DNA's response to the meaning of life: 42

Paradyne7

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Feb 5, 1997, 3:00:00 AM2/5/97

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To those of you trying to see the message in Adam's meaning of life:
DNA himself has said:
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 thirteen, 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.

-Paradyne

Totte J

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Feb 8, 1997, 3:00:00 AM2/8/97

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Joha...@vasa.gavle.se (Totte J) wrote:

>para...@aol.com (Paradyne7) wrote:

>>-Paradyne

>--

>Yeah, that's right, but...

>...the number 42 is a quite frequently used number, and is by some
>reason one of the most probably numbers to get up on random. This fact
>could quite sure have infected DA's own brain when writing the books.
>The human race *can* be counting, you know... ;-)

><N.Totte J:son Rose deLambert>

For example, in a English test we had the other week, question number
42 (coincidence?) was about the stars of Betelgeuse and Aldaran!

Totte J

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Feb 8, 1997, 3:00:00 AM2/8/97

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incident

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Feb 12, 1997, 3:00:00 AM2/12/97

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In article <5dfmli$e6r$4...@fizban.solace.mh.se> Joha...@vasa.gavle.se (Totte J) writes:

From: Joha...@vasa.gavle.se (Totte J)
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Date: Sat, 08 Feb 1997 01:42:49 GMT
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Joha...@vasa.gavle.se (Totte J) wrote:

>para...@aol.com (Paradyne7) wrote:

>>-Paradyne

>--

For example, in a English test we had the other week, question number

42 (coincidence?) was about the stars of Betelgeuse and Aldaran!

Yeah and your brain could be lying in a vial with nurtrients, just you cant know it because you can still feel things and what ever the electrods on your cortex does not do your brain fills in.

as for the probabillity of the number 42, the use of a number decreases exponentially in proportion to its size, thus 1 is used very often, but 10 to the 1000000000 is not. And suppose that we are computing... then Betelgeuse would certainly have nothing to do with our mission and therefor it is of no significance that the questions number is 42.

cmh <inci...@kuai.se> elfanyar mi vilya

Rob Speer

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Feb 12, 1997, 3:00:00 AM2/12/97

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Um, so we use 41 more than 42? As far as I know, 41 isn't a very common
number. For good reason, too - it's prime, and 42 has 6 factors, so
you're a lot more likely to get it as the answer to a math problem.

Saying 42 is less significant that 41 is insulting the Universe, and
that's Wowbagger's job.

Now I realize something that helps add to Zaphod's ego - since Wowbagger
goes by first name and not last, Zaphod will be one of the last people
to be insulted. In fact, one should think it would happen at
Milliways. But that privilege probably goes to somebody with a lot more
Z's.
--
Rob Speer
"You are a jerk, Arthur Dent, a complete kneebiter."

para...@aol.com

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Feb 13, 1997, 3:00:00 AM2/13/97

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In article <y144tfi...@moksha.kuai.se>, inci...@moksha.kuai.se (incident) writes:

> For example, in a English test we had the other week, question number
> 42 (coincidence?) was about the stars of Betelgeuse and Aldaran!
>
> <the same>
>
>Yeah and your brain could be lying in a vial with nurtrients, just you cant
>know it because you can still feel things and what ever the electrods on your
>cortex does not do your brain fills in.
>
>as for the probabillity of the number 42, the use of a number decreases
>exponentially in proportion to its size, thus 1 is used very often, but 10 to
>the 1000000000 is not. And suppose that we are computing... then Betelgeuse
>would certainly have nothing to do with our mission and therefor it is of no
>significance that the questions number is 42.
>

>cmh <inci...@kuai.se> elfanyar mi vilya

uhhhhhh errrrrrrrr what?

Joe Mason

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Feb 15, 1997, 3:00:00 AM2/15/97

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-> Now I realize something that helps add to Zaphod's ego - since
-> Wowbagger goes by first name and not last, Zaphod will be one of the
-> last people to be insulted. In fact, one should think it would
-> happen at
-> Milliways. But that privilege probably goes to somebody with a lot
-> more Z's.

Hmm, I wonder if Agrajag gets insulted just once, or once for each life?

Joe

Liberg olOf

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Feb 17, 1997, 3:00:00 AM2/17/97

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Yeah, my point exactly...

I know cmh and i will now turn around on my chair and hit him quite hard
on his back. And I will hit him again if he can't explain...