• Question: Why is 42 the meaning of life

    Asked by tariqeltayeb to Chris, Dave, David, Fiona, Jack on 17 Jun 2013.
    • Photo: Fiona Coomer

      Fiona Coomer answered on 17 Jun 2013:

      I would say ask Douglas Adams, but unfortunately he died a few years ago. We’ll just have to remain in the dark over this one.

    • Photo: David Freeborn

      David Freeborn answered on 17 Jun 2013:

      Douglas Adams wanted a number to be the “meaning of life”, as a way of mocking the use of computers at the time, and also the physicists who wanted to reduce the Universe to a single equation.

      He asked his friend to think of the “funniest number in the world”. For reasons that remain mysterious, he chose 42.

      There are a few conspiracy theories about why he chose 42. It’s a fairly significant number (read the wikipedia page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/42_(number) ). But I think he just chose it at random.

    • Photo: Dave Farmer

      Dave Farmer answered on 17 Jun 2013:

      If you google that very question you can spend hours reading the thoughts of people who’ve spent far too much time trying to explain something the author himself admitted was a joke. God bless the internet!

    • Photo: Chris Mansell

      Chris Mansell answered on 18 Jun 2013:

      I think the other scientists have answered this question better than I could. All I have to add is a true story about a test that one of my tutors set at Oxford University. On the front of the questions booklet, there were the words, “DON’T PANIC.”

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