Leading Article: And the answer to everything is ...

Friday 08 November 1996 00:02 GMT
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Well, that's it, then. No need to look any further. Scientists at Cambridge have found the answer. And it is, as The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy said all along, 42.

But hold on one nit-picking minute. Doesn't this call to mind that infamous philosophy finals paper question, which went: "Is this a question?" The best essay in response read simply: "Yes; if this is an answer." Now we're told that the answer to life, the universe and everything is 42. But "life, the universe and everything" isn't a question, is it? And even if it were, would 42 be an answer? We, at least, are determined to remain unresolved on this matter.

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