Deep Thought took 7.5 million years to calculate this answer, and this is all Deep Thought had to say about it. Arthur Dent has the Ultimate Question stored in his mind subconsciously. It is revealed in the following books that the subconscious question was drawn out of him by drawing random Scrabble tiles. The message said "What do you get if you multiply six by nine?" The answer is obviously 54, but Deep Thought's answer was 42. Dent sees this and says, "I always thought something was fundamentally wrong with the universe." Even though an ordinary game of Scrabble only contains 2 Y's, this message managed to have 3.
But why the number 42? Douglas Adams was asked many times why he chose the number 42. Many theories were proposed, including that 42 is 101010 in binary code; some readers noticed that 6 × 9 = 42 when using base 13. Douglas Adams later joked about this observation, saying, "I may be a sorry case, but I don't write jokes in base 13." Light refracts off water by 42 degrees to create a rainbow, and light requires 10−42 seconds to cross the diameter of a proton. Adams rejected all of these theories. On November 3, 1993, he gave an answer on alt.fan.douglas-adams: "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." It is evident that Adams was merely trying to be humorous by this. He had stated that he chose a random number. "The argument goes something like this: 'I refuse to prove that I exist,' says God, 'for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing.' 'But,' says Man, 'The Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED.' 'Oh dear,' says God, 'I hadn't thought of that,' and promptly vanished in a puff of logic." The entire novel was written to be nonsensical, weird, and humorous (especially since it was written off of a BBC radio comedy). Themes of foolishness and strangeness are present throughout the novel and manifest themselves in the characters: particularly Zaphod, who hopes to find the legendary planet of Magrathea, "Trillian had come to suspect that the main reason why he had had such a wild and successful life that he never really understood the significance of anything he did." Perhaps one can benefit from his or her own foolishness?
Many of the events in this novel appeared to be very absurd, without having a real meaning. However, it is discovered that these seemingly random events do have a cause or purpose. Characters are constantly trying to figure out why they are doing what they are doing. However, Adams always puts these events of absurdity in places were reason is present, so that the lack of reason is highlighted. An example of this is found in the very first chapter, when a group of contractors are attempting to demolish Arthur Dent's house. Arthur claimed that he wasn't given notice of the demolition, but Mr. Prosser was absolutely convinced that Arthur was aware of the plans for destruction. The plans were "on display" behind a sign reading "Beware of the Leopard," in a locked filing cabinet in a disused bathroom located in the darkened, stairless planning office's cellar; an absurd form of a "warning" to Arthur. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a story about opening our eyes to the seemingly crazy things are realizing their importance (or unimportance, when compared to the vastness of the galaxy), as well as looking outside the normal and seeing the connections between everything. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy was originally a radio comedy broadcast on BBC Radio 4 created by Douglas Adams in 1978, later it was adapted to other formats, and over several years it gradually became an international multi-media phenomenon. Adams wrote a "trilogy" of five books, and it was adapted into a 1981 TV series, a 1984 computer game, and three series of three-part comic book adaptations of the first three novels published by DC Comics between 1993 and 1996. Radio adaptations of the third, fourth, and fifth novels were broadcast from 2004 to 2005. The Film In April 2005, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy movie was released. It starred Martin Freeman, Zooey Deschanel, Mos Def, Sam Rockwell, Alan Rickman, and Stephen Fry. Adams co-wrote the screenplay but died before production began. The film is dedicated to him.
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