ISTR a short story (or, if longer, it my memories only reference short segments of it) where a team of global surveyors have just completed their "life's work" by totally mapping the entire world... and then the universe rebels by making the world larger. Heralded by planes falling out of the sky (it's no longer 2000 miles from A to B, it's 4000, and they don't have enough fuel to get that far, etc) and a lot of people going missing (suddenly finding themselves in previously unknown areas).
The mapping team are happy, though, because they'd more or less made themselves redundant, and now there's a whole lot more "there" to map out and fit into their heretofore complete atlas.
(Pretty low on the Moh Scale Of SF Hardness, it must be admitted.)
Another story I recall had intelligent bacteria (experiments in extreme selective pressures on getting through a bacteria-scale maze, etc, producing colonies exhibiting something significantly brighter intelligence than some people could handle, so the experimenting professor injects them into himself rather than destroy them, resulting in a "grey goo" scenario as they absorb and take over half the planet) used an (apparent, and obviously scientifically arguable) ability to observe the exact nature absolutely everything occurring within their 'hemibiospheric' biomass to invoke some sort of clause in Heisenburg's Uncertainty Principle and shove them completely out of this reality and onto... who knows where... More or less leaving the surviving/unassimilated population of the planet (who had been completely failing to tackle this particular biomenace) in peace. Not quite the same thing, unless you assume that the bacteria created more "where" for uncertain particles to be lost in, but it also comes to mind.
(Sorry, can't remember the authors/titles. Probably both short stories in compilations, anyway.)
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Topic: Atheists (Read 408588 times)