h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

i was wondering why 42 why not anyother no.?
do you have a explaination?
i can't relate this no to anything...

42 is the * symnbol in hexadecimal / ascii. * is used on computers as the 'times' or multiply sign, therefore the meaning is to multiply.


















hey, someone has to help propogate the meme!

I think it was because 42 just sounded funny

he chose 42 because he needed a simple answer and a number works as an answer as well as anything else and he needed a largish number so as to make it sound believable

He once said 42 was the funniest two digit number. I recall him saying which three digit number and which one digit number was the funniest. It's in one of the books on or by Adams on my bookshelf, I think. I'll try to find that.

Someone once told it me had something to do with Bach, though.

I heard that Doug Adams chose 42 as the anwer to the ultimate question because he thought that it was a particularly funny number. I also heard that it is 6x9 in base 13 . . .

well... 42 is divisable by 6 which is divisable by two prime numbers. also 4 is divisable by 2 which is the only number that equals the same thing when mulitiplied and added to itself. (2+2=4, 2x2=4) Although he could have just randomly thoght of it.

i think mainly so that it would baffle people

why not?

The confusion is....What is the benefit to write personnel information in My Space? and how can we go through each others introduction? I was expecting that when we will give personnel information all the members would able to read it and with the help of this would be able to understand each other....can you clear my confusion?

Absolutely. Everyone reading h2g2, whether logged in or not, can read your Space.

Personally, I got there by clicking on your name at the top of your post just now, though there are other ways.

Didn't I hear recently that a piece of the Berlin Wall has been put back up as a memorial? Like you, I think it would be better staying down.


Geggs

The acctual reason was because Douglas wanted the answer to be the funniest number that deep thought could say with it's deep slow voice. His ask loads of people and eventually came up with the number 42.
It's also really wierd because that number seems to be connected to everything...everywhere I go it turns up. my post code starts SA42, the numbers in my phone number add up to 42, a bloke on the bus was placing top trumps and suddenly shouted out 42 and the other day I when to the beach and collected as many limpet shells as I could find (and I swear I was not counting them) and when I could find any more I went home and counted them - there were 42!

In the extras section of the TV series' DVDs, Adams actually says that he was looking for the funniest possible number and he and his team came up with 42. It's as simple as that !

As everyone already says, Douglas thought that 42 was and IS the funniest number. But what they fail to realise is that it's the guys who think that this number is funny ARE making it funny.

I mean... What's the fuss? If Douglas chose another number at random, say 99, people would end up finding so many significant questions that end up with the answer as '99'.

is this anything to do with post-modernism?

He choose number 42 because it is answer to big question

was it possibly that he knew someone who was 42 at the time of writing, therefore hitting mid-life crisis, and becoming part of the absurd? Then inadvertently proving the general interconnectedness of all things principle in giving Douglas the number to The Meaning of Life?

Then again, possibly not.

there are 42 rules in the game of cricket

With your back to the sun, 42 degrees above the horizon is the area where sunlight refracts off water droplets forming a rainbow (which is arched due to the curvature of the earth). Thats why i tippexed "42" onto the right handside of my "darkside of the moon" poster. I don't know if Adams was a Floyd Fan, i'd like to think so. Whats bizzare is that the process inverts itself at 51 degrees above the horizon (forming a double-bow) but sandwiched in between the two bows is a dark patch of sky (called Alexander's dark band). There's a nod to this effect in "Mostly Harmless" during the bird and rain bit though i'd like to think that the answer to the meaning of life, the universe and everything was as simple as this: PERSPECTIVE.

I have actually given this some thought, and have discovered what I believe to be the answer to the ultimate answer to the ultimate question. As you know, before the british came to North America (the modern USA) it was all ready being inhabited by many different tribes of "Native Americans". There were in fact 76 different tribes to be exact. Each one of these tribes used different calendars (and even though many of these calendars are similar, they each have their own specific distinctions which clearly makes them different). If you take the different numbers of months that each calendar had, and average them together, you get forty-two. But-you ask- why the Native American calendars? Why 42? Because, the Native Americans (more specifcally the Mayans [which were in fact from Central America]) made several predictions based on their calendar's timetable. They predicted that North America (the place that their rival tribes inhabited at the time) would be attacked on... you guessed it... September 11th, 2001. They also predicted such events as BOTH world wars, and the end of the world.
And before I make my next point, I must give you some background information. The Mayan calendar had five units of time measurment, a day, a week, a month, a year, and a maeic. The Maeic is a unit of a few centuries or so that represents the length of time between the beginning of their civilization, and the end of the world.
I am writing this in class and have to leave now. more to come, sorry to cut off.