The Answer to The Ultimate Question Of Life, the Universe, and Everything is a fictional solution in Douglas Adams's science fiction series The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. In the story, the Ultimate Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything is sought using the hypercomputer Deep Thought, however the computer was insufficiently powerful to provide the Ultimate Question when asked after it had produced the Answer (after a very long computation time — 7.5 million years). The answer given by Deep Thought prompted the protagonists to embark on a quest to discover the Question to which this is the Answer. Douglas Noël Adams (11 March 1952 – 11 May 2001) was a British author, comic radio dramatist, and amateur musician. ... Science fiction is a form of speculative fiction principally dealing with the impact of imagined science and technology, or both, upon society and persons as individuals. ... The cover of the first novel in the Hitchhikers series, from a late 1990s printing. ... There are many minor characters in the various versions of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams. ... The main character is the central figure of a story. ...

The search for the Ultimate Answer

According to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, researchers from a pan-dimensional, hyper-intelligent race of beings constructed the second greatest computer in all of time and space, Deep Thought, to calculate the Ultimate Answer to the Great Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything. After seven and a half million years of pondering the question, Deep Thought provides the answer: "forty-two." The reaction: A BlueGene supercomputer cabinet. ... There are many minor characters in the various versions of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams. ... Look up forty-two in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

"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, it's 42" 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 search for the Ultimate Question

The Ultimate Answer

Deep Thought informs the researchers that it would design 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 researchers themselves took the apparent form of mice to run the program. The question was lost, five minutes before it was to have been 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 the loss of their jobs when the meaning of life became common knowledge. Image File history File links Answer_to_Life. ... Image File history File links Answer_to_Life. ... Adjectives: Terrestrial, Terran, Telluric, Tellurian, Earthly Atmosphere Surface pressure: 101. ... Feral mouse A mouse (plural mice) is a rodent that belongs to one of numerous species of small mammals. ... This is a list of races, fauna and flora featured in various incarnations of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. ... A consortium is an association of two or more individuals, companies, organisations or governments (or any combination of these entities) with the objective of participating in a common activity or pooling their resources for achieving a common goal. ... A philosopher is a person who thinks deeply regarding people, society, the world, and/or the universe. ... Psychiatry is a branch of medicine that studies and treats mental and emotional disorders (see mental illness). ... Monty Pythons The Meaning of Life is a comedy film/musical made in 1983 by Monty Python. ...

Lacking a real question, the mice proposed to use "How many roads must a man walk down?" (the first line of Bob Dylan's famous protest song "Blowin' In The Wind") as the question for talk shows, after considering and rejecting various other questions such as, "What's yellow and dangerous?" (a commonplace joke, the answer to which is usually "shark-infested custard"). Bob Dylan (born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter, author, musician, and poet who has been a major figure in popular music for five decades. ... Blowin in the Wind is a song written by Bob Dylan in April 1962, and released on his 1963 album The Freewheelin Bob Dylan. ...

At the end of Mostly Harmless, which is the last of the series of novels, there is a final reference to the number 42. As Arthur and Ford are dropped off at club Beta (owned by Stavro Müller), Ford shouts at the cabby to stop "just there, number forty-two … Right here!" The entire Earth (in all dimensions, not just those in which it was demolished by the Vogons), is destroyed immediately after this final reference, which could lead to the Ultimate Question being, "Where does it all end?" The front cover of the US first hardcover edition of Mostly Harmless. ...

Arthur's Scrabble tiles

The Ultimate Question?

At the end of the first radio series, the television series, and the book The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, the second of the five-book 'trilogy', Arthur Dent — as the last human to have left the Earth before its destruction, 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." Image File history File links Scrabble_6x9. ... Image File history File links Scrabble_6x9. ... The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (1980, ISBN 0345391810) is the second book in the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy comedy science fiction series by Douglas Adams. ... A trilogy is a set of three works of art, usually literature or film, that are connected and can generally be seen as a single work as well as three individual ones. ... Simon Jones as an upset Arthur Dent, watching his home being demolished in the first episode of the BBC TV series. ... Scrabble is a popular word game and board game in which 2-4 players score points by forming words from individual lettered tiles on a 15×15 game board. ...

The generation of this "question" is actually impossible with a single, standard set of Scrabble letters. Such a set only has two Ys; but the set shown in the TV series has clearly been handmade from memory, so the question buried within Arthur's brainwaves may have influenced him in creating it. In the original radio version of the story, however, it is made clear that Arthur has been travelling all along with a pocket Scrabble set from Earth.

