42 and Douglas Adams - Numberphile

[@horchcorpse5515]

M (13th letter of the alphabet) A (1st) T (20th) H (8th) = 42

[@Mrtaco-bs1lg]

my brain

[@VibratorDefibrilator]

EARTH = 52... How typical.

[@kacee3472]

😱

[@per-axelskogsberg3861]

Illuminati confirmed

[@YourNickIsTaken]

perl -e 'print length "Answer to Life the Universe and Everything"'

[@bsabruzzo]

42 has to be mystical. It is said that every human over the age of 43 has been age 42. Coincidence? I think not.

[@cuaroz5808]

Illuminazi confiemed?

[@cuaroz5808]

Benjamin Abruzzo, don't believe what Steven Moore says! He's probably just a commie!

[@Mzansi74]

lol

[@douglaslawrence6580]

My thumbs up brought the total to 55. If we can work in the 23 enigma as well then my life's work is just about complete.

[@ianmarkhammes2071]

Benjamin Abruzzo At first, I thought this was just a rumor until it happened to me.

[@MountainHawkPYL]

According to the books, 42 is not the meaning of life, the universe, and everything. It is the "answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything."

[@mantisprint]

YES THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[@cindygracemartinez6933]

MountainHawkPYL Go on....

[@WaspCameraInSpringfield]

Limitation Zero Well, no one knows what the actual question is. :P

[@gdesign95]

Robot Jones the question is... what is 6 times 9?

[@MountainHawkPYL]

42, in base 13.

[@stevecarter8810]

I like the way Douglas Adams basically said "It's the job of everyone on earth to make sense out of existence, a job they will fail at" and everyone's running around finding significance in the shape of the apostrophe of the initial "It's"

[@mrxmry3264]

reminds me of the green pieces of paper that appear in the book :-)

[@shikhanshu]

According to Douglas Adams himself: 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.

[@niclouds5292]

IT'S WIKIPEDIA IT CANT BE TRUE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! +Shikhanshu Agarwal

[@CJBurkey]

In the books, the question was actually "what's 6x7?"

[@bjaurus6375]

Actually CJ the question was "What do you get if you multiply six by nine?"

[@CJBurkey]

Derek Hopkins Really?

[@CJBurkey]

Oh, it's base 13.

[@danohanlon8316]

The British writer, author, speaker, actor, intellectual, Stephen Fry, was one of Douglas Adams’s closest friends. Ten or fifteen years or so ago during one of his many interviews on British television, Fry was asked about Adams and the mystical number Forty-two. Fry said this (I paraphrase.) “Under a promise of absolute confidentiality, Douglas told me the answer; and it’s right there in plain sight-right under everybody’s noses. If only they would look! Its incredibly simple. And it’s brilliant.” There is one such simple ~ish analysis which, although a prime contender I still think is wrong; but it postulates that the ASCII code, 42, creates an asterisk (*)-hinting that “42” can mean “anything you want it to mean.” (Source unknown.) That, however being not quite as “simple” as Fry indicated, I think I can beat it. (Spoiler:) In “The Hitchikers Guide,” the key to the whole saga turns out to be the mice! What do mice do all day-every day? They make more mice. The answer “to life, the Universe, and Everything” is not “forty-two”; its “for - two.” Life is for two. The answer is “Love!”

[@GreenAliceVerte]

I remember that interview and cannot find it anywhere. Was it ever on KZbin? Maybe it was in a behinds the scene somewhere? Loved your answer by the way!

[@DavideBaroni]

I totally second the "ASCII for asterisk" meaning "Anything you want it to mean", although to me it is "Whatever is there to fulfil the meaning" as it'd be in any boolean search. :)

[@finn_underwood]

Common misconception: 42 is the answer to the *GREAT QUESTION OF* life, the Universe, and everything. It is *NOT* the answer to life, the universe, and everything. That was a crucial part of the joke. The supercomputer had to calculate the answer to the question without knowing the question, and arrived at 42. As is later revealed, the question that Earth produced, albeit skewed due to golgafrinchans, was "What do you get when you multiply six by nine." As Arthur says, "I always knew there was something fundamentally wrong with the universe."

