''
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'' (sometimes referred to as ''HG2G'', ''HHGTTG'', ''H2G2'', or ''tHGttG'') is a comic science fiction, comedy science fiction franchise created by Douglas Adams. Originally The Hitchhiker's Guide to th ...
'' is a
comic science fiction
Science fiction comedy (sci-fi comedy) or comic science fiction is a subgenre of science fiction or science fantasy that exploits the science-fiction (SF) genre's conventions for comedy, comedic effect. Comic science fiction often mocks or satirize ...
series created by
Douglas Adams
Douglas Noel Adams (11 March 1952 – 11 May 2001) was an English author and screenwriter, best known for ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy''. Originally a 1978 BBC radio comedy, ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'' developed into a " ...
that has become popular among fans of the genre and members of the
scientific community
The scientific community is a diverse network of interacting scientists. It includes many " sub-communities" working on particular scientific fields, and within particular institutions; interdisciplinary and cross-institutional activities are als ...
. Phrases from it are widely recognised and often used in reference to, but outside the context of, the source material. Many writers on
popular science
''Popular Science'' (also known as ''PopSci'') is an American digital magazine carrying popular science content, which refers to articles for the general reader on science and technology subjects. ''Popular Science'' has won over 58 awards, incl ...
, such as
Fred Alan Wolf
Fred Alan Wolf (born December 3, 1934) is an American theoretical physicist specializing in quantum physics and the relationship between physics and consciousness. He is a former physics professor at San Diego State University, and has helped to p ...
,
Paul Davies
Paul Charles William Davies (born 22 April 1946) is an English physicist, writer and broadcaster, a professor in Arizona State University and Director of BEYOND: Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science. He is affiliated with the Institute ...
, and
Michio Kaku
Michio Kaku (, ; born January 24, 1947) is an American theoretical physics, theoretical physicist, futurist, and popular science, popularizer of science (science communicator). He is a professor of theoretical physics in the City College of New ...
, have used quotations in their books to illustrate facts about cosmology or philosophy.
The Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything is 42
![Answer to Life 42](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0e/Answer_to_Life_42.svg)
In the radio series and the first novel, a group of hyper-intelligent pan-dimensional beings demand to learn the Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe, and Everything from the
supercomputer
A supercomputer is a computer with a high level of performance as compared to a general-purpose computer. The performance of a supercomputer is commonly measured in floating-point operations per second ( FLOPS) instead of million instructions ...
Deep Thought, specially built for this purpose. It takes Deep Thought million years to compute and check the answer, which turns out to be
42. Deep Thought points out that the answer seems meaningless because the beings who instructed it never knew what the question was.
When asked to produce the Ultimate Question, Deep Thought says that it cannot; however, it can help to design an even more powerful computer that can. This new computer will incorporate living beings into the "
computational matrix" and will run for ten million years. The computer is revealed as being the planet
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surfa ...
, with its pan-dimensional creators assuming the form of
white lab mice to observe its running. The process is hindered after eight million years by the unexpected arrival on Earth of the
Golgafrinchans, and is then ruined completely, five minutes prior to completion, when the Earth is destroyed by the
Vogon
The Vogons are a fictional alien race from the planet Vogsphere in ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy''—initially a BBC Radio series by Douglas Adams—who are responsible for the destruction of the Earth, in order to facilitate an interga ...
s to supposedly make way for a new
hyperspace
In science fiction, hyperspace (also known as nulspace, subspace, overspace, jumpspace and similar terms) is a concept relating to higher dimensions as well as parallel universes and a faster-than-light (FTL) method of interstellar travel. ...
bypass. In ''The Restaurant at the End of the Universe'', this reason is revealed to have been a ruse: the Vogons had been hired to destroy the Earth by a consortium of
psychiatrist
A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in psychiatry, the branch of medicine devoted to the diagnosis, prevention, study, and treatment of mental disorders. Psychiatrists are physicians and evaluate patients to determine whether their sy ...
s, led by
Gag Halfrunt
This page is a list of characters in ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'', by Douglas Adams. The descriptions of the characters are accompanied by information on details about appearances and references to the characters.
Main characters
...
, who feared for the loss of their careers when the Ultimate Question became known.
Lacking a real question, the mice (pan-dimensional beings) decide not to go through the whole process again and instead settle for the out-of-thin-air suggestion "How many roads must a man walk down?", a lyric from
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan, born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Often regarded as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture during a career sp ...
's song "
Blowin' in the Wind
"Blowin' in the Wind" is a song written by Bob Dylan in 1962.
It was released as a single and included on his album ''The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan'' in 1963. It has been described as a protest song and poses a series of rhetorical questions about ...
".
At the end of the radio series, the television series and ,
Arthur Dent
Arthur Philip Dent is a fictional character and the hapless protagonist of the comic science fiction series ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'' by Douglas Adams.
In the radio, LP and television versions of the story, Arthur is played by ...
