Empyrean

Empyrean, from the Medieval Latin empyreus, an adaptation of the Ancient Greek ἔμπυρος empyrus "in or on the fire (pyr)", properly Empyrean Heaven, is the place in the highest heaven, which in ancient cosmologies was supposed to be occupied by the element of fire (or aether in Aristotle's natural philosophy).

Use in literature

The Empyrean was thus used as a name for the firmament, and in Christian literature, notably the Divine Comedy, for the dwelling-place of God, the blessed, celestial beings so divine they are made of pure light, and the source of light and creation. The word is used both as a noun and as an adjective, but empyreal is an alternate adjective form as well. Having the same Greek origin are the scientific words empyreuma and empyreumatic, applied to the characteristic smell of the burning or charring of vegetable or animal matter.

See also

Sources

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. 

Empyrean (disambiguation)

Empyrean, also called the heavenly rose, or the mind of God, is the name of the highest heaven in Christian theology.

Empyrean may also refer to:

Hyperspace (science fiction)

Hyperspace is a method of traveling sometimes used in science fiction. It is typically described as an alternative region of space co-existing with our own universe which may be entered using an energy field or other device. Travel in hyperspace is typically depicted as faster-than-light travel in normal space. As seen in most fiction hyperspace is most succinctly described as a "somewhere else" within which the laws of general and special relativity decidedly do not apply—especially with respect to the speed of light being the cosmic speed limit. Entering and exiting said "elsewhere" thus directly enables travel near or faster than the speed of light—almost universally with the aid of extremely advanced technology.

Astronomical distances and the impossibility of faster-than-light travel pose a challenge to most science-fiction authors. They can be dealt with in several ways: accept them as such (hibernation, slow boats, generation ships, time dilation - the crew will perceive the distance as much shorter and thus flight time will be short from their perspective), find a way to move faster than light (warp drive), "fold" space to achieve instantaneous translation (e.g. the Dune universe's Holtzman effect), access some sort of shortcut (wormholes), utilize a closed timelike curve (e.g. Stross' Singularity Sky), or sidestep the problem in an alternate space: hyperspace.