[@cachotognax3600]

i hate that too, wasn't that the ultimate question however? seems like everyone who reads that book reads something different, that's genius writing if you ask me XD

[@CJBurkey]

People have pointed out that (I think) in base 6, the answer is correct, which Douglas Adams said is a major coincidence.

[@benjaminhoving]

base-13

[@XxTheXNerdXGuyxX]

Could you think about tagging your spoilers?!?!?!

[@andrewhedrick1612]

It does in base 13

[@steffenblake1039]

In unicode, character #42 (0x00A2) is the * symbol, which is used a wildcard symbol in programming and computer languages. So life is what you make of it, and it can be anything you want it to be.

[@wykah]

It also means "to multiply" so maybe that's the meaning of life :)

[@davidianmusic4869]

Ok, that’s cool.

[@ucantSQ]

This is one of my favorite interpretations. I hadn't thought of the fact that it's the multiplication operator! That's great.

[@jean-marcandjoshua-petsjournal]

Exactly!

[@Chris_Cross]

That's it! That's what I was thinking of. I heard of that ages ago, but I was thinking that it was "42" that was the variable that can stand for anything you want, but it's the "*". Thank you.

[@RaineQi]

It's been 3 years that I found this video that got me hooked on maths videos. Nice little reunion in quarantine

[@anasaloudeh2371]

The meaning of life=MATH M: 13th letter A: 1st letter T: 20th letter H: 8th letter 13+1+20+8=42!

[@dysxSRJEY]

***** 21+21?....yes.....42!

[@noyoutube.2024]

Just English? ?

[@KasabianFan44]

The answer to everything is -1/12.

[@Vnius]

Noob

[@SimonTheDankOne]

It's 42, dummy.

[@dukearchus6526]

Lol

[@codynatof5901]

A reference to -1 + 2 + -3 + 4 + -5 + -6 + 7 + -8 . . .

[@twa9995]

Cody Natof I thought it was 1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8... =-1/12

[@deaglanquinn514]

I really like the idea (though seeming coincidence) that 42 degrees is the angle that light is refracted by rain drops forming a rainbow. The General Mish Mash is just the minute particle back drop of the universe and your angle of perspective dictates how you see life.

[@Life_42]

42nd like

[@xorcyst420]

Douglas Adams also knew a thing or two about programming, and in programming an asterisk is commonly used to translate to "anything you want it to be". In ASCII, "42" is the designation for an asterisk, so in asking a computer to come up with the ultimate answer to "life, the universe and everything", it answered as a computer would, 42 = "anything you want it to be" so on top of it being just funny and random and everything else its presented as, it actually has a deeper meaning if you know what to look for.

[@calebfuller4713]

Except in almost every programming language, * is actually used for multiplication...

[@karenbenton1503]

Douglass Adams literally stared out his window and said “42 will do” at complete random

[@cagedlemp5184]

"What number is funnier than 42?" 25.

[@SlingerMarshall]

Caged Lemp eleventeen

[@vicksterhawk]

Slinger Marshall eleventy is too :)

[@Elosva]

Caged Lemp 27

[@cameodamaneo]

+Caged Lemp I was looking for this comment. I just KNEW it was going to be here!

[@bigbenhebdomadarius6252]

+vicki talbot Eleventy-eleven.

[@ciarasookarry]

The video is 8 minutes and 42 seconds long!!! :0

[@lisiej4327]

8:41... close enough.

[@asue8678]

+Li siej It is 8:42, not 8:41.

[@scottmantooth8785]

the last second is considered a pseudosecond... it's not nice to taunt a pseudosecond as they tend to be very emotional and unpredictable in most of their three dimensional construct projections (except when green and on alternate thursdays of leap years)

[@aeriumsoft]

I am gonna pretend i understood you.

