What is the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything?

forty-two

The question asked is exactly as you phrase it, "What is the answer to
life, the universe, and everything?" It comes from the third book of
Douglas Adams' five book "HitchHikers Guide to the Galaxy Trilogy"
titled:

     Life, the Universe, and Everything

The problem here is that the "ultimate question" is NOT as stated,
rather, the ultimate question (within the Douglas Adams universe) is
really:

     What is 6 multiplied by 7?

It gets more interesting (if one reads the book) because the answer
(er, question, er, answer) is really, "what is six multiplied by
nine?"

If you're confused, I recommend reading the following HitchHiker
essays for illumination, brought to you from the good people at
Everything2.com:

     Life, the Universe, and Everything
     http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=15340

     42
     http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=12384

     Question to the Ultimate Answer
     http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=848344

     The Ultimate Question
     http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=54513

     Deep Thought
     http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=18180

You can find this book in almost any library, at most bookstores, and
at the major online book companies such as:

     Amazon.com
     http://www.amazon.com/

and 

     Barnes and Noble
     http://www.barnesandnoble.com/

and

     Powell's Books 
     http://www.powellsbooks.com/

yours philosophically,

     fugitive-ga

---

Request for Answer Clarification by juerd-ga on 02 Jul 2002 14:06 PDT

Just "42" would have sufficed, but hey, I like stories.

Actually, this answer was first revealed in "The Hitchhiker's Guide to
the Galaxy", not in "Life, the Universe, and Everything".

The book titles all refer to the first book. 


The response to "What do you get if you multiply six by seven?" is
"No, no, too literal, too factural, wouldn't sustain the punters'
interest".


The question was the "great" question until Chapter 28, where it
suddenly became the more interesting "ultimate" question:
    "Look, all right, all right," said Loonquawl, "can you just please
tell us the question?"
    "The Ultimate Question?"
    "Yes!"
    "Of Life, the Universe and Everything?"
    "Yes!"
    Deep Thought pondered for a moment.
    "Tricky," he said.
    "But can you do it?" cried Loonquawl.
    Deep Thought pondered this for another long moment.
    Finally: [...]
-- Douglas Adams, the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Chapter 28.

The next few words are: "No," he said firmly.

The question itself is not stated, as you say. 6 times 7 is not the
question. It does fit the answer, though.


I hope you had as much fun answering as I had asking (and
elaborating).

---

Clarification of Answer by fugitive-ga on 02 Jul 2002 20:28 PDT

Hey, thanks! If I were to do this again I would have answered just 

"forty-two"

all by itself as the answer, then used the "clarification" mechanism
for explanations.

I think you'll like all the Everything2.com links on this (it's a
writer's sandbox) where I learned this tidbit: In the books, the
digits "42" only appear as page numbers. Adams apparently always wrote
"forty-two."

I'm going to have to check that to make sure.

fugitive-ga

forty-two stars was not an option :)

You forgot to cite you answer as coming from "Deep Thought", the
computer built specifically for finding The Answer. And he'd know,
having spent (if I remember correctly) 9.5 Million years calculating
it. These may not be Earth years (since The Earth, which Deep Thought
created to find The Question to The Answer, hadn't been created yet)
but I'll bet it was a really long time.

> And he'd know, having spent (if I
> remember correctly) 9.5 Million
> years calculating it.

Seventy-five thousand generations, according to my book.

You're right. It was 7.5 million years. Getting lazy in my old age.
Should have looked it up first.

googlebrain-ga

Ahhhh! Those were the days when:
"Men were real men, women were real women, and small, furry creatures
from Alpha Centauri were real small, furry creatures from Alpha
Centauri. Spirits were brave, men boldly split infinitives that no man
had split before. Thus was the Empire forged."
http://www.geocities.com/CollegePark/Union/1669/Hitchhiker.html

googlebrain, why would a generation be 1000 years?

You might also check here:
https://answers.google.com/answers/main?cmd=threadview&id=13017
and here:
https://answers.google.com/answers/main?cmd=threadview&id=13884

I know how Google chose their name but wouldn´t it be nice to think
that the founder(s) were HUGE fans of HHGTTG.......

"Googleplex Star Thinker in the Seventh Galaxy of Light and Ingenuity
(h2g2:168) : a super computer which can calculate the trajectory of
every single dust particle through a five-week Dangrabad Beta sand
blizzard"
http://www.mpi-sb.mpg.de/~hitoshi/hobby/h2g2/dictH2G2.shtml#GoogleplexStarThinker

The developers of the Instant Messaging software known as Trillian are
apparently fans of HHGTTG.

What is the ultimate question.....?

juerd-ga, 7.5M/75,000 = 100

Anyway, I wasn't basing it on the math. 7.5 Million years is the
estimate Deep Thought gives when it begins to do it's calculations. At
the end, we here from one of the Answer receipients that their race
has waited for 75 thousand generations to find out the answer.

Cheers!

1a)The ultimate answer is something that can only be given in response
to 'the ultimate question'.And if we suppose that by 'ultimate' we
refer to the definitive 'last' answer, should we not first consider
what its relationship would be to the 'last' question? What is the
last thing that could be questioned? And in such a way as an
unstoppable force 'could' meet with and immovable object to create and
inconcievable event. The proposition "What is the ultimate answer"?
could be answered purely with "The answer to the ultimate question"?

1b)However if we presume that 'ultimate' refers to a final point
concieveable on a conscious level and not a hypothosis based on
could-be's and theoretical suggestion. Then the question relates only
to point in an individuals life, where all questions cease and the
answer is mearly given as a state of undisputable finality. Where the
ultimate question has been asked and has been answered by the closing
of the question .

>It gets more interesting (if one reads the book) because the answer
>(er, question, er, answer) is really, "what is six multiplied by
>nine?"

In base 13, six multiplied by nine is 42.

So what does that tell us?

This answer was first revealed in the radio serial 
"The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"  before it appeared in the books.