, having escaped the Earth's destruction, potentially has some of the
computational matrix in his brain. He attempts to discover The Ultimate Question by extracting it from his
brainwave
Neural oscillations, or brainwaves, are rhythmic or repetitive patterns of neural activity in the central nervous system. Neural tissue can generate oscillatory activity in many ways, driven either by mechanisms within individual neurons or by ...
patterns, as abusively
suggested by
Ford Prefect
The Ford Prefect is a line of British cars which was produced by Ford UK between 1938 and 1961 as an upmarket version of the Ford Popular and Ford Anglia small family cars. It was introduced in October 1938 and remained in production until 19 ...
, when a
Scrabble
''Scrabble'' is a word game in which two to four players score points by placing tiles, each bearing a single letter, onto a game board divided into a 15×15 grid of squares. The tiles must form words that, in crossword fashion, read left t ...
-playing caveman spells out "forty two". Arthur pulls random letters from a bag, but only gets the sentence "What do you get if you multiply six by ?"
Six times nine is actually fifty-four; the answer is deliberately wrong for that question because the question was miscomputed. The program on the "Earth computer" should have run correctly, but the unexpected arrival of the
Golgafrinchans on
prehistoric Earth
The history of life on Earth traces the processes by which living and fossil organisms evolved, from the earliest emergence of life to present day. Earth formed about 4.5 billion years ago (abbreviated as ''Ga'', for ''gigaannum'') and evide ...
caused input errors into the system—computing the wrong question (because of the
garbage in, garbage out
In computer science, garbage in, garbage out (GIGO) is the concept that flawed, or nonsense (garbage) input data produces nonsense output. Rubbish in, rubbish out (RIRO) is an alternate wording.
The principle applies to all logical argumentatio ...
rule). Therefore, the question in Arthur's subconscious was invalid all along.
Quoting
Fit the Seventh of the radio series, on Christmas Eve, 1978:
Some readers who were trying to find a deeper meaning in the passage soon noticed a certain veracity when using
base-13
There are many different numeral systems, that is, writing systems for expressing numbers.
By culture / time period
By type of notation
Numeral systems are classified here as to whether they use positional notation (also known as place-value ...
; 6
10 × 9
10 = 54
10, which can be expressed as 42
13 (i.e. 54 in decimal is equal to 42 expressed in
base-13).
When confronted with this, the author claimed that it was a mere coincidence, stating that "I may be a sorry case, but I don't write jokes in base 13."
In ''
Life, the Universe and Everything
''Life, the Universe and Everything'' (1982, ) is the third book in the six-volume ''Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'' science fiction "trilogy of five books" by British writer Douglas Adams. The title refers to the Answer to Life, the Univ ...
'', a character named "
Prak
This page is a list of characters in ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'', by Douglas Adams. The descriptions of the characters are accompanied by information on details about appearances and references to the characters.
Main characters
...
," who "knows all that is true," confirms that 42 is indeed The Answer, and that it is impossible for both The Answer and The Question to be known in the same universe, as they will cancel each other out and take the Universe with them—to be replaced by something even more bizarre (as described in the first theory) and that it may have already happened (as described in the second).
Though the question is never found, 42 is the table number at which Arthur and his friends sit when they arrive at
Milliways at the end of the radio series. Likewise, ''
Mostly Harmless
''Mostly Harmless'' is a 1992 novel by Douglas Adams and the fifth book in the ''Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'' series. It is described on the cover of the first edition as "The fifth book in the increasingly inaccurately named Hitchhikers ...
'' ends when Arthur stops at a street address identified by his cry of, "There, number 42!" and enters the club Beta, owned by Stavro Mueller (
Stavromula Beta). Shortly after, the Earth is destroyed in all existing incarnations.
Reasoning
Douglas Adams was asked many times why he chose the number 42. Many theories were proposed, including that 42 is 101010 in base-2
binary code
A binary code represents text, computer processor instructions, or any other data using a two-symbol system. The two-symbol system used is often "0" and "1" from the binary number system. The binary code assigns a pattern of binary digits, also ...
, that light refracts through a water surface by 42 degrees to create a rainbow, or that light requires 10
−42 seconds to cross the diameter of a proton.
Adams rejected them all. On 3 November 1993, he gave this answer
on
alt.fan.douglas-adams:
Adams described his choice as "a completely ordinary number, a number not just divisible by two but also six and seven. In fact it's the sort of number that you could without any fear introduce to your parents."
While 42 was a number with no hidden meaning, Adams explained in more detail in an interview with
Iain Johnstone
Iain Johnstone (born 8 April 1943 in Reading, Berkshire) is an English author, broadcaster and television producer.
Early life
Johnstone attended Crosfields School, Reading, Campbell College, Belfast and Bristol University.
Career
Johnst ...
of
BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history from the BBC' ...
