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Asked by tariqeltayeb to Jack on 15 Jun 2013.
Question: Why is 42 the meaning of life
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Jack Miller answered on 15 Jun 2013:
Hi Tariqeltayeb,
In the mind of Douglas Adams, author of a set of science-fiction books called “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”, 42 is the answer to just about everything. Specifically, it’s “The Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything”, as calculated by an enormous supercomputer over a period of 7.5 million years. Unfortunately, by that point (the story says) people had forgotten what the question was. So, they built a more powerful supercomputer — planet Earth — to work out what the question was. If you want more details, read the books — they’re very funny!
Of course, in reality, “42” is a number, and what “the meaning of life” actually is isn’t a very well posed question. Biologically speaking, the “meaning” of life is to make more life — to have lots of babies and ensure the survival of the species. It’s kind of awesome to think that there’s an unbroken chain of reproduction going back right the way from you to some vague gloopy set of chemical reactions occurring a long, long time ago. And no, Earth isn’t really a supercomputer.
Hope this helps!
— Jack
Comments
Dave commented on :
But if it was a supercomputer, how would we know!
Dave
Jack commented on :
I’m sure the mice would tell us! (In the book, there are three really intelligent species on Earth — humans, dolphins and lab mice, in that order…)
More seriously, it’s very hard to use natural systems as computers, but it has been done. Before modern, digital electronics was fast and small enough to make computing feasible, people set up electronic circuits to model a particular problem — to solve the problem, just turn the circuit on, and read out the answer!
joewhoyouknow commented on :
If it needed that long to think about it wouldn’t you of thought it was right?