The number 42 is in the novel The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. The Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything is calculated by an enormous supercomputer over a period of 7.5 million years to be 42. Unfortunately no one knows what the question is. Thus, to calculate the Ultimate Question, a special computer was created, the size of a small planet, to use organic components, called "Earth". According to the novel Mostly Harmless, 42 is the street address of Stavromula Beta. In 1994, Adams created the 42 Puzzle, a game based on the number 42. The book 42: Douglas Adams' Amazingly Accurate Answer to Life, the Universe and Everything examines Adams choice of the number 42 and also contains a compendium of some instances of the number in science, popular culture and humour.
Lewis Carroll made repeated use of this number in his writings. Examples of Carroll's use of 42:
- Alice's Adventures in Wonderland has 42 illustrations.
- Rule Forty-two in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland ("All persons more than a mile high to leave the court".)
- Alice's recital of her "four times table" while falling down the rabbit hole makes sense if the first calculation is made in base 18, the second in base 21, and so on, increasing the base by three each time. Continuing on this pattern 4 × 12 would equal 19 in base 39, but 4 × 13 calculated in base 42, rather than providing the expected 20 would yield 1A. Hence, as Alice cries, "I shall never get to twenty at that rate!"
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