52 ms·

42 is the answer to these 5 fundamental questions

28 points by sohkamyung 3y ago

hateful 3y ago
> Only, what's the point of knowing the answer if, 7.5 million years later, no one can remember what the question was? I remember it as them not knowing what the question was, not that they couldn't remember what it was. It's a very subtle distinction.
- falcolas 3y ago
  IIRC it was more that they computer had to come up with the properly phrased question before it could answer it. It never shared the full question it answered. From Wikipedia: "Deep Thought points out that the answer seems meaningless because the beings who instructed it never knew what the question was."
  - dragonwriter 3y ago
    > IIRC it was more that they computer had to come up with the properly phrased question before it could answer it. It never shared the full question it answered. It was exactly the opposite: the computer was able to come up with the answer, but insufficiently powerful to figure out the question, which is why it had to design an even more powerful computer, disguised as a planet (Earth), to compute the question. Unfortunately (both for getting the question and for the people living on it), that computer was destroyed just before giving its output. But it was later replaced.
    - falcolas 3y ago
      EDIT: I'm not quite right - Deepthought was never able to identify the question, just the answer. It helped create Earth however. So the parent is correct. :) Deep Thought needed to know the question to answer it, so it came up with the question. Importantly though, it never shared the question it came up with, just the answer. Earth was created to correct that shortcoming and identify the question for the humans.
drcongo 3y ago
For anyone intrigued as to why Douglas Adams chose 42, it was simply the funniest number to have as that punchline. It needed to be double digits, as all the single digit numbers have cultural significances, it needed to not be prime or anything else interesting, and it needed to not be too "round" like a multiple of 5 or ten. He apparently tried a few, and then as soon as he tried 42 the joke landed perfectly. I love the fact that it's so perfect that he's unintentionally created the cultural significance he wanted to avoid.
- dmonitor 3y ago
  A carefully chosen random number.
jacknews 3y ago
Also there are 42 3x3 square Young tableaux, which seems quite interesting, and maybe more fundamental than some (all?) of the examples.
bloomingeek 3y ago
I once owned an Oldsmobile with a 4-speed tranny, dual exhaust and a 400 ci, big block engine. THE answer is 442! (sorry)
n4r9 3y ago
I might be being cynical, but anything involving anthropic units like km or degrees doesn't feel very fundamental. And, since there are provably no mathematically uninteresting numbers, you can pick any number and find some interesting mathematical facts about it :p
landosaari 3y ago
Reminds me of a quote in Pi [0]: “You want to find the number 216 in the world, you will be able to find it everywhere. 216 steps from a mere street corner to your front door. 216 seconds you spend riding on the elevator. When your mind becomes obsessed with anything, you will filter everything else out and find that thing everywhere.” [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pi_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pi_(film)
sohkamyung 3y ago
By a strange coincidence, my HN karma points today ends with 42. :-)
daft_pink 3y ago
I would really like to purchase the ven diagram in this post on a T-shirt. Just sayin'

28 points by sohkamyung 3y ago

> Only, what's the point of knowing the answer if, 7.5 million years later, no one can remember what the question was? I remember it as them not knowing what the question was, not that they couldn't remember what it was. It's a very subtle distinction.

falcolas 3y ago
IIRC it was more that they computer had to come up with the properly phrased question before it could answer it. It never shared the full question it answered. From Wikipedia: "Deep Thought points out that the answer seems meaningless because the beings who instructed it never knew what the question was."
- dragonwriter 3y ago
  > IIRC it was more that they computer had to come up with the properly phrased question before it could answer it. It never shared the full question it answered. It was exactly the opposite: the computer was able to come up with the answer, but insufficiently powerful to figure out the question, which is why it had to design an even more powerful computer, disguised as a planet (Earth), to compute the question. Unfortunately (both for getting the question and for the people living on it), that computer was destroyed just before giving its output. But it was later replaced.
  - falcolas 3y ago
    EDIT: I'm not quite right - Deepthought was never able to identify the question, just the answer. It helped create Earth however. So the parent is correct. :) Deep Thought needed to know the question to answer it, so it came up with the question. Importantly though, it never shared the question it came up with, just the answer. Earth was created to correct that shortcoming and identify the question for the humans.

drcongo 3y ago

For anyone intrigued as to why Douglas Adams chose 42, it was simply the funniest number to have as that punchline. It needed to be double digits, as all the single digit numbers have cultural significances, it needed to not be prime or anything else interesting, and it needed to not be too "round" like a multiple of 5 or ten. He apparently tried a few, and then as soon as he tried 42 the joke landed perfectly. I love the fact that it's so perfect that he's unintentionally created the cultural significance he wanted to avoid.

dmonitor 3y ago
A carefully chosen random number.

jacknews 3y ago

Also there are 42 3x3 square Young tableaux, which seems quite interesting, and maybe more fundamental than some (all?) of the examples.

bloomingeek 3y ago

I once owned an Oldsmobile with a 4-speed tranny, dual exhaust and a 400 ci, big block engine. THE answer is 442! (sorry)

n4r9 3y ago

I might be being cynical, but anything involving anthropic units like km or degrees doesn't feel very fundamental. And, since there are provably no mathematically uninteresting numbers, you can pick any number and find some interesting mathematical facts about it :p

landosaari 3y ago

Reminds me of a quote in Pi [0]: “You want to find the number 216 in the world, you will be able to find it everywhere. 216 steps from a mere street corner to your front door. 216 seconds you spend riding on the elevator. When your mind becomes obsessed with anything, you will filter everything else out and find that thing everywhere.” [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pi_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pi_(film)

sohkamyung 3y ago

By a strange coincidence, my HN karma points today ends with 42. :-)

daft_pink 3y ago

I would really like to purchase the ven diagram in this post on a T-shirt. Just sayin'