The term metaverse was coined by author Neal Stephenson in 1992 in his science fiction novel “Snow Crash.”1 Metaverse is a conjunction of the Greek prefix “meta,” which means beyond, and the stem “verse,” which implies universe, hence the meaning “beyond the universe.” It is a futuristic, hyperrealistic virtual world where humans will spend time performing their day-to-day activities, such as entertaining, socializing, playing, working, and shopping. This requires that a metaverse offers a real-time virtual representation of the physical world with its entities, relationships, events, states, processes, and activities. According to the Gartner forecast report, the metaverse is among the top five emerging trends and technologies. Gartner predicts that by 2026 25% of people will spend at least one hour every day in the metaverse and 30% of organizations will have products and services developed for metaverse platforms.2 The metaverse is in an early developmental stage but has a considerable promise of occupying prominent space in the next phase of the Internet.

中文翻译：

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iMetaverseKG：用于促进设计和工程应用程序互操作性的工业 Metaverse 知识图谱

Metaverse 一词是作家尼尔·斯蒂芬森 (Neal Stephenson) 于 1992 年在他的科幻小说《雪崩》中创造的。 “超越宇宙”的意思。这是一个未来主义的、超现实主义的虚拟世界，人们将花时间进行他们的日常活动，例如娱乐、社交、玩耍、工作和购物。这要求虚拟世界提供物理世界及其实体、关系、事件、状态、过程和活动的实时虚拟表示。根据 Gartner 预测报告，元宇宙位列前五名新兴趋势和技术之列。