The Ultimate Answer - 42
Created | Updated May 11, 2003
Many of you who have read The Hitchhker's Guide To The Galaxy may be wondering "why 42". Well, I've seen many explanations here on h2g2 but one of the most convincing is something I was taught a few years back. It's a lot easier to explain in terms of pictures but until I have those available I will have to make do with words.
As you can see from looking around you there are 3 spatial dimensions:
Up/Down (Height)
Left/Right (Width)
Forward/Backward (Depth)
The Ultimate 3 dimensional object is the cube, having the same side length on every side.
If you want to try this out you will need 27 small cubes, ones that slot together are perfect, but any will do. You must have 9 different colours, giving you 3 cubes of each colour. Fit them all together so that you have no more than one of each colour on any one side. This will take a while but it is possible. The trick now is to "cut" the cube into 3 layers. Put the 3 layers seperately on a table and "label" each small cube with a number, staring frm the top left of the slice and moving across to the top right, then starting a new row. Your first slice will read from 1 to 9, the second from 10 to 18 and the third from 18 to 27. Look at the 3 cubes of any colour and add up their values. The answer will be the same for every colour.
Can you guess what it is...?
