Why did Douglas Adams choose 42 in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy?

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This is actually discussed in the extras section of either the tv series or the Hitchhiker's Guide movie, though I'm pretty sure it's the former. Douglass Adams actually sat down with a friend of his trying to come up with what they thought was the funniest number, and ended up deciding said number was 42. Incidentally, this is almost exactly the same method used to come up with Slartibartfast's name.
There are 42 Laws to the game of Cricket, which Douglas loved. Could it just be a coincidence? Cricket appears in several forms in the series.
101010 binary = 42 in decimal. Maybe that had something to do with it?
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