- Cause, you realize we have to wait through that, do you?
- I thought about this some more and it really does make perfect sense. Surely the most important question you could ask about life, the universe and everything is whether there even IS an answer to life, the universe and everything? The answer is 42 meaning either that (if you're a cynic) there's a 1:42 chance there's an answer, or (if you're an optimist) there's a 42% chance that the universe has an answer.
- The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind. The answer is 42.
- The ants are my friends too!
- Jossed by reality. Cannonballs flew much more than 42 times before they were banned (due to evolution in weapon technology).
- And it's not like you can't still use them, but just that there are better options available.
- Of course, the correct question is: "How many years can some people exist, before they're allowed to be free?" (42 years: from the communist takeover of Czechoslovakia in February 1948, to the Velvet Revolution of November 1989.)
- No, people are never free. But how many Celsius degrees are necessary to start protein degradation?
- "Do I know what 'rhetorical' means?!"
- Yes.
- In basic?
- Marvin: Pick a number, any number.
Zem: Er, five.
Marvin: Wrong. You see?
- Technically that's not a question.
- No wonder no one else has been able to figure it out.
- reword to "What number am I thinking of that is between -∞ and ∞ to actually make a question.
- Technically, it would be 'what number are you thinking of?'
- I figure it's "Pick a number, any number" in the form of a question. Because nobody has figured out what that would be, the universe has not been destroyed.
- If you know the answer, you're most likely to pick it as a number. Which means the question is something like, "What percentage of people, when asked to pick a number, will choose the Ultimate Answer if they have been told about it beforehand?"
- So, does that make me the one or the half?
- Yes.
- You'd care if it was a password (like, maybe you say it to Saint Peter and you get to enter heaven, or you say it to the mirror and God answers all your questions about life).
- Ironically enough, it turns out it's 42.
- This question was acquired in the third book via a random draw from a bag full of Scrabble tiles - however, this would be impossible with a regulation Scrabble set (too many Ys, for one thing), meaning the result was not only influenced by the Golgafrinchams, but by a faulty set of tiles. Either that, or Arthur had made some spare tiles, due to the cavemen tossing the letter Q into privet bushes (oh wait, that one was Ford), and this troper thinks too much.
- This troper has calculated that there is, in fact, a time in which 6 x 9 does, in fact, equal 42... when you're working in Base 13.
- See above about base 13.
- To quote Mr. Adams himself "I don't write my jokes in base 13!"
- How 6 x 9 = 42. Conventional math says 6 x 9 = 54, 5 + 4 = 9, but 5 - 4 = 1, 9 - 1 = 8, 8 = 4 x 2 or (4)2 or 42.
- This troper is reminded of a fanfiction she read once which combined the actual Scrabble tile-drawn question of "six by nine", stated above, with this. Some people...
- 42..Kneeling on the ground and nuzzling your partner while giving him anal sex while he is stroking himself?
- Aha! So that means the answer is actually gay sex! IT'S TRUE! HOMOSEXUALITY WILL BRING ABOUT THE END OF THE WORLD!!!!
- It could be interpreted as the male kneeling while the female strokes him from between her knees and receives cunnilingus from behind. So if you multiply ("x", or cross around) 6 by 9... It sort of works.
- Aha! So that means the answer is actually gay sex! IT'S TRUE! HOMOSEXUALITY WILL BRING ABOUT THE END OF THE WORLD!!!!
- No, the mice didn't ask anything. They just told Deep Thought to tell them the answer.
- African or European?
- Arcturan Mega-.
- They migrate!
- Blue. No, Yellow!
- Depends on whether it's laden with a coconut or a holy hand grenade.
- Un-laden, it's approximately 20 mph.
- 42 mph.
- 37?! (Really hoping somebody gets the reference...)
- In a row?!
- So it's sex.
- Jossed as there are more than 42 guesses on here.
- Alternately, Deep Thought never told the mice the correct answer. Maybe it couldn't even figure out the answer, and a) just wanted to see if the mice would build Earth, b) wanted to live for a few billion more years, or c) just wanted to show up the Great Hyperbolic Omnicognate Neutron Wrangler.