"Six by nine. Forty-two, 42."

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

The explanation is that the program (Earth) would have run correctly if not for the interference of events such as the crash landing of the Golgafrinchans causing them to replace the original inhabitants. These important modifications introduced error into the program and caused it to discover the wrong question; the question in Arthur's mind has been the wrong question all along. This is a list of places featured in The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. ...

It was later pointed out by readers that 6 × 9 = 42 if the calculations are performed in base 13, not base 10. Douglas Adams later averred that he was not aware of this at the time, and repeatedly dismisses this as an irrelevant concoction, saying that "nobody writes jokes in base 13 [...] I may be a pretty sad person, but I don't make jokes in base 13." Base-13, tridecimal, or tredecimal is a positional numeral system with thirteen as its base. ... Decimal, or denary, notation is the most common way of writing the base 10 numeral system, which uses various symbols for ten distinct quantities (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9, called digits) together with the decimal point and the sign symbols + (plus) and − (minus...

Marvin's Question

Another possibility as to the Ultimate Question is presented in the third book, Life, the Universe and Everything. Often complaining about having a "brain the size of a planet", (this would presumably be necessary to work out the Question, as the Earth was created for this purpose according to the series, and is also, approximately, the size of a planet) and once stating that he can see the Question on Arthur's brainwaves, it is possible the "paranoid android" Marvin may know the Question. If this is true, it is possible that it may be given in the following paragraph, taken from Life, the Universe and Everything where Marvin is speaking to the mattress, Zem: Life, the Universe and Everything (1982, ISBN 0-345-39182-9) is the third book in the five-volume Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy science fiction series by Douglas Adams. ... In the BBC TV series, the marketing division of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation defines a robot [like Marvin] as Your plastic pal whos fun to be with. Marvin the Paranoid Android is a fictional character in The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy series by Douglas Adams. ... Life, the Universe and Everything (1982, ISBN 0-345-39182-9) is the third book in the five-volume Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy science fiction series by Douglas Adams. ...

"...I am at a rough estimate, thirty billion times more intelligent than you. Let me give you an example. Think of a number, any number." [said Marvin]

"Er, five" said the mattress.

"Wrong," said Marvin. "You see?"

Given the situation, and other small clues, it is possible that the Ultimate Question is "Think of a number, any number." This would be ironic given that it is in fact not a question.

"Think of a number, any number" is repeated by the Heart of Gold computer near the end of Life, The Universe and Everything immediately after Arthur Dent suggests Prak may know the Ultimate Question and laments that "It's always bothered me that we never found out." Life, the Universe and Everything (1982, ISBN 0-345-39182-9) is the third book in the five-volume Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy science fiction series by Douglas Adams. ...

Impossibility of discovering the Ultimate Question

A joke about the impossibility of understanding the real meaning of the universe first appeared in Fit the Seventh of the radio series, in 1978. There it was stated: The terms Primary Phase and Secondary Phase describe the first two radio series of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. ...

There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something more bizarrely inexplicable.

There is another theory which states that this has already happened.

The joke was reprinted in The Restaurant at the End of the Universe and re-worked into both Life, the Universe and Everything and The Tertiary Phase, based on the third novel. In the latter novel, Arthur encounters a man named Prak, who through a significant overdose of a remarkably effective truth serum has gained the knowledge of all truth. Prak confirms that 42 is indeed the answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything, but reveals that it is impossible for both the Ultimate Answer and the Ultimate Question to be known about in the same universe (a sort of way to keep the key from the lock). He states that if such a thing should come to pass, the universe would disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarrely inexplicable. He then speculates that this may have already happened. The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (1980, ISBN 0345391810) is the second book in the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy comedy science fiction series by Douglas Adams. ... Life, the Universe and Everything (1982, ISBN 0-345-39182-9) is the third book in the five-volume Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy science fiction series by Douglas Adams. ... The terms Tertiary Phase, Quandary Phase and Quintessential Phase describe the radio adaptations of the books Life, the Universe and Everything, So Long, and Thanks For All the Fish and Mostly Harmless recorded in 2003 and 2004 by Above the Title Productions for BBC Radio 4. ...

The mutual exclusion of knowing both the Ultimate Question and the Ultimate Answer mimics counter-intuitive principles of quantum mechanics like the Pauli exclusion principle and the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. Fig. ... The Pauli exclusion principle is a quantum mechanical principle formulated by Wolfgang Pauli in 1925. ... Werner Heisenberg Werner Karl Heisenberg (December 5, 1901 – February 1, 1976) was a celebrated German physicist and Nobel laureate, one of the founders of quantum mechanics. ... In quantum physics, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle is a mathematical limit on the accuracy with which it is possible to measure everything there is to know about a physical system. ...

