42

Overview

42 is, per The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything. It is also — per this wiki's editor — the answer to several other, lesser questions, none of which will be enumerated here.

The Problem

In the novel, a supercomputer named Deep Thought is asked the Ultimate Question. After computing for 7.5 million years, it answers: 42. The beings who asked then realize they don't actually know what the Question is. A larger computer is commissioned to work it out. The larger computer is Earth. Earth is destroyed before it finishes. This is structurally unhelpful.^[1]

Why It Keeps Showing Up

The number 42 is referenced with disproportionate frequency in engineering culture because it captures something true about engineering: an answer without a clearly-posed question is less useful than it looks. This is also the problem with many dashboards.

Burbridge has been known to answer unclear meeting questions with "42" when the question wasn't actually a question. The response usually goes unacknowledged, which is correct: an unclear question deserves a famously unhelpful answer.

"There is no point in using the word 'impossible' to describe something that has clearly happened." — Douglas Adams

Did You Know

Typing 42 on any page of this wiki may do something interesting. The Council of Builds has declined to confirm. The reader is invited to experiment.

References