[@scottmantooth8785]

Awsomiihill it's probably better that way

[@RFC3514]

No, Douglas Adams never said he chose 42 "because it was a funny number", on the contrary. He said he chose 42 because it was a boring number, and he didn't want to hide the "big joke" (that the answer to life is simply a number) behind a "small joke" (i.e., a funny or "weird" number). So he picked a number that sounded as ordinary and as boring as possible. He mentioned this in several interviews and (I think) in "The Salmon of Doubt". Unfortunately, a lot of people (including many Douglas Adams fans) completely miss the point, and keep trying to find something funny about 42. The joke is that it's simply a number, not which number it is.

[@jimburrill8149]

I believe on different occasions he would say either “because it is a boring number” or “because it is a funny number.” That leaves me with the impression that he thought it was funny because it was boring... Kind of makes sense to me.

[@skinnynuggetsmith7548]

42ND LIKE WHOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOO

[@marijana.majic.]

Yeah, that's right. However, finding all these hidden meanings in this one simple number... it might just mean D.A. subconsciously knew more than he was aware. About life, universe and everything.

[@ninjatomic]

@ sine moderamine "If you put 42 on the surface of an atom, would that make it a Douglas atom?" Lol! You, sir, win an internetz.

[@erikbostrom3717]

Mark Ryan Douglassium

[@greenfairytina]

That's so beyond great. Lol

[@stapler942]

I thought a Douglas Atom would be Molybdenum.

[@dementy9]

The funniest part about the number 42 is that fans of the books are looking for a deeper meaning in it, while there is just nothing. It is the same thing as looking for the ultimate question. There is no chance of finding one, only thing you can do is just theorize about it. How beautiful, Douglass...

[@michaelmeissner3876]

42 isn't the answer to life, the universe, and everything! It's the answer to _the ultimate question_ of life, the universe, and everything!

[@DaiReborn]

Thank you! I really hate when people miss that bit because that's what makes it make some sort of sense in the story.

[@CoalOres]

What's the question :D?

[@niclouds5292]

+CoalOres How many roads must a man walk down. I am not sure though, i was a kid when i last read it.

[@puppetsock]

+CoalOres The question is: What do you get when you multiply six by nine?

[@michaelmeissner3876]

puppetsock 54

[@AgglomeratiProduzioni]

Hi, I'm an Italian guy, and I'm proud to be from Anzio, Rome! Why? Because Anzio's italian postal code is 00042 and its coordinates are about 42°N!

[@AgglomeratiProduzioni]

Plus, my European shoes measure is 42.

[@screamsinrussian5773]

blessed

[@Marius-g4u8q]

Thanks!

[@777static777]

"What number is funnier than 42?" How does your mind not instantly jump to 69?

[@jamief415]

no

[@777static777]

Jamie Fendt Ok grumpy cat, name me a number funnier than 69 - there aren't exactly that many funny numbers going around

[@Joso997]

21

[@777static777]

Jetserpent Why 21?

[@Joso997]

#777static777 why 42 ?

[@0MA2ANDR35]

When he said that folding a 0.1 mm paper 42 times will reach to the moon in height, i said there is no way. 42 seemed like a small number and easy to count from 1 to it. Then I actually went ahead and calculated it, and discovered that it was really possible. If you calculate 2^42 and multiply by the paper thickness it gives a number grater than the moon-to-earth distance.

[@jimgaluska1361]

Nope; it will only reach just over a 10th of the way. Lets do the math. Paper is .1mm thick so the thickness of paper is 1/10,000,000 or a kilometer. Folding a piece of paper 42 times is the same thing as having 2^42 thickness of paper which equals 4,398,046,511,104. How tall is that? It is 4,398,046,511,104/10,000,000 km or 43,984 km tall. The moon is 384,399 km away from the earth.

[@litterpicker1431]

@@jimgaluska1361 Since when are there 10,000,000 mm in a km?

[@cedricgist7614]

Enjoyed this video a year ago, not having seen or read "Hitchhiker's Guide." Saw the movie last week and the dramatic theme still loops in my head today. The spoiler in this video was long forgotten, so the story was fresh. May not have watched the film had I not seen and remembered this video. Thank you....