Douglas Adams's view

Douglas Adams was asked many times during his career why he chose the number forty-two. Many theories were proposed, but he rejected them all. On November 3, 1993, he gave an answer on alt.fan.douglas-adams: Douglas Noël Adams (11 March 1952 – 11 May 2001) was a British author, comic radio dramatist, and amateur musician. ... November 3 is the 307th day of the year (308th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 58 days remaining. ... 1993 (MCMXCIII) was a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar and marked the Beginning of the International Decade to Combat Racism and Racial Discrimination (1993-2003). ...

The answer to this is very simple. It was a joke. It had to be a number, an ordinary, smallish number, and I chose that one. Binary representations, base thirteen, Tibetan monks are all complete nonsense. I sat at my desk, stared into the garden and thought '42 will do' I typed it out. End of story.

While it is certainly true that the answer was intended to be just a number with no hidden meaning, the fact that he arrived at 42 was explained in more detail in an interview with Ian Johnstone of BBC Radio 4 recorded in 1998 (though never broadcast) to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the first radio broadcast of The Hitchhiker's Guide.

In the interview Adams said that, having decided it should be a number, he tried to think what an "ordinary number" should be. Adams ruled out non-integers, then he remembered having worked as a "prop-borrower" for John Cleese on his Video Arts training videos. Cleese needed a funny number that would serve as the punchline to a long sketch involving himself (as a bank teller) and Tim Brooke-Taylor (as a customer). Adams believed that number that Cleese came up with was 42 and he decided to use it. John Marwood Cleese (born 27 October 1939) is an English comedian and actor best known for being one of the members of the comedy group Monty Python and for co-writing the TV series Fawlty Towers in which he played Basil Fawlty. ... Video Arts is a company that produces humerous training videos for companies. ... Tim Brooke-Taylor (April 2000) Timothy Julian Brooke-Taylor, (born 17 July 1940 in Buxton, Derbyshire, England) is a British comic actor most well known in Britain as a member of The Goodies comedy trio and in the comedy radio shows Im Sorry I Havent a Clue, and...

Several attempts by fans to find this particular video have been unsuccessful and it is possible it may never have been published or has since been deleted from use.

This interview is contained on Douglas Adams's Guide to the Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy (BBC Cassette ISBN 0-563-55236-0) and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - The Collectors Edition (BBC CD ISBN 0-563-47702-4).

See also

• Cultural references to 42
• Meaning of life
• 42 (number)
• 42 Puzzle

	v • d • e The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy By Douglas Adams
Books:	The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy | The Restaurant at the End of the Universe | Life, the Universe and Everything | So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish | Mostly Harmless | Young Zaphod Plays it Safe | The Original Radio Scripts
Media:	Radio series (Phases 1 & 2, Phases 3, 4 & 5) | TV series | Movie | Computer game | Differences between versions | Cast lists
Characters:	Arthur Dent | Ford Prefect | Zaphod Beeblebrox | Marvin | Trillian | Slartibartfast | The Guide | Minor characters
Places:	List of places | Total Perspective Vortex | Heart of Gold | Wikkit Gate | Starship Titanic | Galactic Empire | Whole Sort of General Mish Mash
Miscellanea:	Races and species | The Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything | Babel fish | Bistromathic drive | Cultural references | h2g2 | Infinidim Enterprises | Infinite Improbability Drive | International Phenomenon | Notable phrases | Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster | Point-of-view gun | Somebody Else's Problem field | Sirius Cybernetics Corporation | Vogon poetry | Other miscellanea