(recorded in 1998 though never broadcast) to celebrate the first radio broadcast's 20th anniversary. Having decided it should be a number, he tried to think what an "ordinary number" should be. He ruled out non-integers, then he remembered having worked as a "prop-borrower" for
John Cleese
John Marwood Cleese ( ; born 27 October 1939) is an English actor, comedian, screenwriter, and producer. Emerging from the Cambridge Footlights in the 1960s, he first achieved success at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and as a scriptwriter and ...
on his
Video Arts
Video Arts is a UK-based video production company which produces and sells soft-skills training programmes, e-learning courses and learning platforms. Video Arts also distributes third party titles. It was founded in 1972 by John Cleese, Sir ...
training videos. Cleese needed a ''funny number'' for the punchline to a sketch involving a bank teller (himself) and a customer (
Tim Brooke-Taylor
Timothy Julian Brooke-Taylor OBE (17 July 194012 April 2020) was an English actor and comedian best known as a member of The Goodies.
He became active in performing in comedy sketches while at the University of Cambridge and became president ...
). Adams believed that the number that Cleese came up with was 42 and he decided to use it.
Adams had also written a sketch for ''
The Burkiss Way
''The Burkiss Way'' is a BBC Radio 4 sketch comedy series, originally broadcast between August 1976 and November 1980. It was written by Andrew Marshall and David Renwick, with additional material in seasons 1 and 2 by John Mason, Colin Bostoc ...
'' called "42
Logical Positivism
Logical positivism, later called logical empiricism, and both of which together are also known as neopositivism, is a movement in Western philosophy whose central thesis was the verification principle (also known as the verifiability criterion o ...
Avenue", broadcast on
BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history from the BBC' ...
on 12 January 1977 – 14 months before ''The Hitchhiker's Guide'' first broadcast "42" in
Fit the Fourth, 29 March 1978.
In January 2000, in response to a panellist's "Where does the number 42 come from?" on the radio show ''Book Club'', Adams explained that he was "on his way to work one morning, whilst still writing the scene, and was thinking about what the actual answer should be. He eventually decided that it should be something that made no sense whatsoever – a number, and a mundane one at that. And that is how he arrived at the number 42, completely at random."
Stephen Fry
Stephen John Fry (born 24 August 1957) is an English actor, broadcaster, comedian, director and writer. He first came to prominence in the 1980s as one half of the comic double act Fry and Laurie, alongside Hugh Laurie, with the two starring ...
, a friend of Adams, claims that Adams told him "exactly why 42", and that the reason is "fascinating, extraordinary and, when you think hard about it, completely obvious." However, Fry says that he has vowed not to tell anyone the secret, and that it must go with him to the grave. In an interview at the Sydney Opera House in 2010, two minutes before the end of the show, Fry appears to be ready to reveal the answer, but remains inaudible due to an apparent failure of the microphone.
John Lloyd, Adams' collaborator on ''
The Meaning of Liff
''The Meaning of Liff'' (UK Edition: , US Edition: ) is a humorous dictionary of toponymy and etymology, written by Douglas Adams and John Lloyd, published in the United Kingdom in 1983 and the United States in 1984.
Content
The book is a " ...
'' and two ''Hitchhiker's'' fits, said that Adams has called 42 "the funniest of the two-digit numbers."
The
number 42 appears frequently in the work of
Lewis Carroll
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (; 27 January 1832 – 14 January 1898), better known by his pen name Lewis Carroll, was an English author, poet and mathematician. His most notable works are ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' (1865) and its sequel ...
, and some critics have suggested that this was an influence. They note, in particular, that Alice's attempt at her times tables (chapter two of the 1865 novel ''
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' (commonly ''Alice in Wonderland'') is an 1865 English novel by Lewis Carroll. It details the story of a young girl named Alice (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland), Alice who falls through a rabbit hole into a ...
'') breaks down at 4 x 13 answered in base 42, which virtually reverses the failure of 'the Question' ("What do you get if you multiply six by nine?"), in that the latter would equal "42" if calculated in base 13. They find further evidence of Carroll's influence in the fact that Adams entitled the episodes of the original radio series of ''
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'' (sometimes referred to as ''HG2G'', ''HHGTTG'', ''H2G2'', or ''tHGttG'') is a comic science fiction, comedy science fiction franchise created by Douglas Adams. Originally The Hitchhiker's Guide to th ...
'' "fits", the word Carroll used to name the chapters of ''
The Hunting of the Snark
''The Hunting of the Snark'', subtitled ''An Agony in 8 Fits'', is a poem by the English writer Lewis Carroll. It is typically categorised as a nonsense poem. Written between 1874 and 1876, it borrows the setting, some creatures, and eight por ...
''.
There is the persistent tale that 42 is Adams' tribute to the indefatigable paperback book, and is the average number of lines on an average page of an average paperback. Another common guess is that 42 refers to the number of laws in cricket, a recurring theme of the books.Yet another possible reason relates to Adam's background in the
ASCII
ASCII ( ), abbreviated from American Standard Code for Information Interchange, is a character encoding standard for electronic communication. ASCII codes represent text in computers, telecommunications equipment, and other devices. Because of ...
character encoding, where the number 42 can be represented by an asterisk (*). The asterisk, in turn, essentially represents "input whatever the user would like". This leaves the symbolic meaning that the answer to life, the universe, and everything is anything you, the user, would like it to be.
