Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything
42 is the answer to the Question of Life, the Universe and Everything, as given by a supercomputer Deep Thought to a group of mice in Douglas Adams's The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. According to the Guide, mice are 3-dimensional profiles of a pan-dimensional, super-intelligent race of beings. They built the second greatest computer of all time and space to tell them the answer to the question of life, the universe and everything. After seven and a half million years the computer divulges the answer, 42.
"Ah But what is the question?"
"That will take an even greater computer another 10 million years to answer." replies the supercomputer.
The Earth is that second computer, designed by Deep Thought, and incorporating living beings as part of its computational matrix.
Some theories proposed about the possible question:
- "What is 6 times 9?" - This theory only works if the calculations are done in base 13 (not base 10.) Douglas Adams was not aware of this at the time, and has denied that "6 times 9" is the true question.
- Lacking a real answer, the mice proposed to use "How many roads must a man walk down?" as the question for talk-shows.
However, on the BBC Radio show of the book, the caveman spells in scrabble stones, "What is 6 times 9?" The man answers, "Forty-two. I always knew there was something fundamentally wrong about the Universe!" And a faint voice can be heard shouting, "Base 13!"
Along the same lines, it has been widely theorized that Deep Thought had some order of operations issues. If you are equipped with a C compiler, the following code will demonstrate the point:
#include <stdio.h>
#define SIX 1 + 5 #define NINE 8 + 1
int main()
{
printf( "The meaning of life: %d\n", SIX * NINE );
return( 0 );
}
which, when executed, will dutifully print out '42'. If Deep Thought was coded this way, it would explain the confusion.
External link
Douglas Adams himself had also something to say on this subject, see this post.