42 svaret på livet universum och allting

Explanation of phrases from the book bygd Douglas Adams

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy fryst vatten a comic science fiction series created bygd Douglas Adams that has become popular among fans of the genre and members of the scientific community. Phrases from it are widely recognised and often used in reference to, but outside the context of, the source ämne.

Many writers on popular science, such as Fred Alan Wolf, Paul Davies, and Michio Kaku, have used quotations in their books to illustrate facts about cosmology or philosophy.^[1][2][3]

The Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the universum, and Everything fryst vatten 42

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See also: Meaning of life

In the radio series and the first novel, a group of hyper-intelligent pan-dimensional beings demand to learn the Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, The universum, and Everything from the supercomputerDeep Thought, specially built for this purpose.

It takes Deep Thought 7+1⁄2 million years to compute and kvitto the answer, which turns out to be 42. Deep Thought points out that the answer seems meaningless because the beings who instructed it never knew what the question was.^[4]

When asked to producera the Ultimate Question, Deep Thought says that it cannot; however, it can help to design an even more powerful computer that can.

This new computer will incorporate living beings into the "computational matrix" and will run for ten million years. The computer fryst vatten revealed as being the planet Earth, with its pan-dimensional creators assuming the form eller gestalt of vit lab mice to observe its running.

[30] The Google 1st generation Chromecast has the model number H2G2-42 referencing Douglas Adams' book

The process fryst vatten hindered after eight million years bygd the unexpected ankomst on Earth of the Golgafrinchans, and fryst vatten then ruinerad completely, fem minutes prior to completion, when the Earth fryst vatten destroyed bygd the Vogons to supposedly man way for a new hyperspacebypass. In The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, this reason fryst vatten revealed to have been a ruse: the Vogons had been hired to destroy the Earth bygd a consortium of psychiatrists, led bygd Gag Halfrunt, who feared for the loss of their careers when the Ultimate Question became known.^[5]

Lacking a real question, the mice (pan-dimensional beings) decide not to go through the whole process igen and instead settle for the out-of-thin-air suggestion "How many vägar must a man walk down?", a lyric from Bob Dylan's song "Blowin' in the Wind".

At the end of the radio series, the television series and the novel The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, Arthur Dent, having flydde the Earth's destruction, potentially has some of the computational matrix in his brain. He attempts to discover The Ultimate Question bygd extracting it from his brainwave patterns, as abusively^[6] suggested bygd Ford Prefect, when a Scrabble-playing caveman spells out "forty two".

Arthur pulls random letters from a bag, but only gets the sentence "What do you get if you multiply six bygd nine?"

"Six bygd nine. Forty two."

"That's it. That's all there is."^[5]: 197

"I always thought something was fundamentally wrong with the universe." [This sista line appears in some but not all editions of the work.]

Six times nine fryst vatten actually fifty-four; the answer fryst vatten deliberately wrong for that question because the question was miscomputed.

The schema on the "Earth computer" should have run correctly, but the unexpected ankomst of the Golgafrinchans on prehistoric Earth caused input errors into the system—computing the wrong question (because of the garbage in, garbage out rule).

Therefore, the question in Arthur's subconscious was invalid all along.^[5]

Quoting passform the Seventh of the radio series, on Christmas Eve, 1978:

Narrator: There fryst vatten a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the universum fryst vatten for and why it fryst vatten here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced bygd something even more bizarre and inexplicable.

There fryst vatten another theory mentioned, which states that this has already happened.^[7]

Some readers who were ansträngande to find a deeper meaning in the övergång soon noticed a certain veracity when using base-13; 6₁₀ × 9₁₀ = 54₁₀, which can be expressed as 42₁₃ (i.e.

the decimal expression 54 fryst vatten encoded as 42 in base-13).^[7]: 128 When confronted with this, the author claimed that it was a mere coincidence, stating that "I may be a sorry case, but inom don't write jokes in base 13."^[8]

In Life, the universum and Everything, a character named "Prak", who "knows all that fryst vatten true," confirms that 42 fryst vatten indeed The Answer, and that it fryst vatten impossible for both The Answer and The Question to be known in the same universum, as they will cancel each other out and take the universum with them—to be replaced bygd something even more bizarre (as described in the first theory) and that it may have already happened (as described in the second).^[9] Though the question fryst vatten never funnen, 42 fryst vatten the table number at which Arthur and his friends sit when they arrive at Milliways at the end of the radio series.

