A Note on Pizza Delivery

In the 21st century, the barrier of the speed of light was hemming the
empire of humanity within the range of a few star systems and forcing it 
to stagnate.  Billions were invested in the hunt for supralight travel. 
Perhaps understandably, most casual observers expected that NASA, or
the United Nations Science Foundation, or some great University would
be the first to crack the barrier.  Nearly everyone was stunned,
however, that when this breakthrough finally came, it originated from
no university or government institution, but issued simultaneously from
the laboratories of three competing pizza-delivery companies.

To quote the President of the Holy Roman Pizza Empire, a consortium of 
independent food producers:  

"In the pizza industry, time is money.  When forty minutes means cold
pizza and sixty means half off the price, a forty-year drive to Alpha
Centauri just doesn't cut the mozzarella.  We in the delivery business
rate the discovery of supralight travel as the third most important
invention in the history of humanity, right behind Syntharoni and
non-fat olive oil."

The fact that passage through hyperspace destroys the nutritional value 
of food, of course, is little concern.  The choice between hot, fresh 
pizza that's less nutritious than posterboard and forty-year-old pizza 
that's loaded with vitamins is an easy one for any delivery company and 
most consumers.