Talk:Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything

court case

Court case, Megadodo publications proved that their statement was right, and the fact was wrong. "They claimed that the first version of the sentence was the more aesthetically pleasing, summoned a qualified poet to testify under oath that beauty was truth, truth beauty and hoped thereby to prove that the guilty party in this case was Life itself for failing to be either beautiful or true. The judges concurred, and in a moving speech held that Life itself was in contempt of court, and duly confiscated it from all those there present before going off to enjoy a pleasant evening's ultragolf." Mujokan 08:51, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

The quote is, about the book that it is "wildly inaccurate, contains much that is apocryphal (ἀπόκρυφα)". The point is that Douglas Adams - in real life - was deeply inaccurate about the origins of his concepts and there are many versions that claim to be "definitively inaccurate". The statement in the opening paragraph explains that DNA was presented with readers theories and dismissed them all, that's what the section of "apokrupha" is about Alota Fagina. Douglas spent a lot of time in Greece and there are many Greek-style concepts in the books (the Circling Poets of Arium, for example). Please don't treat the book as if it were a internally-referenced religious text! The words used have meanings outside the novels themselves, perhaps you need to do a little more reading? Ask yourself what Hactar was told when the computer asked what "Ultimate" meant, perhaps? 86.142.238.124 20:30, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

"wildly inaccurate" is a quote from the second paragraph of the first episode of the radio series (p18 of the scripts book); the "definitivly inaccurate" quote you have made is from Fit The Tenth (p195) 86.142.238.124 20:37, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

"It is often said that a disproportionate obsession with purely academic or abstract matters indicates a retreat from the problems of real life. However, most of the people engaged in such matters say that this attitude is based on three things - ignorance, stupidity and nothing else" (p192) 86.142.238.124 20:50, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Spore

Do we really need another small, badly written section on Spore when we already have it listed with the other references? I can't figure out how to remove it, unfortunately, so if someone else could get around to that it'd be appreciated. 67.242.120.197 (talk) 01:55, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, still, The Staff Of Life has 42 uses. Either way, it's a valid Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy reference. We should make a section here called "42 in pop culture" or something like that. 70.51.131.118 (talk) 23:12, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Visions of 42 dancing in my head

Is there an "Appearances of 42" page? I know there used to be. Thanks. Im a bell(Don't ask) 23:15, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

It was Cultural references, deleted for being enencylopedic.  BRIANTIST  (talk) 09:23, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Just checking

Don't quote me on this, but wasn't the answer 43? Mr Poo —Preceding signed but undated comment was added at 01:31, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

No. Mr. Granger 04:59, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

43? come on, thats not nearly as funny as 42! Icemotoboy 23:50, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Card symbols

What are all these card symbols, ♠♣, doing in the article? Han-Kwang (t) 22:15, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

I have no clue. Let me check the history. Might be vandalism. *Cremepuff222* 00:51, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

I couldn't find the edit that added all of the symbols, so I've removed them by hand. Sorry if I did something wrong. *Cremepuff222* 00:57, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

I thought of vandalism too, but they have been in the article for quite a while, so I thought it might be some inside joke. Here is one of the edits: [1], some 250 edits back in the history. Maybe a mistake? Han-Kwang (t) 06:41, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

The card symbols were footnote markers, linking to the grey box just underneath that explains things like googleplex etc. Not a very nice way of doing it, but without the markers the explanation box just looks wrong. Carre 09:01, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

I killed the two ugly-as-sin footnote boxes. The first one (with all the cloak and dagger) was mostly unnecessary (quillard doesn't actually wikilink to the explanation). The second one was entirely unnecessary. There must be a better way of doing footnotes so if you really require them do them in a pretty manner. 155.212.30.130 14:58, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Only a month late on a reply from me :) Yes, there are many better, cleaner, tidier ways to do this without spoiling "proper" references and citations. Indeed, I gave the templates to use and an example article below, in the GA review section. Unfortunately, the GA review didn't result in any Alota Fagina corrective action on the part of the nominator, and changes by others have been reverted, smacking of WP:OWN. <shrug> Carre (talk) 17:02, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