42 Puzzle
The 42 Puzzle is a game devised by
Douglas Adams
Douglas Noel Adams (11 March 1952 – 11 May 2001) was an English author and screenwriter, best known for ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy''. Originally a 1978 BBC radio comedy, ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'' developed into a " ...
in 1994 for the United States series of ''
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'' (sometimes referred to as ''HG2G'', ''HHGTTG'', ''H2G2'', or ''tHGttG'') is a comic science fiction, comedy science fiction franchise created by Douglas Adams. Originally The Hitchhiker's Guide to th ...
'' books. The puzzle is an illustration consisting of 42 multi-coloured balls, in 7 columns and 6 rows. Douglas Adams has said,
In the puzzle the question is unknown, but the answer is already known to be 42. This is similar to the book where the "Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything" is known but not the question. The puzzle first appeared in ''The Illustrated
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'' (sometimes referred to as ''HG2G'', ''HHGTTG'', ''H2G2'', or ''tHGttG'') is a comedy science fiction franchise created by Douglas Adams. Originally a 1978 radio comedy broadcast on BBC Radio 4, it w ...
''. It was later incorporated into the covers of all five reprinted "Hitchhiker's" novels in the United States.
Adams has described the puzzle as depicting the number 42 in ten different ways. Six possible questions are:
On the Internet and in software
The number 42 and the phrase, "Life, the universe, and everything" have attained cult status on the Internet. "Life, the universe, and everything" is a common name for the off-topic section of an
Internet forum
An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages. They differ from chat rooms in that messages are often longer than one line of text, and are at least temporar ...
and the phrase is invoked in similar ways to mean "anything at all". Many
chatbots
A chatbot or chatterbot is a software application used to conduct an on-line chat conversation via text or text-to-speech, in lieu of providing direct contact with a live human agent. Designed to convincingly simulate the way a human would beha ...
, when asked about the meaning of life, will answer "42". Several online calculators are also programmed with the Question. Google Calculator will give the result to "the answer to life the universe and everything" as 42, as will
Wolfram's Computational Knowledge Engine. Similarly,
DuckDuckGo
DuckDuckGo (DDG) is an internet search engine that emphasizes protecting searchers' privacy and avoiding the filter bubble of personalized search results. DuckDuckGo does not show search results from content farms. It uses various APIs of o ...
also gives the result of "the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything" as 42. In the online community ''
Second Life
''Second Life'' is an online multimedia platform that allows people to create an avatar for themselves and then interact with other users and user created content within a multi player online virtual world. Developed and owned by the San Fra ...
'', there is a section on a sim called "42nd Life." It is devoted to this concept in the book series, and several attempts at recreating Milliways, the Restaurant at the End of the Universe, were made.
In
OpenOffice.org
OpenOffice.org (OOo), commonly known as OpenOffice, is a discontinued open-source office suite. Active successor projects include LibreOffice (the most actively developed), Apache OpenOffice, Collabora Online (enterprise ready LibreOffice) a ...
software (prior to version 3.4) if "=ANTWORT("Das Leben, das Universum und der ganze Rest") (German for =ANSWER("life, the universe and everything")) is typed into any cell of a
spreadsheet
A spreadsheet is a computer application for computation, organization, analysis and storage of data in tabular form. Spreadsheets were developed as computerized analogs of paper accounting worksheets. The program operates on data entered in cel ...
, the result is 42.
''ISO/IEC 14519-2001/ IEEE Std 1003.5-1999, IEEE Standard for Information Technology –
POSIX
The Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX) is a family of standards specified by the IEEE Computer Society for maintaining compatibility between operating systems. POSIX defines both the system- and user-level application programming interf ...
(R) Ada Language Interfaces – Part 1: Binding for System Application Program Interface (API) '', uses the number 42 as the required return value from a process that terminates due to an unhandled exception. The Rationale says "the choice of the value 42 is arbitrary" and cites the Adams book as the source of the value.
The standard for Tagged Image File Format
TIFF
Tag Image File Format, abbreviated TIFF or TIF, is an image file format for storing raster graphics images, popular among graphic artists, the publishing industry, and photographers. TIFF is widely supported by scanning, faxing, word processin ...
defines in its Image File Header bytes 2 and 3 to denominate a 'version number' 42. In revision 5.0 the specification explained the choice with "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." The later versions have eliminated the lengthy description, but kept the number fixed at 42 anyway.
The
random seed
A random seed (or seed state, or just seed) is a number (or vector) used to initialize a pseudorandom number generator.
For a seed to be used in a pseudorandom number generator, it does not need to be random. Because of the nature of number gene ...
chosen to procedurally create the whole universe of the online multi-player computer game ''
EVE Online
''Eve Online'' (stylised ''EVE Online'') is a space-based, persistent world massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) developed and published by CCP Games. Players of ''Eve Online'' can participate in a number of in-game profess ...
'' was chosen as 42 by its lead game designer in 2002.
In the 2001 computer game ''
Gothic
Gothic or Gothics may refer to:
People and languages
*Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes
**Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths
**Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...
'' "42" is a code that deactivates all activated cheats. After typing "42" in a right place, text "''What was the question?''" appears.
The
OpenSUSE
openSUSE () is a free and open-source software, free and open source RPM Package Manager, RPM-based Linux distribution developed by the openSUSE project.
