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

I have a question for DNA, if you hang around here ever... I want to know why Ford and Arthur pull out the scrabble letters to make up the question "What is six times eight" I have been wondering this for a very long time... Is it some cosmic typo? A result of their crashing on The Computer, Earth, perhaps? Of course, everyone reading these would associate The Answer, 42, with "what's six times seven?"... but six times eight?

I'm not DNA, but I thought they got 6 x 9. Anyway, what if it's in another base?

H-L

I got it this way: Earth was designed to find the Question. The people on Earth were part of its design. Then the ship crashed with the Golgafrinchans on it, and the native Earth-dwellers died out. The Golgafrinchans became the ancestors of humanity, but living on Earth for, what was it, a couple of million years, they ended up with at least a bit of the program in them, so the Question could have been skewed somewhat in Arthur's brain (Arthur being the last remnant of Earth after the program was completed). Therefore, the actual Question could have been something more along the lines of "What do you want for breakfast tomorrow?"

Or how many roads must a man walk down?

Yes, yes, That sounds good!

Ok, the Golgafrinchens are the human race. In the two million years that they were on earth, they became part of the progam. Remember Marvin said that he could see a distorted version of the question in Arthur's brainwaves? Then Arthur and Ford on prehistoric earth did the whole thing with the scrabble tiles, and came up with "What do you get if you multiply six by nine" Well, if thats the distorted version of the question, then the real one is probably Benjy's guess of what do you get if you multiply six by seven. They could just never really find out what the real one was, not even from Prak (doomed to tell the whole truth), because that would just result in the Universe being replaced by something even more bizzare and inexplicable

Quite!

Although I do know that the majority of User Nos. do equal 42, My own for instance:7*((7+0)-(8^0)))=42

Or yours: U173971 = 1*7*3 * (9-7*1) = 42

I think you're missing the point if you're worrying about continuity. Adams never intended 42 to mean anything except as a joke. It's a really funny moment when you find out the answer to existence is 42!

It's an even funnier moment when after millions more years building planets and finding out what the ultimate question is, not only does it turn out to be the banal first one you'd think of, but they've got the multiplication slightly wrong too so it doesn't even work properly.

It's all a joke, don't take it too seriously, except to note that no matter how high and mighty a piece of research is, it might not tell you the right answer, and even if it does it might not be terribly useful.

At the end of the 19th century there were people who thought physics was about to answer all their questions in a very similar way to Deep Thought or the Mices' creation of the Earth, but of course the answers they found, while largely correct, simply raised an ever increasing number of new questions.

Nice analysis....

Indeed, it could be in a different base.

42 in base 13 = 4*13+2*1 = 54 = 6*9

Yes I know there's someone around who announced it (or was that you?)
I think this calls for a party

A while back someone pointed out that apparently one of the Ape-men grunts "in base 13" after Ford and Arthur announce the question following their Scrabble escapade...... I have yet to be able to check this in the radio series or on the Telly!!

Which I completely forgot to record the first episode of last night ... (ridiculous time to show it - can't the beeb find a slot earlier on in the evening for it - even if it has to be on BBC choice...).

Did they really

Deep Though Exists!!!

In one of my Daily newsflashes today I recieved news of the Birth of DEEP THOUGHT.

A computer at the University of Durham has been created to discover "the Meaning of Life". Which we all know is 42....

So what's the point?

What is this, a NEW question?

Could be...

One of my friends doesn't know the answer so she should probably know the question (I asked her to ask the first question that came into her head, she said "Why is life so s**t?")

As far as we know the point is 0, or zero, i'm sure DNA would have mentioned it if the answer was 42.xxxxxxx

Oh, fair enough...I understand
Sheesh! Last time I looked at the clock (about 2 minutes ago) it was 10 to 9. Now it's 20 past. My parents will be home soon

Doesn't time when you are having fun!