42 and Douglas Adams - Numberphile 

42 has to be mystical. It is said that every human over the age of 43 has been age 42. Coincidence? I think not.

M (13th letter of the alphabet) A (1st) T (20th) H (8th) = 42

According to the books, 42 is not the meaning of life, the universe, and everything. It is the "answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything."

I like the way Douglas Adams basically said "It's the job of everyone on earth to make sense out of existence, a job they will fail at" and everyone's running around finding significance in the shape of the apostrophe of the initial "It's"

According to Douglas Adams himself: The answer to this is very simple. It was a joke. It had to be a number, an ordinary, smallish number, and I chose that one. Binary representations, base thirteen, Tibetan monks are all complete nonsense. I sat at my desk, stared into the garden and thought '42 will do'. I typed it out. End of story.

The meaning of life=MATH M: 13th letter A: 1st letter T: 20th letter H: 8th letter 13+1+20+8=42!

Common misconception: 42 is the answer to the *GREAT QUESTION OF* life, the Universe, and everything. It is *NOT* the answer to life, the universe, and everything. That was a crucial part of the joke. The supercomputer had to calculate the answer to the question without knowing the question, and arrived at 42. As is later revealed, the question that Earth produced, albeit skewed due to golgafrinchans, was "What do you get when you multiply six by nine." As Arthur says, "I always knew there was something fundamentally wrong with the universe."

The British writer, author, speaker, actor, intellectual, Stephen Fry, was one of Douglas Adams’s closest friends. Ten or fifteen years or so ago during one of his many interviews on British television, Fry was asked about Adams and the mystical number Forty-two. Fry said this (I paraphrase.) “Under a promise of absolute confidentiality, Douglas told me the answer; and it’s right there in plain sight-right under everybody’s noses. If only they would look! Its incredibly simple. And it’s brilliant.” There is one such simple ~ish analysis which, although a prime contender I still think is wrong; but it postulates that the ASCII code, 42, creates an asterisk (*)-hinting that “42” can mean “anything you want it to mean.” (Source unknown.) That, however being not quite as “simple” as Fry indicated, I think I can beat it. (Spoiler:) In “The Hitchikers Guide,” the key to the whole saga turns out to be the mice! What do mice do all day-every day? They make more mice. The answer “to life, the Universe, and Everything” is not “forty-two”; its “for - two.” Life is for two. The answer is “Love!”

In unicode, character #42 (0x00A2) is the * symbol, which is used a wildcard symbol in programming and computer languages. So life is what you make of it, and it can be anything you want it to be.

The video is 8 minutes and 42 seconds long!!! :0

I really like the idea (though seeming coincidence) that 42 degrees is the angle that light is refracted by rain drops forming a rainbow. The General Mish Mash is just the minute particle back drop of the universe and your angle of perspective dictates how you see life.

Douglas Adams also knew a thing or two about programming, and in programming an asterisk is commonly used to translate to "anything you want it to be". In ASCII, "42" is the designation for an asterisk, so in asking a computer to come up with the ultimate answer to "life, the universe and everything", it answered as a computer would, 42 = "anything you want it to be" so on top of it being just funny and random and everything else its presented as, it actually has a deeper meaning if you know what to look for.

The answer to everything is -1/12.

"What number is funnier than 42?" 25.

The funniest part about the number 42 is that fans of the books are looking for a deeper meaning in it, while there is just nothing. It is the same thing as looking for the ultimate question. There is no chance of finding one, only thing you can do is just theorize about it. How beautiful, Douglass...

It's been 3 years that I found this video that got me hooked on maths videos. Nice little reunion in quarantine

Hi, I'm an Italian guy, and I'm proud to be from Anzio, Rome! Why? Because Anzio's italian postal code is 00042 and its coordinates are about 42°N!

Heyyyyy fourty-two here.

When I heard that Douglas Adams had died (and at such an unbelievably young age), I felt like I'd lost a family member, or a close friend. I think his impact on rational, intelligent people (with a sense of humour) will last forever though.

42 isn't the answer to life, the universe, and everything! It's the answer to _the ultimate question_ of life, the universe, and everything!

@ sine moderamine "If you put 42 on the surface of an atom, would that make it a Douglas atom?" Lol! You, sir, win an internetz.

