What is the question to 42?

3 Conversations

Looking through the Oracle archives I found that someone had asked:
> What is the question if the answer is 42. No silly comments please!


} Ah, now this question that has baffled philosphers through the ages.
} Let's see how some of them addressed the problem, shall we?
}
} Plato:
} What is the way to reach the greater good?
}
} Karl Marx:
} The number 42 is an historical inevitability. There is no question.
}
} Machiavelli:
} The question must not be discussed, so that those who know the
} question will be viewd with admiration, as only they have the daring
} and courage to boldly multiply. Those knowledgeable ones must also
} be viewed with fear, for whom among you has the strength to contend
} with such a paragon of formulatic virtue? In such a manner is the
} princely mathmatician's dominion maintained.
}
} Jean-Paul Sartre:
} What number will cause people to act in good faith and be true to
} themselves?
}
} Albert Einstein:
} How you reach 42 depends upon your frame of reference.
}
} Buddha:
} If you ask this question, you deny your own 42-ness.
}
} Salvador Dali:
} The Dog?
}
} Darwin:
} What is the logical next step after coming down from the trees?
}
} Emily Dickinson:
} What could not stop for death?
}
} Epicurus:
} What is the definition of fun?
}
} David Hume:
} What arises out of custom and habit?
}
} Pyrrho the Skeptic:
} What number?
}
} The Sphinx:
} I'm not telling.
}
} Mark Twain:
} The news of this number has been greatly exaggerated.
}
} Douglas Adams:
} What is 6x7?
}
} You owe the oracle another year of grad school in the art of applied
} metamathmatics.

Well there we have it ><>

Bookmark on your Personal Space


Entry

A451595

Infinite Improbability Drive

Infinite Improbability Drive

Read a random Edited Entry


Written and Edited by

Disclaimer

h2g2 is created by h2g2's users, who are members of the public. The views expressed are theirs and unless specifically stated are not those of the Not Panicking Ltd. Unlike Edited Entries, Entries have not been checked by an Editor. If you consider any Entry to be in breach of the site's House Rules, please register a complaint. For any other comments, please visit the Feedback page.

Write an Entry

"The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a wholly remarkable book. It has been compiled and recompiled many times and under many different editorships. It contains contributions from countless numbers of travellers and researchers."

Write an entry
Read more