In Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy a super intelligent race of beings builds a computer, called Deep Thought, to get an answer to the universe’s ultimate question: “What is the meaning of life, the universe, and everything?”, and in response to this question Deep Thought gives a very simple and supposedly off the wall answer: “42”. Show Now, what if I told you there was a theory that explains exactly what the meaning behind 42 is? Would you believe it? Well, you’d probably be hesitant at first. I was, but once I got to sit down, read through it, and do a little bit of fact checking I became a believer. This is a theory I ran across on Facebook first, I believe. I think it was a meme I saw. I don’t remember one hundred percent, but in researching for this article I did come across a couple, both in meme form, and as a post on several subreddits. I’ll go ahead and link the subreddit post here. With that out of the way, I’ll go ahead and give my explanation of the meaning of 42 and how I’ve taken it and incorporated it into my life and my writing. So, back to the question: “What is the meaning of life, the universe, and everything?” Deep Thought gives “42” as the answer, and with the proper context this is the best answer Deep Thought could give because Deep Thought is giving the answer in the only way a computer understands. What am I talking about? Context. All of this relates to context. One of the theories I saw said that Douglas Adams spent part of his time in school and professional life as a computer programmer. The primary programming language at the time was ASCII. In computer programming the asterisk (*) is a symbol that represents a wildcard, a variable input by the end user and not by the computer program. The asterisk can mean literally anything. What you need to take from this is that, as the end user, the asterisk/variable gains the meaning you give it. How does this have anything to do with The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy? This brings us back to Deep Thought’s answer. Deep Thought answers in the only language it knows, it says “42” giving life an equivalent meaning to that of a variable or wildcard. In essence, Deep Thought is saying that the meaning of life is whatever you want it to be. 42 = life is what you make of it. So, how can this become something that relates to my life and can double as an inspirational message? Well, I have unfortunately started down the path that will lead to a divorce. The end of a ten-year marriage and the literal loss of my best friend. So, right now, life seems to have no meaning for me. I’ve been combating depression daily, and I’ve found a few things that are helping me move on with my life. 42 is one of those things. 42 with the proposed meaning, means I have the ability to choose what my life is worth. It means I have a choice to make about where I’m going from here. It means I can either wallow in depression and self-pity feeling as worthless as a sack of rotten potatoes, or I can dust myself off and chose to live life. I can choose to take this terrible situation and transform it into something that will lead to positive change. I’ve gotten a good look at the mistakes I made in the past. For the first month after the announcement came I did nothing but relive those mistakes. Then the damn broke. I knew if that path continued I would kill myself. So, I made my choice. I chose to get better. Now, because of the power of choice, because of the power of 42, I am well on the way to meeting the new me. What does this have to do with writing? Shouldn’t it be obvious at this point. Life is what you make of it. Life means what you want it to mean, and I want to be writer. So, that is what 42 means to me. I am a writer; each day I sit down at this computer and I bleed words onto the screen. Those words represent the whole of my body and soul. These words are precious too me, because I choose for them to be precious.  The Nir Simionovich Blog In The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, advanced alien beings create a supercomputer, called Deep Thought, to figure out the answer to the so-called Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything. After calculating for 7.5-million years, Deep Thought determined the answer was the number 42. Deep Thought, however, doesn’t know the exact question it was asked to answer, rendering 42 a completely meaningless response. Deep Thought does know, though, that another supercomputer, known as Earth, was to be designed (by Deep Thought himself) to come up with the question in 10-million years. Adams’s joke suggests the quest for any once-and-for-all explanation for existence is absurd and arbitrary.
Why Adams chose 42 has been the subject of much speculation, but in 2007, on a fan-based Usenet newsgroup, Adams put the many conjectures to rest: “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 13, 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.” Still, many fans of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy hunt high and low for coincidental occurrences of the number 42. Adams’s mysterious number even inspired a 2011 book, 42: Douglas Adams’ Amazingly Accurate Answer to Life, the Universe and Everything, by Peter Gill. As noted in a review of the book on The Independent, there are 42 lines per page in the Gutenberg Bible, the first book printed with movable type. Buzz Lightyear’s spaceship in Toy Story is named 42. The element molybdenum, atomic number 42, is the 42nd most common element in the universe. The game of cricket features 42 laws.
Examples of 42I've always gone with '42' | The Meaning of Life Is a Ham Sandwich by @IAmMarkManson @elisadoucette, March, 2017 In the ASCII Language (computer language), 42 is an * or "Wildcard" The greatest computer ever built was asked what the meaning of life is and it literally told everyone in ITS language that "Life is what you make it" Badwolf582, Reddit, February, 2013 Though fans are tempted to look for the meaning in the realm of science, perhaps its [sic] easiest (and most satisfying) to think of 42 as exactly what it is: a symbol of life’s inscrutability. Justin Andress, “Towel Day, Douglas Adams, and the Real Meaning of ‘42’,” Inverse Entertainment, May, 2016 SEE MORE EXAMPLES Who uses 42?Throughout traditional media, on social media, in casual conversation, and other areas of culture, 42 enjoys use as a light-hearted allusion and in-joke among fans of Douglas Adams and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
42 pops up as a clever allusion—and tribute—to Douglas Adams’s book in popular culture. For instance, if users search for “the answer to the life the universe and everything” on Google, it provides: =42. As another example, Senator Ted Cruz started off his questions to Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch during his March, 2017 hearings with a reference to Adams’s “ultimate question.” Gorsuch answered “42.”
Just Addednepo baby, tripledemic, home provider, iykyk, line warmingNoteThis is not meant to be a formal definition of 42 like most terms we define on Dictionary.com, but is rather an informal word summary that hopefully touches upon the key aspects of the meaning and usage of 42 that will help our users expand their word mastery. Why is 42 associated with the meaning of life?What does 42 mean? 42 is the answer to the “ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything,” a joke in Douglas Adams's 1979 novel, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
What does 42 mean in slang?"The Answer to Life, the Universe and Everything (from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy)" is the most common definition for 42 on Snapchat, WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok.
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What does 42 mean in the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy
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