Science: Outer Limits

Everything you ever wanted to know about the unknown

Encyclopedias from Pliny's Historia naturalis of A.D. 77 to the contemporary Britannica have sought to distill the sum of human knowledge. Now British Playwright Ronald Duncan, 63, and Miranda Weston-Smith, 21, have tried a different approach. They have edited and just published The Encyclopaedia of Ignorance (Pergamon Press; $30), a 450-page volume that makes a brave attempt to encompass much of what man does not know. Say the editors: "Compared to the pond of knowledge, our ignorance remains atlantic."

To prove their point they enlisted...

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