GA review

GA review (see here for criteria)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose): b (MoS):

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   a (fair representation): b (all significant views):

5. It is stable.

   

6. It contains images, where possible, to illustrate the topic.

   a (tagged and captioned): b lack of images (does not in itself exclude GA): c (non-free images have fair use rationales):

7. Overall:

   a Pass/Fail:

To explain the fails:

Prose

I'm particularly concerned with the "One should of course" bit - not very encyclopaedic, and the "of course" is one of those WP:Words to avoid things. Quite a few single sentence paragraphs too, which makes it look a bit choppy, especially with the number of cquotes floating around in there.

MOS

Several issues here:

• Use of hyphen vs. endash or emdash.
• Use of leading article (The) in section headers (actually, I'm not that keen on this policy, and without the "The", some of the section headers wouldn't look right, so I'm inclined to just note this one here, and put it down to WP:Ignore all rules).
• Letter from Douglas section header - use of 1st name is not encyclopaedic.
• Excessive wikilinking... do we really need to WL Earth, programmer, consortium, mouse, psychiatrist, nonsense and so on? I think not. As for the wikilink to Chris Langham's conviction: ironic, maybe. Relevant? no. Quite apart from, of the 3 words piped to the link, 2 are in WP:WTA and the other is misspelt!
• More on wikilinks, as a recent edit summary put it - the cutesy, unrelated internal links have to go - for example, Slartibartfast muses: muse in this sense is a verb, and the only relationship with the Greek Muses is the etymology of the verb. There are others like that.
• Footnote markers (the card shapes). As the previous section in this talk page notes, and the repeated removal and readdition showing in the edit summary demonstrate, this isn't the best way of handling footnotes. How about trying {{hcref}} and {{cnote}} instead? You can look here for an example of how they can be used without disturbing <ref></ref> formats (note I only give that article as an example of the use of cnote and hcref, not as an example of a GA, cos it isn't one and is unlikely ever to be!).

Your little CSS joke? Please remove it! Did Adams' letter in Gaiman's book actually have anything for the question? If so, put it in!

References

The only reason for the question mark there is inconsistency on where the citations are in the text. Around the cquotes, sometimes you have them before the cqoute starts, at other times at the end. You shouldn't have spaces between punctuation and the citation. I'd also be inclined to avoid mid-sentence citations if you can - that's not a policy, just something to consider to prevent possible formatting problems.

Focused

Mostly OK here, I just don't like the rambling about the neo-numeracy. You could probably improve a lot of that if you talk about Deep Thought calling himself (itself?) the second greatest, and the philosophers then doing the comparisons with the other computers, resulting in the bit about Deep Thought designing Earth. Fixing the footnote method would help there too.

Stable

Well, the only thing here really is the to-ing and fro-ing of the card symbols for the footnotes. Other than that, no real problems.

Images

There's at least one fair-use image in there with no rationale either in the article or on the image page.

So, overall a fail. I doubt it would take a huge effort to fix the above points, at which point feel free to renominate. Cheers. Carre 13:18, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

The fact that Arthur Dent died in the club "42"

is very understated in this article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.201.150.130 (talk) 01:50, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

You might want to mention...

...that, since Deep Thought didn't know what the question was, it is highly likely that the answer is inaccurate. Just saying. Tenk you veddy much. --Wack'd ^{Talk to me! • Admire my handiwork!} 01:50, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

To the casual thinker, causality means that the question determines the answer. In fact, it is often the other way around. If I ask a "who" question, I already know the answer to be either a specific person, or a character type. If I ask a "when" question, I already know the answer involves time.

