from this brainwave energy to nourish itself with. It then excretes into the mind of its carrier a telepathic matrix formed by combining the conscious thought frequencies with nerve signals picked up from the speech centres of the brain which has supplied them. The practical upshot of all this is that if you stick a Babel fish in your ear you can instantly understand anything said to you in any form of language. The speech patterns you actually hear decode the brainwave matrix which has been fed into your mind by your Babel fish."

[edit] Philosophical implications

Oolon Colluphid used the Babel fish as the main theme of his best-selling book, Well That About Wraps It Up For God. Colluphid uses the Babel fish as an argument for intelligent design, but then goes further to use it to actually prove God does not exist. The basic argument runs thus:

God refuses to prove that (S)He exists because proof denies faith and without faith God is nothing.

Man then counters that the Babel fish is a dead giveaway because it could not have evolved by chance. It therefore proves God exists, but by God's own arguments God does not exist.

God realizes (S)He hadn't thought of that and promptly disappears in a puff of logic.

It should be noted that most leading theologians claim that Colluphid's argument is "a load of dingo's kidneys."