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The answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything, as given by the supercomputer Deep Thought to a group of mice, is "forty-two". According to the Guide, mice are 3-dimensional profiles of a pan-dimensional, hyper-intelligent race of beings. They built Deep Thought, the second greatest computer of all time and space, to tell them the answer to the question of life, the universe and everything. After seven and a half million years the computer divulges the answer: forty-two.

 

"Forty-two!" yelled Loonquawl. "Is that all you've got to show for seven and a half million years' work?"

"I checked it very thoroughly," said the computer, "and that quite definitely is the answer. I think the problem, to be quite honest with you, is that you've never actually known what the question is."

The computer informs the researchers that it will design for them a second and greater computer, incorporating living beings as part of its computational matrix, to tell them what the question is. That computer was called Earth and was so big that it was often mistaken for a planet. The question was lost minutes before it was due to be produced, due to the Vogons' demolition of the Earth, supposedly to build a hyperspace bypass. (Later in the series, it is revealed that the Vogons had been hired to destroy the Earth by a consortium of philosophers and psychiatrists who feared for their jobs should the meaning of life become common knowledge.)

 

Already booked for a round of talk-show appearances to reveal the Question, the mice become desperate to discover it. During a meeting with Arthur Dent and his companions on the planet Magrathea, Frankie and Benjy mouse reveal a plan to extract the ultimate question from Arthur's brain. Since this involves removing and dicing his brain, Arthur is unwilling to go along with the plan. He manages to escape from them unscathed.

 

Lacking a real answer, the mice proposed to use "How many roads must a man walk down?" (the first line of Bob Dylan's famous civil rights song Blowin' in the Wind) as the question for talk shows, after considering and rejecting the question, "What's yellow and dangerous?"—actually a riddle whose answer, not given by Adams, is "Shark-infested custard". However, this may also refer to the Vogon Constructor Fleet that demolished Earth, in that they were yellow and most certainly dangerous.

 

At the end of the book The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (volume 2 of the Hitchhiker's trilogy), Arthur Dent (as the last human to have left the Earth before its destruction, and therefore the portion of the computer matrix most likely to hold the question) attempts to discover the Question by extracting it from his unconscious mind, through pulling Scrabble letters at random out of a sack. The result is the sentence "WHAT DO YOU GET IF YOU MULTIPLY SIX BY NINE".

 

"Six by nine. Forty-two."

"That's it. That's all there is."

Since 6 × 9 = 54, this being the question would imply that the universe is bizarre and irrational; on the other hand, there is no proof that this was the actual question. After all, Arthur Dent comprised only a minuscule fragment of the vast and complex computer matrix that was the Earth, and besides, it was stated that the computer's run had not finished when it was destroyed. In addition, Arthur and Ford realized that the original ape-like inhabitants of Earth were displaced by the Golgafrinchans, which could account for the irrational nature of the question in Arthur's mind (as he himself is a descendant of the Golgafrinchans).

 

However, it was later pointed out that 6 × 9 = 42 if the calculations are performed in base 13, not base 10. Douglas Adams was not aware of this at the time, and has since been quoted as saying that "nobody writes jokes in base 13." and also "I may be a pretty sad person, but I don't make jokes in base 13." (Note, however, that the Scrabble board Arthur used had thirteen squares to a side, whereas an actual Scrabble board has fifteen.)

 

In the original radio series, this scene occurs at the end of the first series (Fit the Sixth). On discovering the question, Arthur Dent remarks "I always said there was something fundamentally wrong with the universe.".

 

"42" is often used in a similar manner to a metasyntactic variable; 42 is often used in testing programs as a common initializer for integer variables.

 

Google has a calculator function in its search engine, which contains a formula for the question answer to life the universe and everything (http://www.google.com/search?q=answer+to+life+the+universe+and+everything).

 

[edit]

Computer programmers' joke

There is a joke amongst computer programmers that Deep Thought may have had some order of operations issues. The following code in the C programming language defines the macros SIX as "1 + 5" and NINE as "8 + 1", and then performs the computation "SIX * NINE". It returns the answer "42", because "SIX * NINE" is expanded by the computer to "1 + 5 * 8 + 1", and the multiplication takes precedence over the additions. (This occurs because the macro expansion is textual, not logical)

 

#include <stdio.h>

 

#define SIX    1 + 5

#define NINE  8 + 1

 

int main(void)

{

    printf( "What you get if you multiply six by nine: %d\n", SIX * NINE );

    return 0;

}

Another possible explanation for the answer of 42 is that in the phrase "answer to life the universe and everything" there are exactly 42 characters including spaces. Also, in the question and answer "What do you get if you multiply six by nine? Forty-two" contains 42 letters (excluding the hyphen and question mark).

 

Additionally, 42 is 101010 in binary and the * as an ASCII character.

 

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Goophy

Goophy

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Men de som har lest bøkene osv vet jo at maskinen som skulle finne ut "spørsmålet" kræsja dagen før den var ferdig.

6*9 er vel bare et "dekksvar" fra musene sin side, selv om det er feil. :p

 

Edit: Men samme kan det være...

Endret av Goophy
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loketing

loketing

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Skrevet

bah.. den historien har jeg hørt tusen ganger før.. kan noen heller svare meg på dette? hvorfor reklamerer butikker med ting som "alt skal vekk" når det er salg? selvfølgelig skal alt vekk! er ikke det poenget med en butikk, at de skal selge ting..?

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dessessop

dessessop

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Skrevet
bah.. den historien har jeg hørt tusen ganger før.. kan noen heller svare meg på dette? hvorfor reklamerer butikker med ting som "alt skal vekk" når det er salg? selvfølgelig skal alt vekk! er ikke det poenget med en butikk, at de skal selge ting..?

 

Er vel bare opplysning til dei som ikkje veit det då :p

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Dorian Gray

Dorian Gray

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Navlen

Kva er den?, kvifor er den der?, er den teknisksett ei kroppsåpning?, kvar endar den?

Så mange spørsmål.

Er det ikke sånn man får mat, i mammas mage?

edit: The mark on the surface of the abdomen that indicates where the umbilical cord was attached to the fetus during gestation

Endret av SteffyBoy
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