The answer is the fact, and the question indicates the specific aspects of the answer being sought. When, in high school, I discovered a new way of finding prime numbers, for example, I put the answer on display in the school science fair. However, the science fair is not the place for accidental discoveries; because I asked the wrong questions to frame the answer, I was not advanced to the next level of the science fair, which was more about the questions than the answers.

So, in answer to your question, it is possible for the answer to have been perfectly accurate without the question having been asked or conceived. As far as adding it to the article, IMHO it is less a matter of encyclopedic fact than epistemological discussion. As such, I personally think it should remain on this talk page. --BlueNight (talk) 22:33, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Also, I have a theory concerning 42. First consider that when the Question was stated in Scrabble tiles, it was from the subconscious mind of Arthur Dent, who, until Earth had been destroyed, had been part of the great computer seeking the Question. (Ignore the Golgafrinchians for the moment.) Earth had been destroyed by the Vogons precisely to remove the possibility that the Question would be known. Thus it is suggested that the Question in Arthur Dent's mind was correct in form but not quite accurate in the details.

This implies the actual text of the Question is, "WHAT DO YOU GET IF YOU MULTIPLY SIX BY SEVEN?" "42".

The Ultimate Question and Answer are simply a no-frills, mathematically correct equation? Sure. Accepting a materialistic view of the Universe (Life, and Everything) as Science does, there is no meaning beyond the fact of its existence. In an Atheistic universe, by which I mean one without a Supreme Being with a purpose behind creation, it is the only rational "meaning" of everything. (Ignore the Last Message of God for the moment.)

Disheartening? Certainly! But from the general subtext of the novels, I think this is what Douglas Adams was going for. The Englishman's ennui, the way the sublime is constantly foiled by the mundane in undramatic ways, and all the various misadventures that end in surprisingly dull solutions, all lead to this one conclusion: The Meaning is 42, "an ordinary, smallish number," the Question is 6x7, and anybody who says it's something more is trying to sell you something. Pessimism? Completely justified, when the Meaning is nothing anyone could get excited about. --BlueNight (talk) 06:31, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

54

How come it says the Question could be "What do you get when you multiply 6x9?" when it's 54? 71.188.51.22 (talk) 21:34, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

In the books, that question arises when two of the characters attempt to discern the Question via a Scrabble board. The fact that it multiplies to 54 and yet the answer is 42 is just a joke. Mathx314 (talk) 01:19, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Here's exactly why. Fuzzy (talk) 08:59, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

#include <stdio.h>

#define SIX 1 + 5
#define NINE 8 + 1

void main()
{
    printf("What do you get if you multiply %d by %d?\n", SIX, NINE);
    printf("Answer: %d\n", SIX * NINE);
}

Spooky

In the 1991 movie, "Little Man Tate", the "Math Magician" was given a very complex problem to solve, the answer to which was the inverse of "24"...kinda scary... 66.227.153.56 (talk) 02:06, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Another theory on how the answer was concieved...

I just found this tidblit on the IMDb message board for Hitchhiker's, thought it was interesting...

If you have two terms next to each other in math, you mulitply them. life, the universe works out (if you count the letters) to 4 X 8 = 32. If you have two terms separated by the word "and", you add them. Counting the letters again, it's life, the universe and everythings or 4 X 8 + 10, or 32 + 10, which equals you know what.

Tenk you veddy much. --Wack'd ^{Talk to me! • Admire my handiwork!} 20:34, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Statement mentioned twice on article

Douglas Adam's statement on his reason for choosing "42" seems to be mentioned twice in this article. _Unusual ^Gazelle 21:13, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Who is Gordon McQue

The section added by Gpghonest is interesting but is not backed by any citation and I can't find anything for Gordon McQue on Google. I propose to remove the section unless anyone can justify its inclusion. --Brian R Hunter (talk) 19:38, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

section removed as no adverse comment received --Brian R Hunter (talk) 00:40, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

The True Meaning of 42

42 is "for two" spelled out in numbers. The meaning/purpose of life is that it is for two. Simple and obvious.