The initial release of the community project was a beta version of SUSE Linux 10.0.
Addi ...
team decided the next version will be based on
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop
SUSE Linux Enterprise (often abbreviated to SLE) is a Linux-based operating system developed by SUSE. It is available in two editions, suffixed with Server (SLES) for servers and mainframes, and Desktop (SLED) for workstations and desktop compu ...
and named "
Leap 42". The number 42 was chosen as a reference to the answer to life, the universe and everything.
The Google 1st generation
Chromecast
Chromecast is a line of digital media players developed by Google. The devices, designed as small dongles, can play Internet-streamed audio-visual content on a high-definition television or home audio system. The user can control playback with ...
has the model number H2G2-42 referencing Douglas Adams' book
Cultural references
The
Allen Telescope Array, a radio telescope used by
SETI
The search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) is a collective term for scientific searches for intelligent extraterrestrial life, for example, monitoring electromagnetic radiation for signs of transmissions from civilizations on other p ...
, has 42 dishes in homage to the Answer.
In the American TV show ''
Lost
Lost may refer to getting lost, or to:
Geography
*Lost, Aberdeenshire, a hamlet in Scotland
* Lake Okeechobee Scenic Trail, or LOST, a hiking and cycling trail in Florida, US
History
*Abbreviation of lost work, any work which is known to have bee ...
'', 42 is the last of the mysterious numbers
4, 8, 15, 16, 23, and 42. In an interview with
Lostpedia, producer
David Fury
David Fury is an American television writer, producer, actor and director.
Career
He is well known for his work on ''Buffy the Vampire Slayer'', ''Angel'', ''Lost'', '' 24'', ''Fringe,'' ''Tyrant'' and ''The Tick''.
Fury was a co-executive ...
confirmed this was a reference to ''Hitchhiker's''.
The British TV show ''
The Kumars at No. 42'' is so named because show creator
Sanjeev Bhaskar
Sanjeev Bhaskar (born 31 October 1963) is a British actor, comedian and television presenter. He is best known for his work in the BBC Two sketch comedy series '' Goodness Gracious Me'' and as the star of the sitcom ''The Kumars at No. 42''. H ...
is a ''Hitchhiker's'' fan.
The band
Coldplay
Coldplay are a British rock band formed in London in 1997. They consist of vocalist and pianist Chris Martin, guitarist Jonny Buckland, bassist Guy Berryman, drummer Will Champion and creative director Phil Harvey. They met at University Col ...
's 2008 album ''
Viva la Vida
"Viva la Vida" (, ; ) is a song by British rock band Coldplay. It was written by all members of the band for their fourth album, ''Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends'' (2008). The lyrics to the song contain historical and Christian refe ...
'' includes a song called "
42". When asked by ''
Q'' if the song's title was ''Hitchhiker's''-related,
Chris Martin
Christopher Anthony John Martin (born 2 March 1977) is an English singer-songwriter and musician. He is best known as the lead vocalist, pianist, rhythm guitarist and co-founder of the rock band Coldplay. Born in Exeter, Devon, he went to Univ ...
said, "It is and it isn't."
The band
Level 42
Level 42 is an English jazz-funk band formed on the Isle of Wight in 1979. They had a number of UK and worldwide hits during the 1980s and 1990s.
Their highest-charting single in the UK was " Lessons in Love", which reached number three on th ...
chose its name in reference to the book.
The 2007 episode "
42" of the British
science fiction television
Science fiction first appeared in television programming in the late 1930s, during what is called the Golden Age of Science Fiction. Special effects and other production techniques allow creators to present a living visual image of an imaginary ...
series ''
Doctor Who
''Doctor Who'' is a British science fiction television series broadcast by the BBC since 1963. The series depicts the adventures of a Time Lord called the Doctor, an extraterrestrial being who appears to be human. The Doctor explores the u ...
'' was named in reference to the Answer. Writer
Chris Chibnall
Christopher Antony Chibnall (born 21 March 1970) is an English television writer and producer, best known as the creator and writer of the award-winning ITV mystery-crime drama ''Broadchurch'' and as a showrunner of the long-running BBC sci-fi ...
acknowledged that "it's a playful title".
Ken Jennings
Kenneth Wayne Jennings III (born May 23, 1974) is an American game show host, author, and former game show contestant. He is the highest-earning American game show contestant, having won money on five different game shows, including $4,522,70 ...
, defeated along with
Brad Rutter in a ''
Jeopardy!
''Jeopardy!'' is an American game show created by Merv Griffin. The show is a quiz competition that reverses the traditional question-and-answer format of many quiz shows. Rather than being given questions, contestants are instead given genera ...
'' match against
IBM's
Watson, writes that Watson's
avatar
Avatar (, ; ), is a concept within Hinduism that in Sanskrit literally means "descent". It signifies the material appearance or incarnation of a powerful deity, goddess or spirit on Earth. The relative verb to "alight, to make one's appearanc ...
which appeared on-screen for those games showed 42 "threads of thought," shown as colorful lines spinning around Watson's logo, and that the number was chosen in reference to this
meme
A meme ( ) is an idea, behavior, or style that spreads by means of imitation from person to person within a culture and often carries symbolic meaning representing a particular phenomenon or theme. A meme acts as a unit for carrying cultural i ...