- The answer might be... Boobies. Size 42... It's B-cups, BTW.
- Alternatively: Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle-like entity. You can't know one if you know the other.
- Babies know the answer, they don't know about the question yet, and thus know the answer without knowing it...
- So the answer to The Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe, and Everything is everything that is NOT The answer Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe, and Everything, which basically IS The Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe, and Everything PLUS Life, The Universe, and Everything... And since The Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe, and Everything is... Recursion at its best, people.
- 6 x 9 fingers.
- #define SIX 1+5#define NINE 8+1int main(){printf("How much do you get if you mulitiply SIX by NINE? %i!",SIX*NINE");}
Of course, the program will output 42, because SIX*NINE will be interpreted as 1+5*8+1=1+40+1=42, not as (1+5)*(8+1)=6*9=56.
- Presumably meaning that the universe is written in C.
- There are worse ways to code the universe. It's probably actually written in some kind of brainfuck-malbolge hybrid language, which would make some progress towards explaining Murphy's Law.
- Incidentally, C is derived from that language.
- See this xkcd.
- There are worse ways to code the universe. It's probably actually written in some kind of brainfuck-malbolge hybrid language, which would make some progress towards explaining Murphy's Law.
- This implies an Objectivist universe, which is truly terrifying.
- Didn't the ACTUAL answer get revealed as some other number in one of the later books anyway?
- The above troper is probably thinking of Stavromula Beta being revealed as Stavro Mueller's Beta Club in Mostly Harmless, which doesn't count anyway.
- Or God's final message to His creation: We apologize for the inconvenience. It made Marvin happy.
- The above troper is probably thinking of Stavromula Beta being revealed as Stavro Mueller's Beta Club in Mostly Harmless, which doesn't count anyway.
- And perhaps the penultimate answer is also 42. I have often heard the following exchange:Person 1: 42 is the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything.Person 2: What's the question?Person 1: That is the question.
- So it stands to reason that the final exchange is as follows: (keeping in mind that ultimate means "final")
Penultimate question: What's the question?Penultimate answer: 42.Ultimate question: 42?Ultimate answer: 42.- Or perhaps 42 is the penultimate question, and the ultimate question is "what is the penultimate question?"
- canned laughter*
- 41.98765432123456789 (squared... to the 10th power... cubed)
- But...but.... I was gonna vote for Dunkelzahn! And Michael Wilson! More to the point, wouldn't Cleveland counting as two people be the inverse of your point, meaning the world technically ended after the Clinton admin-Oh, wait...
- No, you're confusing "counted" and "counting." Cleveland does not count as two people in the literal sense, but people will still count him as two presidents when he was actually the same president with two terms. In other words:
A square never has three sides, but a square and something with three sides is a triangle.- He wasn't the only president that served two terms. I think most of them did. Certainly you wouldn't count him twice because his terms weren't consecutive. While we're at it, what about David Rice Atchison who may or may not have been president for a day depending on your interpretation? How about the 16 Presidents of Continental Congress? Or the presidents of the Confederacy or the Republic of Texas? Washington was just the first after the Constitution was adopted. It seems Taft was the 42nd President of the United States. Also, this doesn't say when the universe will end, just when the United States will. If there's a revolution during the 42 President's term resulting in either there being no United States or the United States not having a President, there will only have been 42 Presidents when the world ends.
- Maybe this one wasn't so off after all. Well done.
- Well Bill Clinton was the 42nd President, and it flipped out when Bush came to power in 2001.... Oh, everyone said the world will end in 2000, with the Millennium Bug, the Second Impact, etc., so did the world end during Clinton's era, and are we all in Purgatory?
- Oh oh!!! your talkin' 'bout Bush right?!
- Actually its six excluding ones owned by shinigami clearly 42 is how many can function in the human realm including ones owned by shinigami.
- Shinigami? Shi-ni-gami? 4-2-gami? This might actually be plausible.