No, Douglas Adams never said he chose 42 "because it was a funny number", on the contrary. He said he chose 42 because it was a boring number, and he didn't want to hide the "big joke" (that the answer to life is simply a number) behind a "small joke" (i.e., a funny or "weird" number). So he picked a number that sounded as ordinary and as boring as possible. He mentioned this in several interviews and (I think) in "The Salmon of Doubt". Unfortunately, a lot of people (including many Douglas Adams fans) completely miss the point, and keep trying to find something funny about 42. The joke is that it's simply a number, not which number it is.

"What number is funnier than 42?" How does your mind not instantly jump to 69?

Enjoyed this video a year ago, not having seen or read "Hitchhiker's Guide." Saw the movie last week and the dramatic theme still loops in my head today. The spoiler in this video was long forgotten, so the story was fresh. May not have watched the film had I not seen and remembered this video. Thank you....

Turn the number upside down. You got "2b" To be, is the answer to the question.

When he said that folding a 0.1 mm paper 42 times will reach to the moon in height, i said there is no way. 42 seemed like a small number and easy to count from 1 to it. Then I actually went ahead and calculated it, and discovered that it was really possible. If you calculate 2^42 and multiply by the paper thickness it gives a number grater than the moon-to-earth distance.

Here's in my opinion the coolest thing about the number 42: If you were to find all the triads of regular polygons that "fit perfectly" when they all share one vertex, so each shape shares a side with both other shapes. (e.g three regular hexagons, as in graphene/honeycomb 120 + 120 + 120 = 360) A 42 sided shape has the highest number of sides out of any shape that exists in any of these triads This special triad is: a regular triangle, heptagon and a 42 sided polygon 60 + 128.57 + 171.43 = 360 (All numbers are rounded to 2dp but the equation holds true in exact form)

42 is the center point for a pica typewriter (i.e., the 10 characters per inch kind). This also happens to be the sort of typewriter that was normally used for typing screenplays back before everyone wrote everything on computers. Thus, early in Adams' career, he likely would have started every screenplay by moving his typewriter carriage to character position 42.

I love how Gerardo found some properties of 42 and then made up words to describe them (Pronic number, Primary Pseudoperfect number, Harshad number). Also when James was describing the guy finding mystical meanings for the number 42, I thought maybe it was self-referential. Thanks for the video :D

It's interesting to note that one of the first intentional broadcasts beamed out into space was beeps of the first (at the time) 7 prime numbers. 1 was being counted at the time, so it was 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, and 13. Which is, interestingly enough, when added equal to 42. So, if there was an alien that created the Earth as a supercomputer and waited for the first intentional broadcast to space, it would get 42 as its answer.

Very interesting. Thanks for making this video.

my feeling is that 42 is the age when you get a handle on life the universe and everything

I always thought the joke about 42 being the answer to the meaning of life was found in Japanese. The Japanese word for 4 is pronounced something like shi, or chi. The word for 2 is pronounced nee. 4 2 (four, followed by two, not the number forty-two) would be pronounced like shi-nee, which is the same pronunciation as the Japanese word for die, or death. Thus, the answer to the meaning of life, is death. X) That's what I always thought the joke was about, anyway.

2:00 42 was never claimed to be the meaning of life. They asked for the answer to the Great Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything. "What is the meaning of life?" was specifically dismissed as a possibility for the question.

Thanks!

every time they said 42 I was thinking of thoughty2

What number is funnier than 42? 77. It's like 69, only you get 8 more.

Douglas Adams was an unabashed computer nerd & knew a heck of a lot about programming language & coding. In programming, an asterisk is commonly used to translate as "whatever you want it to be". In ASCII language, the most basic computer software, '42' is the designation for an asterisk. A computer, 'Deep Thought' was asked what the true meaning of life was. It answered as a computer would, '42' = "whatever you want it to be" Genius.

Almighty Zarquon, I truly miss Douglas Adams. :( The first time I heard the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, I knew it was something special. As I grew up and came into contact with more science nerds like myself, I quickly realized how much it inspired our particular subculture.

I too have heard the reason is because the ASCII code 42 is the "*" which is a wildcard (can be anything, including nothing) in many search mechanisms.

In japanese. the sound for 4 is Shi, and the sound for 2 is ni, if you combine them, Shini, it translates to death.

"the answer to life the universe and everthing is 42" has 42 characters

Numberphile, thank you _si_ much, for the "spoiler warning" at the very start. You see I _just_ started reading the book & I'm not ready for this yet. I'll catch a different video instead. 🤗💖

“What number is funnier than 42? 71? 68?” We were on the verge of greatness, we were this close.