Since the original radio transmission of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, there have been many references to the series in many types of media. ... The philosophical question What is the meaning of life? means different things to different people. ... Look up forty-two in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Spoiler warning: The 42 Puzzle, as it appeared on pages 80 and 81 of The Illustrated Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy The 42 Puzzle is a game devised by Douglas Adams in 1994 for his popular The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy series. ... Image File history File links Answer_to_Life. ... The cover of the first novel in the Hitchhikers series, from a late 1990s printing. ... Douglas Noël Adams (11 March 1952 – 11 May 2001) was a British author, comic radio dramatist, and amateur musician. ... The cover of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, from a late 1990s US printing. ... The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (1980, ISBN 0345391810) is the second book in the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy comedy science fiction series by Douglas Adams. ... Life, the Universe and Everything (1982, ISBN 0-345-39182-9) is the third book in the five-volume Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy science fiction series by Douglas Adams. ... So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish (1984, ISBN 0-345-39183-7) is the fourth book of the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy series written by Douglas Adams. ... The front cover of the US first hardcover edition of Mostly Harmless. ... Young Zaphod Plays it Safe is a short story by Douglas Adams set in his The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy universe. ... The cover of the booklet included with the Collectors Edition CD set release of the first two Hitchhikers radio series. ... The terms Primary Phase and Secondary Phase describe the first two radio series of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. ... The terms Tertiary Phase, Quandary Phase and Quintessential Phase describe the radio adaptations of the books Life, the Universe and Everything, So Long, and Thanks For All the Fish and Mostly Harmless recorded in 2003 and 2004 by Above the Title Productions for BBC Radio 4. ... Opening titles from the TV series, designed by Doug Burd The televised adaptation of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, broadcast in January and February of 1981 on BBC Two, became the fifth version. ... The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy is a science fiction comedy film based on the book of the same name by Douglas Adams. ... The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy is an interactive fiction computer game based on the seminal comic science fiction series of the same name. ... The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy has appeared in nine different versions since its original radio series in 1978. ... // Covering Radio/TV Episodes 1-6, and their equivalents. ... Simon Jones as an upset Arthur Dent, watching his home being demolished in the first episode of the BBC TV series. ... David Dixon as Ford Prefect in Episode One of the TV adaptation of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. ... Mark Wing-Davey as Zaphod Beeblebrox, from the TV adaptation. ... In the BBC TV series, the marketing division of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation defines a robot [like Marvin] as Your plastic pal whos fun to be with. Marvin the Paranoid Android is a fictional character in The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy series by Douglas Adams. ... Zooey Deschanel as Trillian from the film adaptation. ... There are many minor characters in the 5-part fictional trilogy The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams. ... The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy (some times shorten to The Guide) is an electronic guide book in the multi-media franchise of the same name. ... There are many minor characters in the various versions of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams. ... This is a list of places featured in The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. ... The Total Perspective Vortex, in the fictional world of Douglas Adamss The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, is the most horrible torture device to which a sentient being can be subjected. ... Heart of Gold is a fictional spaceship in The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. ... The Wikkit Gate is a fictional artifact in the universe of Douglas Adams The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, as featured in the novel Life, the Universe and Everything. ... Front cover of the box from the original US Windows 95 CD-ROM release of Starship Titanic, by Simon & Schuster Interactive. ... Galactic Imperial seal, as represented in the Hitchhikers Guide television series. ... The Whole Sort of General Mish Mash (WSOGMM) is a fictional concept in physics and cosmology from Douglas Adams The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy series, mentioned in Mostly Harmless. ... This is a list of races, fauna and flora featured in various incarnations of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. ... Anatomy of a babel fish as illustrated in the BBC TV series by Rod Lord. ... The Bistromathic Drive is a fictional type of starship propulsion system in Douglas Adams Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. ... Since the original radio transmission of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, there have been many references to the series in many types of media. ... H2G2 is also an acronym for the The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. ... Infinidim Enterprises is the name of a publishing corporation in Douglas Adams book Mostly Harmless, fifth of the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy trilogy. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... The cover of the 2005 Romanian translation of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. ... The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy has become so popular among sci-fi and computer enthusiasts that certain phrases from it are widely recognised and often used in reference to, but outside the context of, the source material. ... The Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster is a fictional alcoholic drink which is mentioned in Douglas Adams humorous science fiction radio series, novels, computer game, movie, comic book mini-series, and television series The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. ... The Point-of-view gun is a fictional device created by Douglas Adams for the movie version[1] of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, and does not appear in any of the previous versions of the story. ... The Somebody Elses Problem field (SEP field) is a fictional technology from The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy trilogy by Douglas Adams. ... Encyclopedia Galactica: the inept Sirius Cybernetics Corporation Marketing Division. ... Arthur Dent being read Vogon poetry in the TV series Vogon Poetry is poetry written by Vogons, a fictional race in Douglas Adams The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. ... This is a list of miscellaneous elements in Douglas Adams The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. ...

External links

• Douglas Adams's statement on what forty-two means; see this message.
• W3C's Attempt to standardise the meaning of 42
• Deep Thought A website devoted to listing sightings of 42 all over the world.