.
The Hitchhiker
knitting
Knitting is a method by which yarn is manipulated to create a textile, or fabric. It is used to create many types of garments. Knitting may be done by hand or by machine.
Knitting creates stitches: loops of yarn in a row, either flat or i ...
pattern, designed by Martina Behm, is a scarf with 42 teeth.
In ''
The Flash
The Flash (or simply Flash) is the name of several superheroes appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics. Created by writer Gardner Fox and artist Harry Lampert, the original Flash first appeared in ''Flash Comics'' #1 (cover date ...
'', Season 4, Episode 1, Cisco in trying to decipher what Barry is writing explicitly says that what Barry says might solve answer to the Life, the Universe and Everything, which Caitlin suggests is 42.
In ''
The X-Files
''The X-Files'' is an American science fiction on television, science fiction drama (film and television), drama television series created by Chris Carter (screenwriter), Chris Carter. The series revolves around Federal Bureau of Investigation ...
'',
Fox Mulder
Fox William Mulder () is a fictional FBI Special Agent and one of the two protagonists of the Fox science fiction-supernatural television series ''The X-Files'', played by David Duchovny. Mulder's peers dismiss his many theories on extraterrest ...
lives in apartment 42. This has been acknowledged by the show's creator,
Chris Carter, as a reference to ''Hitchhikers''.
The number 47 appears often throughout the ''
Star Trek
''Star Trek'' is an American science fiction media franchise created by Gene Roddenberry, which began with the eponymous 1960s television series and quickly became a worldwide pop-culture phenomenon. The franchise has expanded into vari ...
'' franchise. When producer
Rick Berman
Richard Keith Berman (born December 25, 1945) is an American television producer and screenwriter. He is best known for his work as the executive producer of several of the '' Star Trek'' television series: '' Star Trek: The Next Generation'', ...
was asked about the unusual frequency of the number, he stated, "47 is 42, corrected for inflation."
In season 2, episode 4 of ''
A Discovery of Witches
''A Discovery of Witches'' is a 2011 historical-fantasy novel and the debut novel by American scholar Deborah Harkness. It follows Diana Bishop, a history of science professor at Yale University, as she embraces her magical blood after finding ...
'', an auction lot bearing drawings of the series' two main leads is numbered 42 and the number's connection to Douglas Adams is recognized in a conversation.
''Don't Panic''
![Elon Musk's Tesla Roadster (40110298232)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/17/Elon_Musk%27s_Tesla_Roadster_%2840110298232%29.jpg)
In the series, ''Don't Panic'' is a phrase on the cover of ''
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'' (sometimes referred to as ''HG2G'', ''HHGTTG'', ''H2G2'', or ''tHGttG'') is a comic science fiction, comedy science fiction franchise created by Douglas Adams. Originally The Hitchhiker's Guide to th ...
''.
The novel explains that this was partly because the device "looked insanely complicated" to operate, and partly to keep intergalactic travellers from panicking. "It is said that despite its many glaring (and occasionally fatal) inaccuracies, the ''Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'' itself has outsold the ''
Encyclopedia Galactica
The ''Encyclopedia Galactica'' is the name of a number of fictional or hypothetical encyclopedias containing all the knowledge accumulated by a galaxy-spanning (Type III in Kardashev scale) civilization. The name evokes the exhaustive aspects o ...
'' because it is slightly cheaper, and because it has the words 'DON'T PANIC' in large, friendly letters on the cover."
Arthur C. Clarke said Douglas Adams' use of "don't panic" was perhaps the best advice that could be given to humanity.
British rock band
Coldplay's debut album ''
Parachutes
A parachute is a device used to slow the motion of an object through an atmosphere by creating drag or, in a ram-air parachute, aerodynamic lift. A major application is to support people, for recreation or as a safety device for aviators, who ...
'' contains a song called "
Don’t Panic" in reference to the series.
On 6 February 2018
SpaceX
Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) is an American spacecraft manufacturer, launcher, and a satellite communications corporation headquartered in Hawthorne, California. It was founded in 2002 by Elon Musk with the stated goal of ...
launched the
Falcon Heavy
Falcon Heavy is a partially reusable heavy-lift launch vehicle that is produced by SpaceX, an American aerospace manufacturer. The rocket consists of two strap-on boosters made from Falcon 9 first stages, a center core also made from a Falc ...
rocket, carrying
Elon Musk's Tesla Roadster
Elon Musk's Tesla Roadster is an electric sports car that served as the dummy payload for the February 2018 Falcon Heavy test flight and became an artificial satellite of the Sun. A mannequin in a Space suit#SpaceX spacesuit, spacesuit, dubbed ...
which had "DON'T PANIC!" written on the screen on the dashboard as a reference to the series.