Praise 42 let's all convert to 42ism where we get to live to be 42 where we're then cleansed from 42 (42 is the new word for life), then we'll have math in base 42 and the circumference of a circle relative to its diameter will be 42.424242424242 and every 42ing being breathing the air of 42 will be happy

I just noticed that if you count the characters in: "Answer to life the universe and everything" you get 42 Confirmed.

Started seeing this number everywhere about 5 months ago before starting to look into it.

The amount of letters in this sentence is forty two. (i typed this expecting to have to change the sentence around to actually make it 42 letters, but i counted and it was right at 42! I am a believer)

5:30 It's interesting that a lot of the primary pseudoperfect numbers are also pronic numbers, specifically the product of the previous primary pseudoperfect number by one more than itself. 2×3=6 6×7=42 42×43=1,806 47,058×47,059=2,214,502,422

What about Japanese names for the letters: 4=shi 2=ni Shi+ni= shini Shini= death( shinigami=God of death) So the answer to life the universe and everything is death

Numberphile is amazing

Literally the best video on RU-vid.

this is the most interesting interpretation of 42~ if the number is rotated upside-down, it reads- 2b, so the answer to the ultimate question is for two to be,, or to be for two,, and tea for two and two for tea and me for you and you for me.. after all what would experiencing life be if there wasn't another to share it with..?

Here's one: if a=1, b=2, c=3, d=4,etc... math: m=13 , a = 1, t= 20, h= 8...13+1+20+8 = 42 math = 42

after reading the hitchiker's guide to the galaxy, I noticed every single time that I saw a 42 for like 3 or 4 years, but it has calmed down

It's funny how people always try to find out new questions that equal 42 but forget to search the ultimate question itself.

I heard a story about some guy who asked his mathematics teacher "What is the answer to life, the universe, and everything?" to which his teacher responded with "Math." If each letter is assigned a number from 1-27 in ascending order... M - 13 A - 1 T - 20 H - 8 If added together you get 42

The inaudible words that Gerardo said was "It sounds like an innocent property, but it's not."

You can tell Brady added that last little clip, and had it cut off almost mid word, just so the video would be 8 minutes and 42 seconds long.

I've found 42 digit patterns hidden in the decimals of the solutions of divisions. Divisions where 49 is the denominator can have one 42 digit pattern (except for numbers divisible by 7, those use 6 digit decimal patterns, (again) except for numbers divisible by 49 (those won't have decimals)). In divisions where 127 is the denominator, there are 3 different 42 digit patterns being used.

The meaning to life is to find out the meaning of the number 42.

I'm currently reading the DNA biography 'The Frood' by Jem Roberts. Before HHGG was a thing, Douglas worked for some while with Graham Chapman from Monty Python but he also spent a few days working as prop buyer for John Cleese who was making training films. One film was about accountancy and they needed a difficult calculation to give an amusing result. It was an easy choice because evidently Cleese and Chapman had already agreed in the past that 42 was the funniest number.

On April 29, 2005 at the Disney El Cap theater in Hollywood, I attended the first showing of the film version of H2G2. I had a wonderful conversation with an older gentleman who said he was part of the original H2G2 radio broadcast cast. He mentioned that he asked Douglas Adams why the answer to life, the universe and everything was 42. Adams told him that if you count the # of dots on a pair of dice, you will see there are 42- and life is just a roll of the dice.

42 also features heavily in Lewis Carroll's "Hunting of the Snark" I've also heard it claimed that 42 was chosen because it sounds like 'fortitude' -- necessary to get through life!

"What number is funnier than 42" me - ehe... he... 69

(LIFE x UNIVERSE) + EVERYTHING = 42 Calculate with the number of the letters.

42 is the number of 5-second segments of happy-dancing in a 3-1/2 minute vlogbrothers video.

If you google "cuboctahedron" you will find a 14 faced geometric shape that is balanced by sets of twelves. It has 24 equal length edges, 24 equal length "radials" that connect the vertices to the center, 24 external vertices, BUT YET, when you view it in 2D you can count FOURTY TWO sections. And as an added bonus, you will find (and it is not commonly known, maybe not known at all, that a flattened cuboctahedron IS the framework with all snowflakes build upon as they crystallize. When you factor in that it takes 10^20 or so water molecules to make a snowflake, the fact they crystallize persistently around such a framework becomes that much more compelling. Yes, 42 and snowflake shape are intimately related to one another. 42 is GREAT. :-) p.s. Thanks for the video.

