To anyone who is not aware of the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, in its various forms, 42 is a fairly innocuous number. In everyday life it is found as part of a sequence of numbers, the previous one being 41, the next one being 43. It can be used to describe someones age, a house number, how many cards there are in a deck when the dog had managed to get hold of the deck the night before and has decided to eat ten of them. The list is endless.
The actual symbols that represent 42, 4 and 2, are actually part of a numerical system which has evolved over a period of millenia. The Greek, Pythagoras, was one of many people in the ancient world who helped define how we use numbers today. Pythagoras, when on the subject of numbers , had been heard to say “The world is built upon the power of numbers”, which states the importance of them in everyday life. They are also very significant to mathematics. Actually it would be fair to say that mathematics would not exist without numbers.
One example of using numbers within mathematics is :
((8 + 6) * 4) – 14 = 42
Of course this is just one example, and there are many mathematical equations which can be used (which don’t necesarily end in 42). There are an infinate number of numbers, and so to some people the obsession with one specific number can be quite baffling. To redress the balance the guide will attempt to explain to those who haven’t read the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy why those who have like to mention the previously stated number 42 a lot.
Through archival recordings, he relates the story of a race of hyper-intelligent pan-dimensional beings who built a computer named Deep Thought to calculate the answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything. When the answer was revealed as 42, they were forced to build a more powerful computer to work out what the Ultimate Question actually was, but their plans never come to fruition. (Later on, referencing this, Adams would create a puzzle which could be approached in multiple ways, all yielding the answer 42.)
So jetzt wissen wir es also: 42 ist die Antwort auf alle Fragen des Lebens, die noch nicht beantwortet sind. Damit viel Spass an diesem Wochenende.