- Nicely caught. *marks down to bring up to friends*
- Actually its six excluding ones owned by shinigami clearly 42 is how many can function in the human realm including ones owned by shinigami.
- William Shatner?
- Or alternately- how many shots does the Staff of Life have?
- I've got it! How many shots does William Shatner's Staff of Life have?
- Think about it. If 1 times 0 equals 0, and 42 times 0 equals 0, then 42 times 0 equals 1 times 0. Cancel the zeroes and you get 42 = 1.
- You divided by zero! Way to doom mankind, man.
- So the theory about the universe restarting was right. Clearly the first person who said that out loud said it on the eleventh of May, 2001, thus killing Douglas Adams and ending the universe of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy permanently and without reprieve. It all makes sense now!
- You divided by zero! Way to doom mankind, man.
- [Fenchurch takes a sip of coffee]Fenchurch: Hmm... Why is everyone so sad? If only we could... Hmm...[Fenchurch takes another sip]Fenchurch: Maybe if we... THAT'S IT! ...But, how many years would it take? Hmm... Probably about... Forty-tw-[Vogons destroy the Earth]
- Since this is the 42nd WMG, it must be the correct one. (See the WMG 7 levels up)
- I don't care what you say, the answer is six.
- One. (As long as it's the gavotte.)
- Oddly, this is the 42nd theory on this page. Which should mean it's the most likely to be true...
- Ten Thousand times Ten Thousand and Thousands of Thousands...
- 42 as in... 000042? Or while we are at it, #000042?
- Hmm... Ooh, dark blue. Nice. Not my favorite color, but... Nice. Hmm... And #420000 is a dark shade of red... Possibly the placement of 42 within the hexadecimal color code is relative?
- And there IS a sentient shade of dark blue...
- Hmm... Ooh, dark blue. Nice. Not my favorite color, but... Nice. Hmm... And #420000 is a dark shade of red... Possibly the placement of 42 within the hexadecimal color code is relative?
- Oh, oh, Fridge Brilliance alert! Of course 42 is God's favorite number...or rather, the favorite number of Douglas Adams!
When Deep Thought was set to work calculating the Answer, there was a heated argument nearby involving a pair of philosophers, who complained that there was no need for them to wonder whether or not God exists if a machine can give you his phone number. Soon after, Deep Thought announces its circuits are irrevocably committed to calculating the Answer.
- Then what's the country code?
The Answer would make sense only if the Universe didn't contain any of this troublesome "life" that keeps doing things on its own and mucking up complex calculations by crash-landing on computer-planets and such. If there was no life, the Answer 42 would make sense, but there would be no one around to make sense of it. As it happens, life does exist, so the Answer doesn't make sense.
- One could go on to say that if you did manage to make sense of the fundamentally nonsensical Answer, then anything that made sense before would suddenly not make sense, since you've changed your mind so entirely by understanding the Answer that it cannot comprehend anything else. Thus the Universe, for you, at least, has been replaced by something infinitely more bizarre (since this is an infinite Universe and all). It's all a matter of perspective (which I'm sure is a concept mentioned in the Trilogy somewhere - the Total Perspective Vortex, for one).
- Or, possibly, it's the answer to Daniel Tammet. Somebody, get him to model what he sees 42 as!
- Wait, wait, wait; does this mean that The Auditors of Reality not only know, but understand the answer AND the question at once, and are therefore working towards a universe that can freely express them both without collapsing in on itself & being replaced? OH SHI—
- 2+2=The answer?
All humanity , all sentient life , are just neurons and fuses. All thinking , all existing to act as the background running power of a greatest meta physical Artificial intelligence in creation. We are nerves and synapses created to house its incredible processing power. Literally incalculable. Nothing we do matters, how many children we have. What we do to one another or leave behind. Just static waste, we exist to provide running time to this Meta Physical AI that encompasses all reality and time. Who built it? Unknown. What is it's purpose? To answer one question , and only one question.The Question? Must never be said or it could cause a system corruption leading to a reboot vis a via a new big bang. What happens what this AI finds the Answer?
