"Gardner's Whys and Wherefores includes articles on the puzzles in James Joyce's Ulysses and on the fantasies of Ray Bradbury, Arthur C. Clarke, Lord Dunsany, Gilbert Chesterton, and H. G. Wells. Gardner expresses strong opinions about the "anthropic principle," computer games capable of discovering scientific laws, the philosophy of W. V. Quine, Marvin Minsky's view of the workings of the mind, the idiosyncracies of social theorist Allan Bloom, the reality of unknown digits that "sleep" in pi, and whether physicists are really on the verge of discovering Everything."--BOOK JACKET.