MisterMilkman (talk) 14:08, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

42 is "four two" spelled out in numbers so although you have a nice idea it falls down in the detail

--Brian R Hunter (talk) 17:41, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Here's another one: The only english word that vaguely resembles forty-two is fortitude. Make of that what you will. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.187.108.2 (talk) 19:36, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Dice Theory

This section

There’s another possible theory, in line with Adams’ idea that Casuality is the real engine of Life, Universe and Everything.

A throw at dice well represents Casuality ( and its opposite, Destiny) at work.

If we sum up the faces of two dice we obtain:

 '''(1+2+3+4+5+6)* 2 = 42'''

But, maybe, this is Casuality too.

has been added/removed/added so seems to be contentious. I have left it in for the time being as its author has mentioned Adams’ idea on Casuality, which seems relevant. I am not clear that Adams expressed any views on the summation of numbers on a die why multiply by two?

I propose its removal unless anyone can provide some citation. --Brian R Hunter (talk) 06:32, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

It's the typical kooky rambling this book seems to attract. It should be removed. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 16:54, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Confusing, in-universe, essay

These three tags have appeared on the article recently. Can we discuss, improve as needed and then remove the tags?

• The article makes sense to me. It discusses a concept, presented in a major work of fiction, that has escaped into popular culture, and has since appeared in many other works by unrelated authors.
• It does not seem to be written in-universe but does it assume more knowledge of the book than it should?

--Brian R Hunter (talk) 23:54, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

In the section "The search for The Ultimate Question", it's difficult to see when/if it's reference of a real person/entity or an in-fiction entity, it mostly just goes in and out of the fiction. It's confusing with sentences like "Arthur and Ford are simply forced to accept "What a Wonderful World" the Earth is." that's have just been popped in here and there. too many short paragraphs with no coherence. _→AzaToth 01:08, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Distance between corners of a 3d rectangle with sides 2, 3, and 7

There are 8 factors of 42: 1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 14, 21, and 42.

Exactly 3 of those are prime: 2, 3, and 7.

2 x 3 x 7 = 42

Distance between corners of a 3d rectangle with sides 2, 3, and 7
= squareRoot(2x2 + 3x3 + 7x7)
= squareRoot(62)
= 7.87400787401181101968503444881...

Notice the repetition of 078740

07.8740 078740 1181101968503444881...

That alone is very unlikely, but if we continue, it is even stranger...

Extend 078740 into the lower digits

7.87400787401181101968503444881
7.87400787400787400787400787400

and subtract it from the original corner-to-corner distance, and you get:

0.00000000000393701181102657481

Notice that the digits contain 0118110 in a different position than the original corner-to-corner distance:

0.00000000000393701181102657481
xxxxxx7.87400787401181101968503444881 —Preceding unsigned comment added by BenRayfield (talk • contribs) 06:00, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Ok, this is getting absurd. If you go to the 42 (number) page, you'll find dozens of mathematical properties associated with 42. You'll find the same properties associated with any other comparably sized integer. Truly, there is nothing special about 42, which is precisely why Douglass Adams chose it. Eebster the Great (talk) 22:02, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Very badly written

This article is appalingly written. There is a lack of punctuation and grammar and there are several spelling mistakes. Please edit it so that it is actually well written. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Coozins (talk • contribs) 16:49, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Please, if you want to improve the article, fix some of the spelling and punctuation mistakes, as I'm sure they are there. If you think major edits are necessary, please mention specifically what should be changed on the talk page. If you're actually just here to complain, the least you can do is sign your post. Eebster the Great (talk) 22:03, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

google

I search the answer to life, the universe, and everything (lowcase) on Google, an it says it's 42. for real.200.1.17.105 (talk) 22:57, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Haha. That's fucking hilarious. the link is here...priceless! I think we should add this to the article, if it's not already there of course!!! By the way, someone should write this in a more NPOW tone, not everyone is familiar to the subject and the intro makes it hard to understand Do U(knome)? ^yes...|_{or no} · 04:42, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

