JIM HOLT, a longtime contributor to the New York Times, Slate, The New York Review of Books, and the New Yorker, has written on string theory, time, infinity, numbers, humor, logic, truth and bullshit, among other topics. Holt studied mathematics at the University of Virginia, and was a faculty fellow in the philosophy department at Columbia.

He is the author of Why Does the World Exist?: An Existential Detective Story and Stop Me If You've Heard This: A History and Philosophy of Jokes.