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

42 is the answer to Life the Universe and Everything

it was calculated by the supercomputer Deep Thought

this flummoxed Ford, Arthur, several mice, and a pangalactic race.

Deep Thought told them that for the answer to make any sense they must first know what the actual question IS

ford and arthur DID discover the question (after a long and most improbable adventure involving stargoats, telephone sanitizors and the Bloodsplatter Beast of Traal) but this did not make anybody feel any getter as it is 6X7. which just goes to show that there is something fundamentally wrong with the universe.

which we knew anyway

now you are TERRIBLY wrong. on the pre-historic earth, ford and arthur finds the question, and it was 6*9. But the golgfrinchans interrupted the program run on the computer earth, and therefore is that question wrong. or at least a distorted version of it.

one man in the galaxy came to know the question, and the answer, but he knew just because he drank too much truth serum. (dunno if that's the right word). he also says that if you knew both the question adn the anser about the same universe, that universe would most likely blow up. he's name was Prak.

well, that's all from Snuttis, who read the HHGG a lot of times. a lot of times .

// Snuttis

hi. i'm new here. i was wondering if you knew the actual quote of where the readers find out the answer is 42? my teacher is turning 42 on friday and ive looked through all the stories and i cant find it. [email protected] thanks a lot.

snuttis said: "now you are TERRIBLY wrong. on the pre-historic earth, ford and arthur finds the question, and it was 6*9."

Or to get really picky and exact, when Ford and Arthur go back in time to Earth, Arthur makes a Scrabble set to pass the time. Ford has an idea: since Arthur is the only part of the Earth (other than Trillian) to exist after it was destroyed by the Vogons (not the Golgafrinchams) then somewhere inside him exists the Ultimate Question. Arthur then pulls Scrabble tiles at random out of the bag, which end up spelling, "what do you get if you multiply six by nine?"

Of course to assume that this *is* the Ultimate Question is (possibly) flawed reasoning since Ford and Arthur arrived on stone-age Earth on a crash-landed Golgafrincham ship. This means that Arthur (and Trillian) may or may not be Golgafrinchams themselves, which brings up a problem: if your ancestors were not Earth natives and in fact arrived later are you "part of the program?"

Also they didn't finish the Question, they just ran out of scrabble tiles, so the Question could of been "what do you get if you multiply six by nine, in base thirteen?" (which is fourty two)