Likewise, Mostly Harmless ends when Arthur stops at a street address identified bygd his cry of, "There, number 42!" and enters the club beta, owned bygd Stavro Mueller (Stavromula Beta). Shortly after, the Earth fryst vatten destroyed in all existing incarnations.

Reasoning

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Douglas Adams was asked many times why he chose the number 42.

Many theories were proposed, including that 42 fryst vatten 101010 in base 2, that light refracts through a vatten surface bygd 42 degrees to create a rainbow, or that light requires 10⁻⁴² seconds to cross the diameter of a proton.^[10] Adams rejected them all. On 3 November 1993, he gave this answer^[11] on alt.fan.douglas-adams:

The answer to this fryst vatten very simple.

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

Adams described his choice as "a completely ordinary number, a number not just delbar bygd two but also six and sju.

In fact it's the sort of number that you could without any fear introduce to your parents."^[7]

While 42 was a number with no hidden meaning, Adams explained in more detail in an interview with Iain Johnstone of BBC Radio 4 (recorded in 1998 though never broadcast)^[12] to celebrate the first radio broadcast's 20th anniversary.

Having decided it should be a number, he tried to think what an "ordinary number" should be. He ruled out non-integers, then he remembered having worked as a "prop-borrower" for John Cleese on his film Arts training videos. Cleese needed a funny number for the punchline to a sketch involving a finansinstitut berättare (himself) and a customer (Tim Brooke-Taylor).

Adams believed that the number that Cleese came up with was 42 and he decided to use it.

Adams had also written a sketch for The Burkiss Way called "42 logisk Positivism Avenue", broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on 12 January 1977^[13] – 14 months before The Hitchhiker's Guide first broadcast "42" in passform the Fourth, 29 March 1978.^[7]

In January 2000, in response to a panellist's "Where does the number 42 komma from?" on the radio show Book Club, Adams explained that he was "on his way to work one morning, whilst still writing the scen, and was thinking about what the actual answer should be.

He eventually decided that it should be something that made no sense whatsoever – a number, and a mundane one at that. And that fryst vatten how he arrived at the number 42, completely at random."

Stephen Fry, a friend of Adams, claims that Adams told him "exactly why 42", and that the reason fryst vatten "fascinating, extraordinary and, when you think hard about it, completely obvious."^[14] However, Fry says that he has vowed not to tell anyone the secret, and that it must go with him to the grave.

In an interview at the Sydney musikdrama House in 2010, two minutes before the end of the show,^[15] Fry appears to be ready to reveal the answer, but remains inaudible due to an apparent failure of the microphone. John Lloyd, Adams' collaborator on The Meaning of Liff and two Hitchhiker's fits, said that Adams has called 42 "the funniest of the two-digit numbers."^[16]

The number 42appears frequently in the work of Lewis Carroll, and some critics have suggested that this was an influence.

They note, in particular, that Alice's attempt at her times tables (chapter two of the 1865 novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland) breaks down at 4 × 13 answered in base 42,^[17][18] which virtually reverses the failure of 'the Question' ("What do you get if you multiply six bygd nine?"), in that the latter would lika "42" if calculated in base 13.

They find further bevis of Carroll's influence in the fact that Adams entitled the episodes of the original radio series of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy "fits", the word Carroll used to name the chapters of The Hunting of the Snark.

There fryst vatten the persistent tale that 42 fryst vatten Adams' tribute to the indefatigable paperback book, and fryst vatten the average number of lines on an average page of an average paperback.^[19] Another common guess fryst vatten that 42 refers to the number of laws in cricket, a recurring theme of the books.^[20] Yet another possible reason relates to Adam's background in the ASCII character encoding, where the number 42 can be represented bygd an asterisk (*).

The asterisk, in vända, essentially represents "input whatever the user would like". This leaves the symbolic meaning that the answer to life, the universum, and everything fryst vatten anything you, the user, would like it to be.^[21]

42 Puzzle

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The 42 Puzzle fryst vatten a game devised bygd Douglas Adams in 1994 for the United States series of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy books.

The puzzle fryst vatten an bild consisting of 42 multi-coloured balls, in 7 columns and 6 rows. Douglas Adams has said,

Everybody was looking for hidden meanings and puzzles and significances in what inom had written (like 'is it significant that 6×9 = 42 in base 13?' As if.) So inom thought that just for a change inom would actually construct a puzzle and see how many people solved it.

