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

If 42 is the answer then what is the question? Clearly the question is, "WHY is there life, the universe and everything instead of Nothing?" The only answer that quantum mechanics, relativity, astrophysics, comlexity theory can offer is "It just is" or "It was just random chance". Philosophers and theologians can offer "Because The Creator made it", but of course that only shifts the question back another notch to "WHY is there a Creator instead of Nothing?".

If 42 really is The Answer (and I have my doubts about that) then the slightly expanded explaination of the answer is "It was just dumb luck." And if we are talking about dumb luck, is there any number more fourtwoitous than 42??

Traveller in Time flexing his mind
"Have you noticed the answer is in your number
< U7370468 >
73+ 7- 46+ 8 = 42 You must be a true Researcher

< A530560 > 'The Myth of 42' "

The Number 42 bus runs between Stockport and Manchester via Didsbury (Manchester Poly)and the university. At some point on the route it passes at least one school of astrophysics (the one that owns Jodrell Bank)

So when Jodrell Bank famously failed to detect the presence of a Vogon Constructor Fleet and looked right through them, did the duty technicians and number-ctunchers go to work at the University that morning on a no 42 bus?

The earth apparently has a diameter 42 times that of the moon and also the distance from the earth to the sun is 42 times greater than the distance from the earth to the moon!
spooky

My old theory is that they ask a computer for the answer, so of course it gives a numerical answer.

Whereas the closest word to 42 in English is 'fortitude', which is an answer that makes more sense to a human.

In that incomprehensible metaphor for the world, the universe and everything, Finnegans Wake (Penguin Classics) immediatley above the number 42 are the words:
"mallardmissing on Rutland heath, exchanging cold sneers, mass-"

Rutland is obviously the answer. Now what was the question?

If the answer was not 42, the question would be wrong

42 is the answer! To understand this you must not think of 42 as a number but rather a mistake.

First they asked what the answer was to life, the universe, and everything, and after many years deep thought gave them one.

First it simplified the question to what is life? The answer: life is the stage before death, therefore life needs an end, and to have life it needs a beginning. This usually takes the form of birth, hatching, cloning, etc. So a simplified answer that any being should be able to comprehend is that life has a beginning and an end.

Deep Thought then used the same reasoning with the other two abstract ideas, the universe and everything, and reached the same conclusion. But after simplifying the questions and answers down this much it also simplified its output.

The beginning and the End became the letters A and Z. Now how does this become 42 you may ask? Well it's really quite simple... sort of... not really. If you recall that I previously stated that 42 is not a number I will now elaborate on this. A and Z were put into Leet(L337)A787917, a kind of computer language (after all computers are just big calculators, and every one knows they work best with numbers).

So now you have a question for 42, and an answer to the Ultimate Question of Life the Universe and Everything.

It's neat that Rutland (see post 7) is the answer corresponding to 42 and therefore the answer to Life, Universe and Everything for Rutland is/was the smallest county in England's green and pleasant land. Not sure if Rutland still exists though.

We can't know the answer and the question at the same time in the universe; if we did, the universe would be destroyed and replaced with something much more bizzare. Come to think of it, that's probably already happened.

Ah, maybe that's what happened to Rutland. Was it swallowed (gulp!) by Leicestershire...or something more bizarre?

They flooded it.

http://www.anglianwaterleisure.co.uk/index.php?sectionid=53&parentid=47

They did too! Now it's a merely a lake and a cycle track.
As for the "first breeding ospryes" claim on the above link, I remember seeing a perfectly healthy osprey in the Cheviots, in Northumberland, some 10 or 12 years ago...a far more suitable and natural environment than Rutland I would have thought.

Quite a big lake, too. I cycled around it once. Didn't see any ospreys, though.

Nice part of the world - Geoff Hamilton's TV garden was nearby. Also, not too far from Stamford & Burleigh House.

why 42? may I found an answer!
F64903?thread=844950

I think the basic problem is the numerals 42, if you write it out things become more clear

For Tea, Two ...... in other words the Answer to Life, The Universe and Everthing is a nice cup of tea for two, the Question is one lump or two

that sound like whale swimming in a bowl of petunias!

I wonder if the whale would use a Brownian Motion as it swam, or if the petunias really cared, so many questions but only one answer to it all

"swam" it is not bunch of people talking nonsense!