Knowing where one's towel is
![Towelday-Innsbruck](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/17/Towelday-Innsbruck.jpg)
Within the ''Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'' universe, towels are regarded as indispensable equipment for experienced travelers, since they can be put to a wide variety of uses. Consequently, a person who can quickly adapt to virtually any new situation is said to know where their towel is. The logic behind this statement is presented in chapter 3 of
the first novel in the series thus:
Adams got the idea for this phrase when he went travelling and found that his beach towel kept disappearing. In the 1985 book ''
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy -The Radio Scripts'', his friends describe how he would always "mislay" his towel. On
Towel Day
Towel Day is celebrated every year on 25 May as a tribute to the author Douglas Adams by his fans. On this day, fans openly carry a towel with them, as described in Adams' ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'', to demonstrate their appreciat ...
, fans commemorate Adams by carrying towels with them.
Mostly Harmless
The only entry about Earth in the ''
Guide
A guide is a person who leads travelers, sportspeople, or tourists through unknown or unfamiliar locations. The term can also be applied to a person who leads others to more abstract goals such as knowledge or wisdom.
Travel and recreation
Ex ...
'' used to be "Harmless", but Ford Prefect managed to change it a little before getting stuck on Earth. "Mostly Harmless" provoked a very upset reaction from Arthur when heard. Those two words are not what Ford submitted as a result of his researchmerely all that was left after his editors were done with it. The term is the title of the
fifth book in the ''Hitchhiker'' "trilogy". Its popularity is such that it has become the definition of Earth in many standard works of sci-fi reference, like ''
The Star Trek Encyclopedia
''The Star Trek Encyclopedia: A Reference Guide to the Future'' is a 1994 encyclopedia of in-universe information from the '' Star Trek'' television series and films. It was written by Michael Okuda and Denise Okuda, who were production staff o ...
''. Additionally, "Harmless" and "Mostly Harmless" both feature as ranks in the computer game ''
Elite
In political and sociological theory, the elite (french: élite, from la, eligere, to select or to sort out) are a small group of powerful people who hold a disproportionate amount of wealth, privilege, political power, or skill in a group. D ...
'' and its sequels. Also, in ''
World of Warcraft
''World of Warcraft'' (''WoW'') is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) released in 2004 by Blizzard Entertainment. Set in the ''Warcraft'' fantasy universe, ''World of Warcraft'' takes place within the world of Azeroth ...
'', there is a rifle that fires (mostly) harmless pellets. In the
MMORPG
A massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) is a video game that combines aspects of a role-playing video game and a massively multiplayer online game.
As in role-playing games (RPGs), the player assumes the role of a Player charac ...
''
RuneScape
''RuneScape'' is a fantasy massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) developed and published by Jagex, released in January 2001. ''RuneScape'' was originally a browser game built with the Java programming language; it was large ...
'', there is an island called Mos Le Harmless (Mostly Harmless). Low-scoring players in the multiplayer version of the game ''
Perfect Dark
''Perfect Dark'' is a first-person shooter developed and published by Rare for the Nintendo 64 video game console in 2000. The first game of the '' Perfect Dark'' series, it follows Joanna Dark, an agent of the Carrington Institute research ...
'' and ''
GoldenEye 007'' are awarded with the designation "mostly harmless". In the 2008 edition of the board game ''Cosmic Encounter'', the human race is given the attribute "Mostly Harmless". In the game ''
Kerbal Space Program
''Kerbal Space Program'' (''KSP'') is a space flight simulation video game developed by Mexican developer Squad for Microsoft Windows, macOS
macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system de ...
'', there is an atomic rocket motor with the description "mostly harmless". Another reference is in the book title Mostly Harmless Econometrics.
Not entirely unlike
In chapter 17 of ,
Arthur Dent
Arthur Philip Dent is a fictional character and the hapless protagonist of the comic science fiction series ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'' by Douglas Adams.
In the radio, LP and television versions of the story, Arthur is played by ...
tries to get a Nutrimatic drinks dispenser to produce a cup of tea. Instead, it invariably produces a concoction (which most people found unpleasant) that is "almost, but not quite, entirely ''unlike'' tea".
One of the primary goals of the player, as Arthur Dent, in , is to thwart the machine and find some decent tea, a mission that the player is constantly reminded of by the inventory item "no tea". According to the
Jargon File
The Jargon File is a glossary and usage dictionary of slang used by computer programmers. The original Jargon File was a collection of terms from technical cultures such as the MIT AI Lab, the Stanford AI Lab (SAIL) and others of the old ARPANET A ...
, the briefer "not entirely unlike" has entered hacker jargon.
Share and Enjoy
"Share and Enjoy" is the slogan of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation Complaints Division. In the radio version, this phrase had its own song (sung in ), which was sung by a choir of robots during "special occasions". The Sirius Cybernetics Corporation tends to produce inherently faulty goods, which renders the statement ironic since few people would want to "Share and Enjoy" something that was defective. Among the design flaws is the choir of robots that perform this song: they sing a
tritone
In music theory, the tritone is defined as a musical interval composed of three adjacent whole tones (six semitones). For instance, the interval from F up to the B above it (in short, F–B) is a tritone as it can be decomposed into the three a ...
out of tune with the accompaniment. The ''
Guide
A guide is a person who leads travelers, sportspeople, or tourists through unknown or unfamiliar locations. The term can also be applied to a person who leads others to more abstract goals such as knowledge or wisdom.