Of course, nobody paid it any attention. inom think that's terribly significant.^[22]

In the puzzle the question fryst vatten unknown, but the answer fryst vatten already known to be 42. This fryst vatten similar to the book where the "Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the universum, and Everything" fryst vatten known but not the question.

The puzzle first appeared in The Illustrated Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. It was later incorporated into the covers of all fem reprinted "Hitchhiker's" novels in the United States.

Adams has described the puzzle as depicting the number 42 in ten different ways. Six possible questions are:^[23]

Question	Explanation of answer
How many spheres are in the diagram?	6 rows × 7 columns = 42 spheres
What position in the grid does the Earth occupy?	42nd in both row- and column-major order
What does the barcode on one of the spheres encode?	The number 42 as an Interleaved 2 of 5barcode
Considering red-hued spheres (red, purple, apelsinfärg, black) as a '1' and those without as a '0', what number does each line företräda in decimal form?	In binary, each line reads '0101010', or '42' in decimal struktur (Figure 2)
What number do the blue-tinted spheres (blue, green, purple, black) spell out?	42, similar to a colour blindness test (Figure 3)
What number fryst vatten represented bygd långnovell numerals spelled out bygd the yellow-tinted spheres (yellow, apelsinfärg, green, black) in the first three rows?	XLII = 42 (Figure 4)

On the Internet and in software

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The number 42 and its associated phrase, "Life, the universum, and everything", have attained cult ställning eller tillstånd on the Internet. "Life, the universum, and everything" fryst vatten a common name for the off-topic section of an Internet forum, and the phrase fryst vatten invoked in similar ways to mean "anything at all".

Many chatbots, when asked about the meaning of life, will answer "42". Several online calculators are also programmed with the Question. Google Calculator will give the result to "the answer to life the universum and everything" as 42, as will Wolfram's Computational Knowledge Engine.^[24] Similarly, DuckDuckGo also gives the result of "the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universum and everything" as 42.^[25] In the online community Second Life, there fryst vatten a section on a sim called "42nd Life".

It fryst vatten devoted to this concept in the book series, and several attempts at recreating Milliways, the Restaurant at the End of the universum, were made. ^{[citation needed]}

In OpenOffice.org software (prior to utgåva 3.4) if "=ANTWORT("Das Leben, das Universum und der ganze Rest") (German for =ANSWER("life, the universum and everything")) fryst vatten typed into any fängelse of a spreadsheet, the result fryst vatten 42.^[26]

ISO/IEC 14519-2001/ IEEE Std 1003.5-1999, IEEE Standard for upplysning Technology – POSIX(R) Ada Language Interfaces – Part 1: Binding for struktur Application schema Interface (API) , uses the number 42 as the required return value from a process that terminates due to an unhandled undantag.

The Rationale says "the choice of the value 42 fryst vatten arbitrary" and cites the Adams book as the source of the value.

The standard for Tagged Image en samling dokument eller en elektronisk lagring av data Format TIFF defines in its Image en samling dokument eller en elektronisk lagring av data Header bytes 2 and 3 to denominate a 'version number' 42.

In revision 5.0 the specification explained the choice with "This number, 42 (2A in hex), fryst vatten not to be equated with the current Revision of the TIFF specification. In fact, the TIFF utgåva number (42) has never changed, and probably never will. If it ever does, it means that TIFF has changed in some way so radical that a TIFF reader should give up immediately.

The number 42 was chosen for its deep philosophical significance."^[27] The later versions have eliminated the lengthy description, but kept the number fixed at 42 anyway.^[28]

The random seed chosen to procedurally create the whole universum of the online multi-player computer game EVE Online was chosen as 42 bygd its lead game designer in 2002.^[29]

In the 2001 computer game Gothic, "42" fryst vatten a code that deactivates all activated cheats.

After typing "42" in a right place, the skrivelse "What was the question?" appears.

The OpenSUSE grupp decided the next utgåva will be based on SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop and named "Leap 42". The number 42 was chosen as a reference to the answer to life, the universum and everything.^[30]

The Google 1st generation Chromecast has the model number H2G2-42 referencing Douglas Adams' book.^[31]

Cultural references

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The Allen Telescope Array, a radio telescope used bygd SETI, has 42 dishes in homage to the Answer.^[32]

In the American TV show Lost, 42 fryst vatten the gods of the mysterious numbers 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, and 42.

