The Hitchhiker's guide to the Galaxy is known far and wide for its completeness of its knowledge of the times. The times, however, tend to have problems themselves. This has been proven on countless occasions in history; embarrassingly false assumptions become fact, although their accuracy is only questioned eons later.
For example, several million years ago, the galaxy was once believed to be three-dimensional. Based on purely optical observations, this made sense. Eventually, though, the idea was questioned, but those who did question it were severely punished. Finally, an explorer named Waet de Goug proposed that by sailing a starship in all directions at once, he would wind up at the point he started at, thus proving the galaxy had more than three dimensions. His experiment was funded by the queen of the nearby planet Eldomen.
It took several months for Waet to mathematically derive how to sail in all directions at once. Finally, when he thought he had reached his calculatory destination, Waet disappeared and wound up not at the point he started at, but at a new point halfway across the galaxy. Today that point is home to a corrupt planet, but that has little to do with Waet discovering it.
Although Waet's experiment was technically a failure, he did prove his idea. By figuring out how to sail in all directions at once, and traveling to a new point using none of the three dimensions that the people of the time knew of, he had shown the galaxy had more than three dimensions, and also that it was much bigger than previously conceived.
Today, schoolchildren learn the story of Waet de Goug in galactic history class on most planets. It is now common knowledge that the galaxy has an uncountable number of unseen dimensions. But, we must not forget the ignorance of the past.