[@BornAgainCynic0086]

The movie was horrible, try to see the series, much funnier and truer to the book.

[@alexsampson2630]

Here's in my opinion the coolest thing about the number 42: If you were to find all the triads of regular polygons that "fit perfectly" when they all share one vertex, so each shape shares a side with both other shapes. (e.g three regular hexagons, as in graphene/honeycomb 120 + 120 + 120 = 360) A 42 sided shape has the highest number of sides out of any shape that exists in any of these triads This special triad is: a regular triangle, heptagon and a 42 sided polygon 60 + 128.57 + 171.43 = 360 (All numbers are rounded to 2dp but the equation holds true in exact form)

[@RobertLink]

42 is the center point for a pica typewriter (i.e., the 10 characters per inch kind). This also happens to be the sort of typewriter that was normally used for typing screenplays back before everyone wrote everything on computers. Thus, early in Adams' career, he likely would have started every screenplay by moving his typewriter carriage to character position 42.

[@anasofiapeixotoantaosousadias]

At 5:35, taken out the first number 2, each number resumes to 6. 42 resumes to 6. 6 is a cosmic number symbolized by the Star of David.

[@ClovissenpaiDotR]

Heyyyyy fourty-two here.

[@old5045]

lol

[@unune9069]

@thoughty two

[@ahboy2575]

nice reference

[@Skaos87]

Ooooooh, well damn, I was "always" wondering about that channel's name. It it really meant to be understood that way? Anyway I love it :)!

[@Luisitococinero]

I was thinking all the time on that...

[@Merecir]

Turn the number upside down. You got "2b" To be, is the answer to the question.

[@blue9139]

U have 21 likes... 42/2=21...

[@BertGrink]

0x2B + !0x2B = 0xFF

[@zlatanibrahimovic8329]

Merecir If it were the universe would’ve stopped existing

[@mupadhyaya6091]

Mine was the 42nd like. Have an improbably probable day!

[@chopun3862]

42 likes now. I refuse to like and ruin this perfection

[@philjamieson5572]

When I heard that Douglas Adams had died (and at such an unbelievably young age), I felt like I'd lost a family member, or a close friend. I think his impact on rational, intelligent people (with a sense of humour) will last forever though.

[@Life_42]

❤

[@CasualCoreK]

2:00 42 was never claimed to be the meaning of life. They asked for the answer to the Great Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything. "What is the meaning of life?" was specifically dismissed as a possibility for the question.

[@ronaldderooij1774]

Indeed.

[@paulelliott3220]

Irritates me every time commentators get this wrong Great to see someone get this right

[@kaecilius2656]

aliens then?

[@ascendingneet2263]

So what is the great question of life? Perhaps, what is our purpose? Am I alone behind this phaneron?

[@TheTurnipKing]

Well, there are probably a lot of questions in Life, the Universe and Everything. So, the ultimate question is presumably the one posed when you know all the answers to all the preceeding ones.

[@DynamizMaxim]

In japanese. the sound for 4 is Shi, and the sound for 2 is ni, if you combine them, Shini, it translates to death.

[@napoleon_bonaparte2462]

It actually stems from Chinese, the number 4 is read si 四, which means death 死 (same characters in both languages) - and for the Chinese this is an unlucky number much like our number 13. And in Japanese Shi し is 'death' and shi-ne しね is the verb form, while shi-ni しに is more like 'dying'

[@denizakin5645]

Bloodmoon 死に wouldn't mean anything yet you have to add 方 or something

[@MrNikolidas]

お前は本当に仕方がないやつだ.

[@TheHuntermj]

So the answer to life, the universe and everything is death?

[@felipevasconcelos6736]

Death Note teaching people Japanese!