We will never know, because we will never have existed. We will be replaced by a new reality , a new faster set of neurons and fuses . Ready to spend billions of years on the next question...
Because four, five, or six volumes aren't nearly enough for a trilogy.
- That means World War Two was actually caused by the pan-dimensional beings attempting to find out the Ultimate Question? creepy.
- Would that mean that maybe heaven and hell were overcrowded which is why the universe was made and this is just an endless cycle?
Big Boom - Expansion - Life- Evolution - Existence - Burn out - Compression - Silence - Darkness - Spark - Big boom again.
What has come before will come again. 41 times has all time and space ended and 42 times has it begun. It will never stop , existence never stops. Stars burn out, time stops all fades until in time unmeasurable it begins again. 41 different Universe, 41 different different laws of reality and physics. 41 worlds of Earth, with 41 different names. Previously the we evolved from Jellyfish, a bird like being with three arms. Life NEVER ENDS. The reason for it all is existence itself. 42 times it ends and begins.. 42 times and counting.
It's a safeguard that means that as soon as you know what the ANSWER is, your forget what the QUESTION is, and vice-versa.
- Ahh, then that still leaves room for non-sentient beings to figure it out.
42's got nothing on the strongest number in existance.
- Might be plausible. I'm sure something THAT significant won't leave a lot of room in that fairy head. Which would also explain why she's considered an idiot, she jsut can't think of much due to The Answer! Maybe that also explains Icicle Fall easy, she's subconsciously letting her opponent in to talk to about The Answer. And of course she hasn't met Koishi yet...
- HEY WAIT!!! We already have the answers! We should be looking for the questions... we got derailed somehow...
And if not for running out of Scrabble pieces, Arthur Dent would've finished spelling it out.
- "What was the number of the episode that Ash Ketchum's father appeared in?"
- "How old is Ash's father?"
- "How many times has Ash's father appeared?"
- "What is the minimum/maximum amount of times Ash's father appeared?"
It doesn't make any sense, but it rhymes, so we go along with it. Which sort of fits the Universe, really.
- Possibly Deep Thought knew the question and answer couldn't exist at least with what it was given- it pretty much stated so after it gave the answer. It simply ran its problem and created the earth simply to pretend to its creators it wasn't a waste of time, and give the philosophers plenty to do.
- This makes sense when you factor in that we are all programmed to help find the Ultimate Question, according to the mice. The Earth is so complex of a computer that it evolved beings over billions of years simply so that the end results would deduce the answer on their own.
- The Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe and Everything is 42.
- In this scenario, the Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe and Everything does not exist. It is nothing
- Zero is a mathematical term for nothing. Thus the Ultimate Question of Life, The Univers and Everything is 0
- Thus 42 is the answer to 0. Meaning 0=42
- 0 times anything equals 0, and 0 divided by anything equals 0. Anything is represented by n
- 0n=42n. 0/n=42/n. From what we established, this means 0=42n and 0=42/n
- Any number could be represented as 42n or 42/n. Thus 0=any number, 0=n
- If 0=n, then everything is equal to 0.
- Thus there is zero mass, energy, time or space in the universe. The universe cannot exist, so it vanishes in a Puff of Logic
- If n=0, 0/n=0/0.
- 0 times anything is 0. As we established, n is anything. Thus, n has value again
- As anything now has value, the universe=/=zero
- Thus the universe is recreated from a Logic Bomb. Making it exist again, stranger due to the Logic Bomb making it exist
- I was sober when I made this WMG.
Somewhere between City of Death and Full Circle, Romana and the Doctor married, and had a son named Fortytwo James Alistair Heartshaven (Gallifreyans are matriarchal) who then turned 8 and entered the Prydonian Academy. Fortytwo graduated the Academy and fulfilled his purpose to become the Answer to Life, the Universe, and the Everything. Perhaps that was even his Renegade Timelord name. It's also likely that Fortytwo died in the Time War, or maybe he's somewhere renegading around\settled in another planet (maybe he's the Curator?) or maybe he's still alive in a timelocked Gallifrey.