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

Answer 1

The question, as it appeared in the Douglas Adams book The Restaurant at the End of the Universe is "What do you get if you multiply six by nine?"

This was previously changed to the question (from a Bob Dylan song)

"How many roads must a man walk down?"

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Having discovered that the Answer to the Ultimate Question of life, the universe, and everything is "42," the search continues to discover what the actual question was. The answer to this question is of course wrong because 6 x 9 = 54 in our base 10 math. However, 6 x 9 does equal 42 in base 13, a fact disclaimed by author Adams as completely serendipitous.

A subsequent book in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxyseries bore the title Life, The Universe, and Everything.

(see related question)

Answer 2

Introduction to the Answers:

This Question was first posted under both Philosophy and Science Fiction. Therefore, the following Answers will relate to those two general areas.

• Science Fiction:

42.

Discussion of the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything appeared in Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series of books. According to the super computer Deep Thought, the answer is "42". The problem was that no one knew what the question was. According to the book, another computer was created to discover the question, that computer being the planet Earth.

In the sequel, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, it is discovered that the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything (possibly slightly distorted) is: "What do you get if you multiply six by nine?"

While 6 x 9 = 54 in base 10, it does equal 42 in base 13, which author Adams claimed was completely serendipitous.

Previously, the designers of the computers had given up, and settled for the question "How many roads must a man walk down?" (from Bob Dylan's Blowin in the Wind)

• Philosophy/Religion:

On a less frivolous note than the above answer, the philosophy of Judaism is that this world is a purposeful creation by God, in which all people are tested concerning their use of free-will. We possess a soul which lives on after the body dies and is held responsible for the person's actions. Anyone who is worthy can merit reward in the afterlife.
Also:

1. God exists, and is the Creator.
This tells us that the world is not chaotic or the result of chance. Life is the work of a deliberate, purposeful, intelligent and kind Creator; not a melancholy chaos or a string of fortuitous accidents. God is at the center of reality and the center of our world-outlook and thoughts.
2. God is eternal.
This includes the belief that God's ways are also eternal. God is not capricious, forgetful or fickle.
God is just (Deuteronomy 32:4); and all outstanding accounts are settled after this life.

Answer 3

This is from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (UK radio series, novel 1979)

It is never absolutely established, but it may have been

"What do you get if you multiply six by nine?"

....

In The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy trilogy, Deepthought is the ultimate computer which is programmed to deliver the answer to the ultimate question. The answer is 42. But no one recorded the question. A new computer must now be built to discover what the question is - but this computer is damaged during its construction (so that its answer may not be reliable), and then just before it is due to produce a result, it is destroyed due to some clerical mismanagement. Douglas Adam's novel is a satire of the pointlessness of modern society (it was written during the Thatcher years in Britain). The point of the novel is that there may not be an answer, and if there was - who would care?

42 has quite an interesting history as the ultimate answer. In Alice in Wonderland the King tells Alice that Rule 42 is 'the oldest rule in the book'.

When the question is believed discovered in a sequel, it is "What do you get if you multiply six by nine?" To which protagonist Arthur Dent replies: "Six by nine? Forty-two? That's it? That's all there is? I always thought there was something fundamentally wrong with the universe."

(see questions and answers in discussion)

Answer (not from Hitchhiker's Guide):

There are only three questions which one should be concerned with and none have anything to do with 42. Where did I come from, Why am I here, and Where will I go when I die?

Answer 4

You were created by God in order to be tested as to how you use your God-given free will.See also the Related Links.

Link: Were you created?

Link: Why did God create us?

Answer 5

The correct answer would be, 42.

Answer 6

According to "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", the answer is 42.