[@weswheel4834]

I love how Gerardo found some properties of 42 and then made up words to describe them (Pronic number, Primary Pseudoperfect number, Harshad number). Also when James was describing the guy finding mystical meanings for the number 42, I thought maybe it was self-referential. Thanks for the video :D

[@ZerglingOne1]

It's interesting to note that one of the first intentional broadcasts beamed out into space was beeps of the first (at the time) 7 prime numbers. 1 was being counted at the time, so it was 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, and 13. Which is, interestingly enough, when added equal to 42. So, if there was an alien that created the Earth as a supercomputer and waited for the first intentional broadcast to space, it would get 42 as its answer.

[@robotguy]

What number is funnier than 42? 77. It's like 69, only you get 8 more.

[@Mzansi74]

naughty naughty!

[@jimbo-fk4dq]

Nice one!

[@JuanGabrielOyolaCardona]

77 - 69 = 8 , 4*2=8, 42 O.O

[@robotguy]

YoSoyGabo mind. blown.

[@wowguy9393]

42. 4+2=6. 4×2=8. 8×6=48. 48-42=6. 48 and 42 are 2 numbers. 6÷2=3. You know what else has 3? The illuminati. 42 is iilluminati confirmed.

[@markhormann]

Douglas Adams was an unabashed computer nerd & knew a heck of a lot about programming language & coding. In programming, an asterisk is commonly used to translate as "whatever you want it to be". In ASCII language, the most basic computer software, '42' is the designation for an asterisk. A computer, 'Deep Thought' was asked what the true meaning of life was. It answered as a computer would, '42' = "whatever you want it to be" Genius.

[@GeneTakovic225]

It also, coincidently or not, fits well with light refraction at 42°, which is from the perspective of the beholder. We all see from our own perspectives and the universe is what we each see subjectively, from our own personal angle. Whatever you want it to be, indeed.

[@swanbrown]

Here's one: if a=1, b=2, c=3, d=4,etc... math: m=13 , a = 1, t= 20, h= 8...13+1+20+8 = 42 math = 42

[@izd4]

Swan Electro b

[@quinn7894]

S = 19. 42+19=61

[@swanbrown]

Kuin Firipusu and that's why "Maths" is incorrect.

[@yoursbadal]

42 people have already commented this fact.

[@earljohnofucolta404]

The correct word is Mathematics: using the code you suggest, which by the way is what the Greeks used in pre-Roman times: m=13, a=1, t=20, h=8, e=5, m=13, a=1, t=20, i=9, c=3, s=19 ... 13+ 1+ 20+ 8+ 5+ 13+ 1+ 20+ 9+ 3+ 19 = 112 Which would have been Bilbo's age by the end of The Lord of the Rings, so we should all go away and read Tolkien's works: *The Hobbit,* The 6 books of *The Lord of the Rings* and *The Simarillion.*

[@robertpalumbo9089]

my feeling is that 42 is the age when you get a handle on life the universe and everything

[@NoName_emaNoN]

I agree!

[@danohanlon8316]

Douglas Adams’ closest friend was actor Stephen Fry, who tells of when Adams told him the secret meaning of “42”-which, per Adam’s demand, Fry must never reveal. Fry keeps that promise to this day. He did say, however, that the meaning is (almost verbatim) “so incredibly simple. It’s right there in front of the eyes.” This rules out any complicated or esoteric solutions. I maintain that the answer-“to life, the universe, and everything” is that life is *for two.* I.e.: “Love!” (It’s what mice do all day, every day.)

[@Life_42]

Don't forget the invisible zero! 42.0

[@danohanlon8316]

@ Well, if you want to go there, we can’t forget, either, the *infinity* of invisible zeros that come after the decimal point. 😗

[@mysteriumbros8386]

What about Japanese names for the letters: 4=shi 2=ni Shi+ni= shini Shini= death( shinigami=God of death) So the answer to life the universe and everything is death

[@Jivvi]

5:30 It's interesting that a lot of the primary pseudoperfect numbers are also pronic numbers, specifically the product of the previous primary pseudoperfect number by one more than itself. 2×3=6 6×7=42 42×43=1,806 47,058×47,059=2,214,502,422

[@lc285]

Jivan Scarano - These numbers reduce down to their lowest form, 6

[@henrytjernlund]

I too have heard the reason is because the ASCII code 42 is the "*" which is a wildcard (can be anything, including nothing) in many search mechanisms.

