Of the many things on a list of “maybe not such a good idea,” poking a hole in the universe would be up near the top in my opinion. A lot depends on the universe’s metaphorical state. If it’s like a pool of water, the hole will disappear with a few ripples as soon as you pull your finger out of the pool. If it’s like a barrier, things could leak through the hole in one direction or the other. If it’s like a balloon, something might pop.

The good news is that in a universe the size and age of ours, it’s likely some civilization has tried this trick already, or one of hundreds of other ways to annoy the Fabric of Creation. There are also immense strains on reality just by natural forces, like singularities, supernovas, and other things. So far, nobody’s destroyed the universe.

“I remember the first time I played with a magnet as a kid. Iwas obsessed with figuring out how an invisible force like magnetism worked.

“I wanted to know the secret behind everything.

“I remember my earliest glimpse of the truth. It was the first time I understood Maxwell’s equations. Four elegant equations, that perfectly described electricity and magnetism, uniting them in a single force.

“The world was knowable.

“But to really know the world, we have to turn our backs on everything we believe. In the world of quantum physics, nothing is what it seems. Electrons can’t be pinned down to a single location. They seem to flit in and out of existence like sparks from a fire.

“I don’t remember when I first heard the theory that these particles were actually leaking into other universes…

But I remember the first time I followed one.”

- Jeff Smith, “RASL”