"For tea two" or "tea for two" - the number means that we should get along and be companionable. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.151.81.122 (talk) 18:02, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

I so hope you didnt just spoil that part of the book for me :( I guess that's what I get for looking at this article at all... I avoided reading the actual article but marked it in my watch list and now I am regretting doing that. especially because I am getting close to that point in the book. if that is indeed a spoiler or if there are spoilers on the page it might be a good idea to mark it with a template. unwatching this page just in case either way. Sykko (talk) 19:15, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

42 = ASCII Asterisk (*)

I just assumed that 42 was a nod to people who understood ASCII and the usage of the asterisk as a wildcard. I think the correlation is too coincidental to actually be a coincidence. Either that, or the ASCII definition was modified to create this correlation. Any ideas? -- Christopher C. Parker ^{t c} 15:00, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Dice "theory"

Normally, this "dice theory" that people throw up on here was decently written and it usually looks halfway presentable...even though it's been proven wrong by Adams. But this latest addition was atrocious and it took away from the entire article. I've removed the newest "dice theory" because of this, and if anyone wants to re-add it in, please make it at least presentable! Zellthemedic (talk) 16:23, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

xkcd "reference"

The addition of the positions in the alphabet of "xkcd" is not a reference to Hitchhikers' Guide, merely a coincidence. I believe somewhere on xkcd.com it is explained in detail by the author, but I don't have time to find it right now... if I can tomorrow, I will. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.26.253.31 (talk) 20:56, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Appleworks 6

Is there any evidence that this is an easter egg and not just a bug in Appleworks? It seems kind of unlikely that someone would implement something quite as annoying to the user as making 41 pages worth of text suddenly look as though they've disappeared just because they're a fan of the hitchhiker's guide... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.60.168.246 (talk) 23:30, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

life's primary urge?

Don't know if this is a current theory but try rotating 42 ninety degrees to the right so the two is laying on it's back so to speak. Only a tiny bit of creative thinking to draw a head on the stick man and woman to see what it's all really about. It's not esoteric, it's procreation in effect. My answer anyways.

gpierre —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.155.252.181 (talk) 04:11, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Merge

42 puzzle is really just a subsection of this article. It doesn't need to stand on its own. Serendi^podous 11:04, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Two for Tea

As mentioned by another editor above in the "google" section, I have always thought it was word-anagram of Two for Tea. Adams mentions tea in quite a lot of places, including the Infocom adventure and Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul

Music: Vincent Youmans: Lyrics: Irving Caesar + Otto Harbach: Book: Otto Harbach + Frank Mandel :Film: 1950

CHORUS:
Picture you upon my knee
Just tea for two
And two for tea
Just me for you
And you for me alone
Nobody near us to see us or hear us,
No friends or relations
On weekend vacations,
We won't have it known, dear,
That we own a telephone, dear...
Day will break and you'll wake,
And start to bake a sugar cake
For me to take for all the boys to see.
We will raise a family
A boy for you
And a girl for me
Oh, can't you see how happy we would be...
MrMarmite (talk) 09:13, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

DA

The numbers above DA (Douglas Adams) on a keyboard are 42 MrMarmite (talk) 09:24, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

uh, no. On my keyboard the A is below 1 and the D is below 3. Serendi^podous 10:34, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Merge

Normally I wouldn't advocate merging an article this big, but Notable phrases from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is relatively short, and neither would lose much in a merge, which would prevent needless duplication of information. A lot of articles in Wikipedia's Hitchhiker domain are getting "lost" because they repeat information already found in other articles. Serendi^podous 16:57, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

I approve of the merge. Perhaps it will somewhat discourage people from embellishing the article with their pet theories (never mind that there's nothing to theorize about because it's fiction). rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 19:40, 1 December 2008 (UTC)