Hvad er svaret på livet universet og alt?
42 (number)
Tallet 42 er i The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy af Douglas Adams "Svaret på det ultimative spørgsmål om livet, universet og alting", som er beregnet af en enorm supercomputer ved navn Deep Thought over en periode på 7,5 millioner år. Desværre er der ingen, der ved, hvad spørgsmålet er. For at beregne det ultimative spørgsmål blev der derfor bygget en særlig computer på størrelse med en lille planet af organiske komponenter og kaldt "Jorden". Det ultimative spørgsmål "Hvad får man, når man ganger seks med ni" blev fundet af Arthur Dent og Ford Prefect i anden bog i serien, "Restauranten ved universets ende". Dette optrådte først i radiospillet og senere i romanudgaven af The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.  Det faktum, at Adams navngav episoderne i radiospillet "fits", den samme arkaiske titel for et kapitel eller afsnit, som Lewis Carroll brugte i The Hunting of the Snark, tyder på, at Adams var påvirket af Carrolls fascination af og hyppige brug af tallet. Den fjerde bog i serien, romanen So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish, indeholder 42 kapitler.  Ifølge romanen Mostly Harmless er 42 gadeadressen på Stavromula Beta. I 1994 skabte Adams 42 Puzzle, et spil baseret på tallet 42.
42 (number)
The number 42 is, in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, the "Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything", calculated by an enormous supercomputer named Deep Thought over a period of 7.5 million years. Unfortunately, no one knows what the question is. Thus, to calculate the Ultimate Question, a special computer the size of a small planet was built from organic components and named "Earth". The Ultimate Question "What do you get when you multiply six by nine" was found by Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect in the second book of the series, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe. This appeared first in the radio play and later in the novelization of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.  The fact that Adams named the episodes of the radio play "fits", the same archaic title for a chapter or section used by Lewis Carroll in The Hunting of the Snark, suggests that Adams was influenced by Carroll's fascination with and frequent use of the number. The fourth book in the series, the novel So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish, contains 42 chapters.  According to the novel Mostly Harmless, 42 is the street address of Stavromula Beta. In 1994 Adams created the 42 Puzzle, a game based on the number 42.
42 (number)