Why 42? - Douglas Adams Explains | Hacker News Reader

Why 42? - Douglas Adams Explains

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209 pointsinstantramen64 comments

This is my all-time favourite reply to a mundane fan question: http://www.douglasadams.com/cgi-bin/mboard/info/dnathread.cg...

Reminds me of the movie "Galaxy Quest" when Jason (Tim Allen) snaps on his fans (lead by Justin Long as Brandon) who're trying to resolve potential inconsistencies in some episodes Galaxy Quest:

BRANDON: Commander, as I was saying... In "The Quasar Dilemma", you used the auxiliary of Deck B for Gamma override. But online blueprints indicate Deck B is independent of the guidance matrix, so we were wondering where the error lies?

JASON: It's a television show. Okay? That's all. It's just a bunch of fake sets, and wooden props, do you understand?

BRANDON: Yes but, we were wondering-

JASON: There IS no quantum flux and there Is no auxiliary... THERE'S NO GODDAMN SHIP, YOU GOT IT!?

I highly recommend the movie for anyone who hasn't seen it.

I'd expect a less boring answer from a writer, or at least not along the lines of "well, it's just a book I wrote, there is nothing beyond it". As if we are so stupid not to understand that. Every good fiction book is a world within and beyond for the reader. And I think questions like this are more like a test for the writer: "Are you that great?". No, apparently he's not.

His answer on why 42 is as disappointing.

>His answer on why 42 is as disappointing.

Actually I think it's quite brilliant. With all the religions, myths, legends, verbal stories, calendars, moon phases, planet alignments, mathematical projections, physics... these things of complication, what if the understanding the universe is just as simple as 42!?

The problem is that 42 was the answer to an earlier question - once DNA had worked out 42, the original question and universe was replaced by an even more incomprehensible one. And so he has no memory of the original reason for 42.

> "Are you that great?". No, apparently he's not.

That's not really fair - there are plenty of very good motivations for writing (and reading) fiction other than immersion in a sustained imaginative world. By that criterion, "Avatar" is a better film than than, say, "Casablanca," because James Cameron knows more about the flora of Pandora than Michael Curtiz does about Morocco.

Adams is a great writer precisely because of his lack of pretension, his humility, and his irreverence -- I'd be disappointed if he didn't regard his own work with the same outlook he had for everything else.

The grandparent is getting modded to all hell, but there is a genuine point here about the sort of writer Douglas Adams was. Not that he's a bad writer, but that he's the sort of writer who would say his main character has no existence outside the sequence of words designed to create an idea of this imaginary person in people's minds.

Some writers would consider their characters to have some kind of additional existence inside their (the writer's) own mind. They would "know" things about their characters which they never put into print; not to the level of what sort of computer they used, but certainly a more fully-functional mental model of the character beyond the words on the page.

Douglas Adams wasn't one of these writers, he was a writer for whom the characters were always to a certain extent subservient to the joke and the narrative. And Arthur Dent is a particularly strong example of this since there was never all that much to Arthur's character; he's essentially just an unidealised version of Douglas Adams himself who travels around the universe reacting to things in pretty much the same way that Douglas Adams would if Douglas Adams found himself with no home planet and no tea.

Blasphemy! You should know better than to slam Douglas Adams in front of this crowd.

I disagree. Had the number some actual reason for being chosen, some relevance, or some greater purpose, then such would have come out in the book. As it stands, the complete and utter irrelevance of it is almost a plot point in the book. That there is a great system of machinations far greater than what any single individual could possibly understand is a fantastic premise -- that it derives a nonsensical answer that the universe can't comprehend is even more fantastical, and in my opinion, is part of what works about the story; I honestly don't think it would have held as well if the number actually had some importance.

A nice little insight into the writing process, to boot.

The answers to certain questions have value in furthering the story you want to tell. Other kinds of questions do not. Focus on the former, ignore the latter.

Obvious, I suppose. But I also imagine it's vital to keep this in mind as you write a piece of fiction, in order to keep yourself on track.

Reminds me of the Simpsons: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0701245/quotes?qt0207833

Homer: [to Doug] Let me ask you a question. Why would a man whose shirt says "Genius at Work" spend all of his time watching a children's cartoon show?

[pause]

Doug: I withdraw my question. [takes a bite from a bar of chocolate]

I tracked down the clip on Hulu: http://www.hulu.com/watch/30923/the-simpsons-hardcore-fans

Then again, his brain is part of the computer that is supposed to calculate the question, so maybe his random thought was not really random.

7 == representation of divinity

6 == what comes short of divinity, i.e., humankind (the number of man)

666 == emphatic rejection of the influence of the divine in humankind's affairs

42 == 6 * 7, the product of interaction of the divine with humankind, being the most elevated object in creation -- the understanding of this interaction is the ultimate answer, Douglas Adams stumbled on it

And 4 == number of corners in 4 corner simultaneous world time cube. Or something.

A cube has 8 vertices, not 4.

Duh, it's a planar cube!

A two-dimensional hypercube.

A Hypocube?

Indeed.

> 666 == emphatic rejection of the influence of the divine in humankind's affairs

Not really related I suppose, but in Judaism 666 has exactly the opposite meaning. The three sizes represent: the number of days it took to create the world, the 6 cardinal directions (NSEWUD), and the numerical value of one of the letters of gods name.

