42? If thats the answer, whats the question?

Question

Ultimate answer to the ultimate question is said to be 42. So what exactly is the ultinate question?

Answer 1

Whats your IQ?

Answer 2

35+1+2+3+1

Answer 3

If you saw the TV series of the Hitchhickers guide to the Galaxy, Arthur Dent pulls tiles from a pre-historic scrabble board out of a sack, the implication being that THE question is still locked within his brain. Anyway, according to this, the question was,

What do you get when you multiply six by nine.

One scholor pointed out to Douglass Adams that, actually, that was the right question, but only if you counted in base 13. To which Douglas replied, "nobody loves a smartarse!"

Answer 4

As mentioned in the Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy series.
it is discovered in the third book (LIfe, The universe and everything) that it is impossible for the 'answer' (42) and the 'question' (?) to exist in the same universe without said universe pinging into non- existence. Which has, apparently already happened.

Answer 5

According to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, researchers from a pan-dimensional, hyper-intelligent race of beings constructed the second greatest computer in all of time and space, Deep Thought, to calculate the Ultimate Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything. After seven and a half million years of pondering the question, Deep Thought provides the answer: "forty-two." The reaction:

"Forty-two!" yelled Loonquawl. "Is that all you've got to show for seven and a half million years' work?"
"I checked it very thoroughly," said the computer, "and that quite definitely is the answer. I think the problem, to be quite honest with you, is that you've never actually known what the question is."

Deep Thought informs the researchers that it will design a second and greater computer, incorporating living beings as part of its computational matrix, to tell them what the question is. That computer was called Earth and was so big that it was often mistaken for a planet. The researchers themselves took the apparent form of mice to run the program. The question was lost, five minutes before it was to have been produced, due to the Vogons' demolition of the Earth, supposedly to build a hyperspace bypass. Later in the series, it is revealed that the Vogons had been hired to destroy the Earth by a consortium of philosophers and psychiatrists who feared for the loss of their jobs when the meaning of life became common knowledge.

Lacking a real question, the mice proposed to use "How many roads must a man walk down?" (the first line of Bob Dylan's famous protest song "Blowin' In The Wind") as the question for talk shows, after considering and rejecting various other questions such as, "What's yellow and dangerous?" (a commonplace riddle whose answer, not given by Adams in the Hitchiker's Guide books, is variously, "shark-infested custard" or "a banana with a machine gun").

At the end of Mostly Harmless, which is the last of the series of novels, there is a final reference to the number 42. As Arthur and Ford are dropped off at club Beta (owned by Stavro Müller), Ford shouts at the cabby to stop "just there, number forty-two … Right here!" The entire Earth (in all dimensions, not just those in which it was demolished by the Vogons), is destroyed immediately after this final reference, which could lead to the Ultimate Question being, "Where does it all end?"

At the end of the first radio series, the television series, and the book The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, the second of the five-book 'trilogy,' Arthur Dent — as the last human to have left the Earth before its destruction, therefore the portion of the computer matrix most likely to hold the question — attempts to discover the Question by extracting it from his unconscious mind, through pulling Scrabble letters at random out of a sack. The result is the sentence "WHAT DO YOU GET IF YOU MULTIPLY SIX BY NINE."

The generation of this "question" is actually impossible with a single, standard set of Scrabble letters. Such a set only has two Ys; but the set shown in the TV series has clearly been handmade from memory, so the question buried within Arthur's brainwaves may have influenced him in creating it. In the original radio version of the story, however, it is made clear that Arthur has been travelling all along with a pocket Scrabble set from Earth.

"Six by nine. Forty-two."
"That's it. That's all there is."
Of course, 6 × 9 is 54, not 42. There are several possible interpretations of this. One would be that Arthur indeed discovered the Ultimate Question, which doesn't match the Answer simply because the universe is bizarre and irrational. Arthur Dent accepts this as being the reason in the radio series, when he remarks, "I always said there was something fundamentally wrong with the universe." However, this explanation is contradicted by the book, particularly by the fact that the Earth's computation of the Question had not finished when it was destroyed.

Another explanation is that the program (Earth) would have run correctly if not for the interference of events such as the crash landing of the Golgafrinchans. These important modifications introduced error into the program and caused it to discover the wrong question. This accounts for the irrational nature of the question in Arthur's mind, as he himself is a descendant of the Golgafrinchans. It could in fact be that the question in Arthur's mind is a warped version of the true question.

It is also possible, given Adams' often bleak view of technology (in the late 1970s), that the 6 × 9 = 42 answer is meant to indicate that the Earth project was a flawed design to begin with, one that was always going to produce the wrong question even if the program had been run successfully.

It was later pointed out by readers that 6 × 9 = 42 if the calculations are performed in base 13, not base 10. Douglas Adams has averred that he was not aware of this at the time, and repeatedly dismissed this as an irrelevant concoction, saying that "nobody writes jokes in base 13 [...] I may be a pretty sad person, but I don't make jokes in base 13."

Marvin's Question
Another possibility as to the Ultimate Question is presented in the third book, Life, the Universe and Everything. Often complaining about having a "brain the size of a planet", (this would presumably be necessary to work out the Question, as the Earth was created for this purpose according to the series, and is also, approximately, the size of a planet) and once stating that he can see the Question on Arthur's brainwaves, it is possible the "paranoid android" Marvin may know the Question. If this is true, it is possible that it may be given in the following paragraph, taken from Life, the Universe and Everything where Marvin is speaking to the mattress, Zem:

"...I am at a rough estimate, thirty billion times more intelligent than you. Let me give you an example. Think of a number, any number." [said Marvin]

"Er, five" said the mattress.

"Wrong," said Marvin. "You see?"

Given the situation, and other small clues, it is possible that the Ultimate Question is "Think of a number, any number." This would be ironic given that it is in fact not a question.

"Think of a number, any number" is repeated by the Heart of Gold computer near the end of Life, The Universe and Everything immediately after Arthur Dent suggests Prak may know the Ultimate Question and laments that "It's always bothered me that we never found out."

Answer 6

It can't be your age ? I've just looked at your home page Qestions you sound about 12yrs old dude-read your reg's this is not a chat site site and at last glance 43 answers say's dumb a*s question's are out!!!click on some avatars and look around there's a lot more to this ommunity than there appears to be-have fun and play by the rule's you'll love it here.good luck.ktf.x

Answer 7

What is 30+12?

Answer 8

How many floors in the Natwest Tower?

42

Answer 9

You really should read Life, the Universe, and Everything by Douglas Adams to found out the ultimate question.

Answer 10

The point is that we don't know the question otherwise, the meaning of life, the universe and everything would be obvious to us. We are currently part of a supercomputer which is working on the question...it will all be clear shortly...give it a couple million years or so...

Answer 11

if youve read the books Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy including resturant at the end of the universe and sol long and thanks for all the fish youll learn that the question was "what is 6 x 7"
Yes I know that that is the real mathmatical answer but you have to emember where you asking the right question and think of all the money you could make margeting that idea!!! lol