What is the meaning of "42 is the answer to life, the universe, and everything?"?

Question

without reading the book "the hitchhikers guide to..." i forget what the whole title is.

thanks

Answer 1

It is how many times you scratch your head to try and think of a question that 42 is the answer to.

I've got it. 43-1=42

Answer 2

The answer was given by a computer.  Computers do not think, but actually only make computations and interpret data.  Since the computer works in numbers, it only could answer in numbers - this, of  course, had no real meaning to the life forms that programmed the computers and so comes the comedy of the situation.

Answer 3

It probably means that when you reach to the age of 42, you will become wiser, more discerning, and able look at life from different perspectives.

:D

Answer 4

No one knows. The greatest minds of the universe determined that the answer to life is 42, but by the time they figured it out, no one could remember the question.

Answer 5

It really sounds like it's a cop-out and being flippant by not giving a real answer. I guess it's an excuse to give a silly answer in reference to the book? ;)

Answer 6

The Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything has a numeric solution in Douglas Adams' series The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. In the story, a "simple answer" to The Ultimate Question is requested from the computer Deep Thought, specially built for this purpose. It takes Deep Thought 7½ million years to compute and check the answer, which turns out to be 42. Unfortunately, The Ultimate Question itself is unknown, suggesting on an allegorical level that it is more important to ask the right questions than to seek definite answers.

When asked to produce The Ultimate Question, the computer says that it can't, but it can help design an even more powerful computer (the Earth) that can. The programmers then embark on a further, ultimately futile, ten-million-year program to discover The Ultimate Question, a process that is hindered after eight million years by the unexpected arrival on Earth of the Golgafrinchans and then ruined completely, five minutes before completion, when the Earth is destroyed by the Vogons.

The author was presented with many readers' theories about The Ultimate Question and The Ultimate Answer in his lifetime, all of which he rebutted with his own somewhat apocryphal explanations.

Answer 7

nopes i do not know

Answer 8

When i was younger they said glue was the answer, then in my teens they said weed for the love of god, peace and everything nice.

After those didn't work anymore, someone offered me some 42, and h**l those were the sweeeeeetest taste of nirvana! Want your answer to life, a fun time and everything more? Try some *cough*.. 42..