So in other words 666 is a number that represents the creation of the world.

Strictly speaking, his brain is descended from a population that crash-landed on the computer some two million years ago so it's an open question whether it's even part of the matrix.

I'm one of those developers that frets over the small things. I'll spend what feels like hours trying to figure out how to name things.

I'm working on simply saying "that'll do. The end."

I'll get so much more done.

class ThingyHelper : IThingy { ... }

I hope your head falls off

Naming things is very important. I'm glad someone else gets that!

It is very important, but it can wait. My first cut at any new piece of software has a bunch of names containing words like "stuff" and "thing". I find it's ok to go back and rename things later if it helps you remain in the flow state of just getting your ideas down in writing.

We all work differently. For me, digging in and figuring out what to name the resources gives me a good feeling for the problem domain.

Oh definitely. My wife took a bunch of creative writing classes recently, and one of the biggest things she took away from them is that there is no "right way" to write a book. I'm pretty sure the same is true of writing computer programs!

If you can't come up with a name for something, you probably don't need it.

...or it doesn't need a name

Anonymous functions are your friend.

Well How about naming it whatever and later refractor using Eclipse or something. I do it all the time.

It had to be completely arbitrary for the story. If there was some deep hidden meaning, it wouldn't have been nearly as funny. Even if the number meant something to Adams, it was important that it was meaningless and random in the story, so I'm guessing he'd never let on.

Its the same kind of humor as "a duck!" weighing more than a witch. There's no "ooohhhh" of deep understanding, just a delightful WTF!?

Read this response somewhere. Included in The Ultimate Guide I believe.

Check out this wildly entertaining speech by Adams published last month: http://www.ted.com/talks/douglas_adams_parrots_the_universe_...

If you get a chance, do read his book Last Chance to See (with Mark Carwardine). Easily the most entertaining book of ecotourism I've read.

I had no idea TED had been around that long. Do you know if there's any way to view their full archives?

It's not a TED talk, it's in TED's "Best of the Web".

That's breaking a cardinal rule of artists - maintain mysticism. It's the reason the inspiration for American Pie will never be known. Collective human imagination can come up with a far more interesting opinion than any individual can, regardless of how talented they might be.

Mr. Adams, with due respect, I don't know what the Tibetan Monk explanation is but it sounds way more interesting than your garden.

To me the joy of Adams' humour was his elevation of the mundane. I think this is a perfect example; the fun of this simple little paragraph is that the reality was so parochial but the thing became an independent legend surrounded by Byzantine theories.

Perhaps I'm reading too much into it though...

I agree. In hitch hikers the world is about to end because some one wants to build bypass and earth in in the way. No four horse man of the apocalypse, no wrath of god, it's a planning issue. To make it worse, we (the earthlings) didn't read the planning notice and lodge a complaint.

If only we'd read the little laminated form they stuck up.

Maybe this is just an English thing but I suspect it isn't.

Prosser: But the plans were on display. Arthur Dent: On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar. Prosser: That's the display department. If only we'd read the little laminated form they stuck up.

Arthur Dent: With a torch. Prosser: The lights had probably gone. Arthur Dent: So had the stairs. Prosser: But you did see the notice, didn't you? Arthur Dent: Oh, yes. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign outside the door saying "Beware of the Leopard."

FYI Douglas Adams is, alas, deceased.

The post is from 1993

The comment addressing him directly is from 2010.

His metabolic processes have ceased. He is an ex-author.

What do you get when you multiply six by nine ?

Um. 54? Am I missing a joke here?

54 base 10 = 42 base 13. To quote Douglas Adams, "I may be sad, but I don't make jokes in base 13.".

Alice In Wonderland has an easter egg along these lines. http://www.eeggs.com/items/20350.html

In the original radio series, they found out in the end what the new Earth computer had calculated the question to be: "What do you get when you multiply six by nine?" :)

Perhaps it's the type of question computers are not good at answering.

It's from the HHGTTG.

Yes. You are missing the joke. The answer is 42. The question is "What is six times nine?" Yes, we all know that 6 * 9 is not 42. It makes no sense, and that's just part of Douglas Adams' humor. Many people mistakenly remember the question as "six times seven", probably because it's been a long time since they've read Hitchiker's Guide.

In college, we had an assignment where we had to update an interpreter to always output 42 when it say 6 * 9.

How fitting: http://www.cs.vt.edu/~scschnei/pictures/42.png

Did you know that 50% of Douglas Adams fans do not realize that they constitute half of this guy's fans population?

Erm... actually I find this phrase funny; it can be of course related to anything, and this thread seems relaxed enough to insert it.

But whatever the collective wisdom says...

That's because it's just so hard to mind-meld ourselves for collective thoughts like these.

I love douglas adams, but I don't see how this is vaguely news worthy...

You're welcome.

I hereby demand the world produce another Douglas Adams. I will gladly prepay for this hypothetical man's 1st 10 novels. Now I sit back and wait for the market to satisy my needs. Perhaps a startup whose sole purpose is to produce a Douglas Adams clone? Heck I'd not only be a consumer I'd invest!

For me Terry Pratchett is an entirely acceptable substitute.

Why 42? - Douglas Adams breaks the Myth

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