Travel and recreation
Ex ...
'' relates that the words "''Share and Enjoy''" were displayed in illuminated letters three miles high near the Sirius Cybernetics Complaints Division, until their weight caused them to collapse through the underground offices of many young executives. The upper half of the sign that now protrudes translates in the local tongue as "''Go stick your head in a pig''", and is lit up only for special celebrations.
The episode features a personal computer OS booting sound (à la
The Microsoft Sound) set to the tune of "Share and Enjoy". Furthermore, , the last episode in the adaptation of , features a
polyphonic ringtone
A ringtone, ring tone or ring is the sound made by a telephone to indicate an incoming call. Originally referring to and made by the electromechanical striking of bells, the term now refers to any sound on any device alerting of a new incoming ...
version of the tune. The "Share and Enjoy" tune also is used in the
TV series
A television show – or simply TV show – is any content produced for viewing on a television set which can be broadcast via over-the-air, satellite, or cable, excluding breaking news, advertisements, or trailers that are typically placed betw ...
as the backing for a Sirius Cybernetics Corporation robot commercial (
slogan
A slogan is a memorable motto or phrase used in a clan, political slogan, political, Advertising slogan, commercial, religious, and other context as a repetitive expression of an idea or purpose, with the goal of persuading members of the publi ...
: "Your plastic pal who's fun to be with!").
So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish
After mice, the second most intelligent species on Earth were the
dolphin
A dolphin is an aquatic mammal within the infraorder Cetacea. Dolphin species belong to the families Delphinidae (the oceanic dolphins), Platanistidae (the Indian river dolphins), Iniidae (the New World river dolphins), Pontoporiidae (the ...
s. The line was also the title of the
fourth book in the
trilogy
A trilogy is a set of three works of art that are connected and can be seen either as a single work or as three individual works. They are commonly found in literature, film, and video games, and are less common in other art forms. Three-part wor ...
, and appears in that book as a message inscribed on crystal bowls left as parting gifts from the dolphins to the human race. Its popularity was such that it was the title of the opening song for .
The phrase was spoofed for the 1997
NOFX
NOFX () is an American punk rock band formed in Los Angeles, California in 1983. Vocalist/bassist Fat Mike, guitarist Eric Melvin and drummer Erik Sandin are original founding and longest-serving members of the band, who have appeared on every ...
album ''
So Long, and Thanks for All the Shoes
''So Long and Thanks for All the Shoes'' is the seventh studio album by the American punk rock band NOFX. It was released on November 11, 1997 through Epitaph Records.
Overview
The title is inspired by the fourth book of Douglas Adams's ''The H ...
''.
The phrase was also spoofed for the
All Time Low
All Time Low is an American rock band from Towson, Maryland, formed in 2003. Consisting of lead vocalist/rhythm guitarist Alex Gaskarth, lead guitarist Jack Barakat, bassist/backing vocalist Zack Merrick, and drummer Rian Dawson, the band too ...
track "So Long, and Thanks for All the Booze", from the appropriately-titled album ''
Don't Panic''.
This is also the
title of a track by A Perfect Circle on their 2018 album ''
Eat the Elephant
''Eat the Elephant'' is the fourth studio album by American rock music, rock band A Perfect Circle. It is their first album release in fourteen years since 2004's ''Emotive (album), Emotive''. While early work on new material traces back to as ear ...
''. At their concerts this track was dedicated to the people in the crowd who knew where their towels are. Also, the video features flying dolphins in reference to HHGTTG.
In the 2020 video game ''
Factorio
''Factorio'' is a construction and management simulation game developed by the Czech studio Wube Software. The game was announced via an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign in 2013 and released for Windows, macOS, and Linux on 14 August 2020 follo ...
'', there is an achievement titled "So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish", which is achieved by launching a raw fish into space.
See also
*
42 (number)
*
Apophenia
Apophenia () is the tendency to perceive meaningful connections between unrelated things. The term (German: ' from the Greek verb ''ἀποφαίνειν'' (apophaínein)) was coined by psychiatrist Klaus Conrad in his 1958 publication on the ...
*
Meaning of life
The meaning of life, or the answer to the question: "What is the meaning of life?", pertains to the significance of living or existence in general. Many other related questions include: "Why are we here?", "What is life all about?", or "What ...
*
Somebody Else's Problem
"Somebody else's problem" or "someone else's problem" is an issue which is dismissed by a person on the grounds that they consider somebody else to be responsible for it, or that it is " out of scope" in a particular context.
Examples
A 1976 ed ...
References
Further reading
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Phrases From The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'' (sometimes referred to as ''HG2G'', ''HHGTTG'', ''H2G2'', or ''tHGttG'') is a comedy science fiction franchise created by Douglas Adams. Originally a 1978 radio comedy broadcast on BBC Radio 4, it w ...
Riddles