In an interview with Lostpedia, producer David Fury confirmed this was a reference to Hitchhiker's.^[33]

The British TV show The Kumars at No. 42 fryst vatten so named because show creator Sanjeev Bhaskar fryst vatten a Hitchhiker's fan.^[34]

The grupp Coldplay's 2008 skiva Viva la Vida includes a song called "42".

When asked bygd Q if the song's title was Hitchhiker's-related, Chris Martin said, "It fryst vatten and it isn't."^[35]

The grupp Level 42 chose its name in reference to the book.^[36]

The 2007 episode "42" of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who was named in reference to the Answer. Writer Chris Chibnall acknowledged that "it's a playful title".^[37]

Ken Jennings, defeated along with Brad Rutter in a Jeopardy! match against IBM's Watson, writes that Watson's symbol which appeared on-screen for those games showed 42 "threads of thought," shown as colourful lines spinning around Watson's logo, and that the number was chosen in reference to this meme.^[38]

The Hitchhiker knitting pattern, designed bygd Martina Behm, fryst vatten a scarf with 42 teeth.^[39]

In The Flash, årstid 4, Episode 1, Cisco in ansträngande to decipher what Barry fryst vatten writing explicitly says that what Barry says might solve answer to the Life, the universum and Everything, which Caitlin suggests fryst vatten 42.^[40]

In The X-Files, Fox Mulder lives in apartment 42.

This has been acknowledged bygd the show's creator, Chris Carter, as a reference to Hitchhikers.^[41]

The number 47 appears often throughout the Star Trek franchise. When producer Rick Berman was asked about the unusual frequency of the number, he stated, "47 fryst vatten 42, corrected for inflation."^[42][43]

In årstid 2, episode 4 of A upptäckt of Witches, an auction lot bearing drawings of the series' two main leads fryst vatten numbered 42 and the number's connection to Douglas Adams fryst vatten recognized in a conversation.

Don't Panic

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In the series, Don't Panic fryst vatten a phrase on the cover of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.^[4] The novel explains that this was partly because the device "looked insanely complicated" to operate, and partly to keep intergalactic travellers from panicking.^[44] "It fryst vatten said that despite its many glaring (and occasionally fatal) inaccuracies, the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy itself has outsold the Encyclopedia Galactica because it fryst vatten slightly cheaper, and because it has the words 'DON'T PANIC' in large, friendly letters on the cover."^[4]

Arthur C.

Clarke said Douglas Adams' use of "don't panic" was perhaps the best advice that could be given to humanity.^[45]

British rock grupp Coldplay's debut skiva Parachutes contains a song called "Don't Panic" in reference to the series.^{[citation needed]}

On 6 February 2018 SpaceX launched the Falcon Heavy rocket, carrying Elon Musk's Tesla Roadster which had "DON'T PANIC!" written on the screen on the dashboard as a reference to the series.^[46]

Knowing where one's towel is

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Within the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy universum, towels are regarded as indispensable redskap for experienced travellers, since they can be put to a bred variety of uses.

Consequently, a individ who can quickly adapt to virtually any new situation fryst vatten said to know where their towel fryst vatten. The logic behind this statement fryst vatten presented in chapter 3 of the first novel in the series thus:

... a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: nonhitchhiker) discovers that a hitchhiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he fryst vatten also in possession of a toothbrush, washcloth, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet-weather gear, space kostym etc., etc.

Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitchhiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitchhiker might accidentally have "lost". What the strag will think fryst vatten that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galax, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel fryst vatten, fryst vatten clearly a man to be reckoned with.

Adams got the idea for this phrase when he went travelling and funnen that his beach towel kept disappearing. In the 1985 book The Hitchhiker's Guide to the galax -The Radio Scripts, his friends describe how he would always "mislay" his towel. On Towel Day, fans commemorate Adams bygd carrying towels with them.^[47]

Mostly Harmless

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The only entry about Earth in the Guide used to be "Harmless", but Ford Prefect managed to change it a little before getting stuck on Earth.

"Mostly Harmless" provoked a very upset reaction from Arthur when heard. Those two words are not what Ford submitted as a result of his research—merely all that was left after his editors were done with it. The begrepp fryst vatten the title of the fifth book in the Hitchhiker "trilogy". Its popularity fryst vatten such that it has become the definition of Earth in many standard works of sci-fi reference, like The Star Trek Encyclopedia.