"Someone with a particular taste for recurrences" may be my new favorite definition of "nerd".

At my old university's course fair the philosophy table was table 42 on the map. I walked up and asked if it was on purpose. Then I had to explain. *face palm*

I like how one of them explained detail about math while the other two mixed with pop culture

Browsing in a bookshop in Botswana in 1990, I found The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy in the travel section.

I've discovered something amazing... 42 sits between 2 prime numbers 41 & 43. Here are the products, 2*3*7 = 42, and so does 2, and, 2*3 = 6 and that also is surrounded by 5 & 7 two more prime numbers! If you add up the 2+3+7, you get 12 which is also prime number bookended with 11 & 13. Swap the number around 24 and minus that from 42 = 18, and that also between 2 prime numbers, 17 & 19.... need I say more!

Never has my screen name been more appropriate.

Ive decided that The 42nd Thursday of each year is what im gonna call "Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy day"

I highly recommend reading Hitchhikers Guide out loud with a group of fellow nerds.

42, ha ha. I couldn't help but laugh. =))

42 is 'shini' in Japanese 'Shini' in Japanese.....means death... The answer the life, the universe and everything is death, seems fitting....

I just discovered using my computer program for tiling polyominoes that the largest square with a square hole that can be formed with inflated pentominoes is a 42x42-square. The V-pentomino is inflated with factor 14, the L, U and X-pentominoes are inflated with factor 7, the remaining pentominoes remain uninflated. It is a nice puzzle to figure out how this is possible, there is just one solution.

8,31 and 73 also appear frequently too they’re my favorite numbers

Video is 8:42 long. There the 42 is again.

So, if you count all the numbers on one dice, you`ll get 21. Therefor you need 2 dices to get number 42. Answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything is 2 (to) die. I suppose the ultimate question is What`s the meaning of life? ... To die.

I remember an article about Douglas Adams about how he tried to write a short story on a very primitive PDA during a flight, long before iPhones, probably during a period when cellphones were just bricks. I recall the article writer lamenting how Adams didn’t live to see the gadgets we have now.

I keep seeing this number I've been noticing it for years

When he says "When 42 turns up, you keep noticing it." I don't think it's a coincidence that you're meant to glance around and see if it appears anywhere else, yet this happens at 0:42

6:37 What number's funnier than 42? You guessed 71, then 68... you missed it completely, it's SIXTY NINE!! COME ONNNNNN 69 69 69 69 69 69!!!

The Adobe TIFF (Tag Image File Format) specification contains the "version code" of 42. The description in version 5 and earlier reads: Bytes 2-3 The second word of the file is the TIFF "version number." This number, 42 (2A in hex), is not to be equated with the current Revision of the TIFF specification. In fact, the TIFF version 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. It can and should be used as additional verification that this is indeed a TIFF file. Earlier versions say the following: Bytes 2-3 An arbitrary but carefully chosen number (42) that further identifies the file as a TIFF file.

I grew up in house number 42 when I was a child, which I always thought of as a cool coincidence. However, thinking about it, I'm sure that influenced my dad's thinking when it came to which house to purchase!

6 x 9 = 42 in base 13...

It's also the "mega lotto number" in LOST. (4 8 15 16 23 42)

I heard a talk by Douglas Adams where he said he was going to use 52 but a book with that number in its title had just come out, so he changed it to 42.

So weird, when Dr. M asked 'what's a funnier number than 42?' I immediate stated in tandem with him - 71! lol

This annoys me a lot. 42 is not the answer to life, the Universe, and everything, it is the answer to the Ultimate Question. These are 2 very different things.

It's the number of Mulder's apartment in the X-Files. Deliberate?

Interestingly, the Computer Science academic paper "A Theory of Type Polymorphism in Programming" by Robin Milner, written in 1977, is using 42 in an example on the last page. If I'm correct, this is before HG2G was broadcast on BBC. (Note: this is a landmark paper in the theory of programming languages.)

Love this book

The length of the sentence "Answer to life the universe and everything" is 42

I know what it mean Step add all the number on the faces of a die =21 Do this with two dice Then the take the answers of both die And add them so that's 21+21=42 Then remember how many dice you used 2 in case you didn't remember So you have 2 die The answer Is To die

The ASCII code for the asterisk (*), which is used as the wildcard character, is 42. Life is what you make of it.

"Did you just come for the cookies?" - "For tea too!" The answer of life, universe and everything.