That becomes a problem for Alice when she eats some mushrooms. There is another theory that rests on a complex allusion to 42 in numerical base It sparked Adams' retort: "I don't write jokes in base So what does Stephen Fry, a close friend, voice of the audiobook, and possibly one of the most intelligent admirers of The Hitchhiker's Guide think? The answer is fascinating, extraordinary and, when you think hard about it, completely obvious.
Nonetheless amazing for that. But sadly I cannot share it with anyone and the secret must go with me to the grave. Pity, because it explains so much beyond the books. It really does explain the secret of life, the universe, and everything.
Even if every existing atom were co-opted into a mind-bogglingly vast computational matrix, it still wouldn't be able to calculate every possible permutation on a chess board, let alone anything truly complex.
Fundamental questions There is still hope that science might come up with answers to the big questions. However, it hasn't provided answers to the most fundamental questions like why we are here, what is the universe for. But just because it hasn't yet, doesn't mean it can't or won't. If so, asking why there is something rather than nothing with mathematics might make no more sense than asking whether a triangle is happy or whether the rocks in the asteroid belt are friends.
Similarly, cosmologists like Stephen Hawking once thought physics would come to know the mind of God in a "theory of everything". He now doubts that is possible. With fiendishly difficult phenomena, like consciousness, scientists have yet to exhaust all their theories.
But could there be a serious side to the answer 42? Might there be method in Deep Thought's madness? Wise joke? The answer can be interpreted in two ways.
One is that it is a bad joke, implying that there simply is no answer, no meaning, no sense in the universe, and you would be no worse off if you jumped into the nearest black hole.
But the other interpretation is that the joke was wise. It shows that seeking numerical answers to questions of meaning is itself the problem. Digits, like a four and a two, can no more do it than a string of digits could represent the poetry of Shakespeare. Fans have come up with numerous theories since Shakespeare's work was the product of a life, and a life lived to the full.
Meaning too might only emerge from such fulsome engagement. To put it another way, life is a gift. It is good. It flourishes in experiences like love, explains John Cottingham, professor of philosophy at the University of Reading, and author of On the Meaning of Life. He believes that philosophy can no more provide meaning than science can. This is because life's giftedness, its goodness and its loveliness are essentially spiritual qualities. They can be assessed by rational enquiry. But they cannot be accessed by the cool calculations of reason.
If that sort of thing troubles you, stick to the first few minutes, which is where all the best Star Trek discussion occurs anyway. Be forewarned that the interview is 30 minutes long, and that you are not going to be able to stop watching once you start, so set aside some time before you click on this: Content View Iframe URL.
Topics douglas adams Everything Else Start Trek. The actor Stephen Fry claimed to know the true answer, but won't tell, saying he'll take it to his grave. The author himself rather undermined the myriad analyses when he dismissed them all with the simple answer that the choice of the number was a joke. It had to be a number, an ordinary, smallish number, and I chose that one.
Binary representations, base 13, Tibetan monks are all complete nonsense. I sat on my desk, stared in to the garden and thought 42 will do. I typed it out. End of story. Throughout history, various numbers have had special meanings ascribed to them. Plato called the study of number symbolism "the highest level of knowledge" while Pythagoras believed numbers had souls as well as magical powers.
Meanwhile, millions of Hitchhiker's fans to this day persist in trying to decipher what they imagine was Adams' secret motivations. Here are 42 things to fuel their fascination with the number The world's first book printed with movable type is the Gutenberg Bible which has 42 lines per page.
In east Asia, including parts of China, tall buildings often avoid having a 42nd floor because of tetraphobia — fear of the number four because the words "four" and "death" sound the same si or sei. Likewise, four 14, 24, etc. The youngest president of the United States,Theodore Roosevelt, was 42 when he was elected.
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