Ok so everybody has seen hitch hikers guide to the galaxy right? or heard of the answer being 42 at least. I havent seen the film yet, but i have seen the series, aparantly the meaning of life is 42! Why?
Well, it's the answer to life, the universe and everything. But for an answer to make sense, you need a question to go with it. It was all explained by Deep Thought. Earth, which turns out to be a huge supercomputer, is then built by Deep Thought for the ever-frustrated pan dimensional beings to find out the question. "To get to the other side" could have been the answer. In fact, sometimes life seems like one big unfunny joke to me, so maybe 42 was wrong.
Woah, i just thought it was a metaphor for lifes gamble, like the dots of two dice adding upto 42. So its a question i'm looking for? the mind boggles!
I don't know how you could watch the series and understand everything but the 42 thing, it's pretty central to the entire story According to some, when Douglas Adams wrote that part in, he spent the better part of a day considering which number was the funniest/best to put in. I think he chose the rght one
I'm an idiot! I was looking for the reason for it being 42, there must be philisophy behind it i thought, why 42?
Is that right? The 42nd sphere, and don't forget about my dice theory matthew, is it not possible that it's also because of the dots on a dice and the fate of your roll....?
d'aw and here was me thinking mr adams had just randomly come with a number that meant nothing. well i sho' feel right silly now
Matthew, would you mind explaining the thing about Earth being the 42nd sphere? I'm a bit slow on the uptake today, and I don't understand :&
As everyone knows every equation at its core has the No.42, be that Pi (base 13); the arc of a rainbow White light separates into different colours (wavelengths) on entering the raindrop, as red light is refracted by a lesser angle than blue light. On leaving the raindrop, the red rays have turned through a smaller angle than the blue rays, producing a rainbow. or the No. of spheres in the universe. If you do the maths (take a few days of work/college/etc) and you will find the earth IS the 42 SPHERE.. or Planet as we refer to such things nowadays. It appears genius because Mr Adams was not aware of such things as he was writing the book.. but we are all inately aware of this answer (being 42)we just have to ask a question (any question) the answer eventualy will boil down to 42.
I totally agree, 42 is actually quite funny, it even appeared on the simpsons yesterday, homer wanted to by 42 baths for making beer in because of a prohibition law banning alchohol from springfield! Matthew, you ever thought of being a teacher? That is a beautiful explanation, between you and power_13 I think i fully understand "why 42?" Everytime i see a rainbow I'll think 42! Thats the number! It is strange that Mr adams didn't actually know how right he was, I mean we're the 42nd sphere, The angle of light must be at 42 degrees to make a rainbow and... If you add all the dots of two dice...
Matthew's explanation made my head hurt a bit, but I'm a simple man so that's ok Cheers for explaining it 42 turns up a lot in Family Guy as well, the only example I can think of is Brian's room number at the rehab centre in the first episode of season 3...
Hehe, i'm on the hunt for 42 jokes and references now, this could get ugly though, i had this theory that if you looked for Elvis in magazines, films, on the radio, levi's, everywhere...you will hear or see a reference to the king at least once a day! I did this for months!!!
42 is 101010 in binary notation. Computers like binary (digits are either 1 or 0, so can be represented by a switch being on or off, current passing or not). So you could say that 42 is like flipping a switch on-off-on-off-on-off. Maybe it was Deep Thought's computer equivalent of twiddling its thumbs.....
heh, yeah that makes sense, a continuously balanced answer to an ever changing question, i like it. Too late Matthew the ball is rolling mwhahaha...