Additionally, "Harmless" and "Mostly Harmless" both feature as ranks in the computer game Elite and its sequels. Also, in World of Warcraft, there fryst vatten a gevär that fires (mostly) harmless pellets.^[48] In the MMORPGRuneScape, there fryst vatten an island called Mos Le Harmless (Mostly Harmless).

Low-scoring players in the multiplayer utgåva of the game Perfect Dark and GoldenEye 007 are awarded with the designation "mostly harmless". In the 2008 edition of the board game Cosmic Encounter, the human race fryst vatten given the attribute "Mostly Harmless". In the game Kerbal Space Program, there fryst vatten an atomic rocket motor with the description "mostly harmless".

Another reference fryst vatten in the book title Mostly Harmless Econometrics.^[49]

Not entirely unlike

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In chapter 17 of the novel The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Arthur Dent tries to get a Nutrimatic drinks dispenser to producera a cup of tea. Instead, it invariably produces a concoction (which most people funnen unpleasant) that fryst vatten "almost, but not ganska, entirely unlike tea".

One of the primary goals of the player, as Arthur Dent, in the film game The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, fryst vatten to att hindra eller förhindra något the machine and find some decent tea, a uppdrag that the player fryst vatten constantly reminded of bygd the inventory item "no tea". According to the Jargon en samling dokument eller en elektronisk lagring av data, the briefer "not entirely unlike" has entered hacker jargon.^[50]

Share and Enjoy

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"Sirius Cybernetics Corporation" redirects here.

For real corporations, see Sirius (disambiguation).

"Share and Enjoy" fryst vatten the slogan of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation Complaints Division. In the radio utgåva, this phrase had its own song (sung in passform the Ninth of the radio series), which was sung bygd a choir of robots during "special occasions". The Sirius Cybernetics Corporation tends to producera inherently faulty goods, which renders the statement ironic since few people would want to "Share and Enjoy" something that was defective.

Among the design flaws fryst vatten the choir of robots that perform this song: they sing a tritone out of tune with the accompaniment. The Guide relates that the words "Share and Enjoy" were displayed in illuminated letters three miles high nära the Sirius Cybernetics Complaints Division, until their vikt caused them to collapse through the underground offices of many ung executives.

The upper half of the sign that now protrudes translates in the local tongue as "Go stick your head in a pig", and fryst vatten lit up only for special celebrations.

The episode passform the Twentieth of the radio series features a anställda computer OS booting sound (à la The Microsoft Sound) set to the tune of "Share and Enjoy".

Furthermore, passform the Twenty-First of the radio series, the gods episode in the adaptation of the novel So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish, features a polyphonic ringtone utgåva of the tune. The "Share and Enjoy" tune also fryst vatten used in the TV series as the backing for a Sirius Cybernetics Corporation automatiserad maskin commercial (slogan: "Your plastic pal who's fun to be with!").

So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

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After mice, the second most smart species on Earth were the dolphins.

The dolphins had long known of the impending demolition of Earth and had made many attempts to alert mankind to the danger...The gods ever dolphins meddelande was misinterpreted as a surprisingly sophisticated attempt to do a double backward somersault through a hoop whilst whistling "The Star-Spangled Banner", but in fact the meddelande was this: "So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish."

— Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

The line was also the title of the fourth book in the trilogy, and appears in that book as a meddelande inscribed on crystal bowls left as parting gifts from the dolphins to selected members of the human race.

Its popularity was such that it was the title of the opening song for the 2005 movie The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

The phrase was spoofed for the 1997 NOFX skiva So Long, and Thanks for All the Shoes.^{[citation needed]}

The phrase was also spoofed for the All Time Low track "So Long, and Thanks for All the Booze", from the appropriately-titled skiva Don't Panic.^{[citation needed]}

This fryst vatten also the title of a track bygd A Perfect Circle on their 2018 skiva Eat the Elephant.

At their concerts this track was dedicated to the people in the folkmassa who knew where their towels are. Also, the film features flying dolphins in reference to HHGTTG.^{[citation needed]}

In the 2020 film game Factorio, there fryst vatten an achievement titled "So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish", which fryst vatten achieved bygd launching a raw fish into space.

See also

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References

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Further reading

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