Was Douglas Adams referring to anything in the real world when he said the meaning of life was 42?

Question

I realize it could just be arbitrary but since he is a philosopher as well as an author, I thought he might be referring to something - maybe scientific data?

Answer 1

Seeing as the rest of the books have a absurdistic sense of humor I think he just meant it as another wierd joke.

There has also been a puzzle by douglas that looked like this:

http://www.redoaksag.org/Blog/content/bi...

The objective of the puzzle was to think of a question about the puzzle to which the answer is 42.

My thoughts are that - as a philosopher - he wanted to make people think about the meaning of life. And an inspiring way to make people do it was to already provide the answer and let people make up the question.

He certainly reached you!

You, in turn, made me think about this, thanks :-)