STANDING on the shoulders of giants may feel like a fairground ride, since the number of giants keeps shifting. William Wakefield wrote a letter (10 December 2011, p 32) to congratulate New Scientist for starting a feature dealing with the multiverse on page 42 (26 November 2011). This he construed as a reference to the number’s starring role in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, in which it played the “answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything”.
Unsurprisingly, this was not 42’s first starring role. David Purchase…
