Douglas Adams Was Right

We live, according to yesterday's Times, in the age of Big Data.  Every day, with every Facebook "Like" and YouTube click, we contribute to an ever-expanding universe of facts and figures.  Collectively, humanity is generating a gargantuan trove of searchable, compilable, categorizable information.  No doubt, if we were to crunch every number, every statistic, we could, in fact, quantify the fundamental value at the heart of existence, proving, once and for all, that the answer to the question of life, the universe, and everything is, indeed, 42.