In the book The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams told of a race of pan-dimensional superbeings who dedicated their very existence to defining the answer to the great question of Life, The Universe and Everything. Having build a gigantic computer (and named it 'Deep Thought'), they asked the computer to solve this, the greatest mystery of existence. After seven and a half million years, Deep Thought was finally able to deliver the answer.... though he did warn them that they were not going to like it. Reluctantly, Deep Thought announced the answer. The answer to the Ultimate Question. Of Life, the Universe.... and EVERYTHING:

42!

Clearly, this was not a particularly reassuring answer, causing Deep Thought to lay the blame squarely on the fact that the pan-dimensional beings had simply asked too wide a question.

Typical bloody computer.

Of course, so the story goes, to get itself out of a pretty embarrassing predicament, Deep Thought designed another computer, a living, evolving computer, which would work out the question for them. This computer would be called 'The Earth'... which was, in one dimension at least, suddenly and unexpectedly blown up shortly before it could deliver the Ultimate Question.

Many mathematicians and scientists have worked long and hard to decypher how 42 could possibly have been a practical, enlightening answer to such a complex, far-reaching question. However, arguably the biggest problem they faced was that none of them realised that relying on a computer to solve a largely human concern was a serious flaw in their logic. Indeed, it was this reliance on computers that prevented them from realising that Deep Thought had, in fact, got the answer wrong. The real answer, the one that might have reassured those pan-dimensional beings, prevented the creation of the 'Earth' computer and, in fact, left Deep Thought solving minor maths puzzles was startlingly similar to Deep Thought's conclusion. In Deep Thought's defence, it has to be said that '42' might make more sense to a computer than the true answer.

So now, after millions of years wasted trying to fit a question to a wrong answer, one Researcher has finally solved the mystery - the TRUE answer to Life, the Universe and Everything. Say it out loud and you'll see where Deep Thought went wrong. The answer is:

(and we think you might like this)

is...

is...

Fortitude.

So simple. So reassuring. So much more useful than 42.

A lesson can be learned from this. Never live your entire existence on the say so of a computer.