[@EmilMacko]

Praise 42 let's all convert to 42ism where we get to live to be 42 where we're then cleansed from 42 (42 is the new word for life), then we'll have math in base 42 and the circumference of a circle relative to its diameter will be 42.424242424242 and every 42ing being breathing the air of 42 will be happy

[@rahatthakur9865]

😂😂😂😂😂

[@TheTurnipKing]

The Whole Sort of General Mish Mash (WSOGMM) is the sum total of all the different ways that exists of looking at things, or more specifically, all the different probabilities that exist through which you could look at things. The Whole Sort of General Mish Mash, one could say, should be viewed as a plate of pie, or as a large tank of water. You could slice it and divide it up any way you'd like, and you'll almost always find a way of looking at things somewhere in probability (a parallel universe) that somebody will find familiar.

[@Garbaz]

Video is 8:42 long. There the 42 is again.

[@lashAR87]

clearly says 8:41 here.

[@Garbaz]

lash 8:42 here, maybe you use Flash-player and I HTML-Player or the other way around?

[@lashAR87]

I've got flash player 16.0.0.235 dont know why mine still says 8.41 never mind, lol

[@Garbaz]

lash Well, I use HTMl 5-Player. Maybe thats why we have different times.

[@codyclark6588]

Garbaz I got 8:41

[@yglitzer]

6x7=42 is the first multiplication I ever learn.

[@allisonearose5380]

this is the most interesting interpretation of 42~ if the number is rotated upside-down, it reads- 2b, so the answer to the ultimate question is for two to be,, or to be for two,, and tea for two and two for tea and me for you and you for me.. after all what would experiencing life be if there wasn't another to share it with..?

[@foreverduke4059]

Scooby dooby doo?

[@twiinsnake]

I heard a story about some guy who asked his mathematics teacher "What is the answer to life, the universe, and everything?" to which his teacher responded with "Math." If each letter is assigned a number from 1-27 in ascending order... M - 13 A - 1 T - 20 H - 8 If added together you get 42

[@wick9427]

Lel noice

[@twiinsnake]

tfw people reply to comments from months ago

[@Mzansi74]

+RMG36000 A light hearted video and light hearted comments and you get so serious?

[@bcubed72]

So...truncation of words isn't a "thing" where you're from? You can't "put some gas[oline] in the auto[mobile]," or "hop on board the [Omni]bus," or "catch an [aero]plane?"

[@sethgrasse9082]

1-27?

[@nicholashylton6857]

Almighty Zarquon, I truly miss Douglas Adams. :( The first time I heard the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, I knew it was something special. As I grew up and came into contact with more science nerds like myself, I quickly realized how much it inspired our particular subculture.

[@thesomeoner]

I just noticed that if you count the characters in: "Answer to life the universe and everything" you get 42 Confirmed.

[@eemisnicker4501]

wrong, it's 42. count again

[@charbelnakad7668]

It's 34

[@awildrengarappeared8419]

(LIFE x UNIVERSE) + EVERYTHING = 42 Calculate with the number of the letters.

[@ewdlop1]

A Wild Rengar Appeared It wont work in other language

[@LudwigvanBeethoven2]

Illuminati confirmed

[@brittneybitch8489]

23

[@brittneybitch8489]

Life universe and everything Total letters 23 Fourty-two 40-2 is 38 38 is 83 backwards 23 - 83 60 Divided by the final number we knew as 1st grade? 10 60:10 is 6 0 is known as a nothing number But it says everything? What's everything ? Messed up Messed up has 8 total letters 8 so there is no nothingness 6 and 8 together are 14 14 . How many lines does the number 42 have? 4 14 and 4 is 18 18 backwards (81) minus the words that are in the life and ... question 23 81 MINUS 23 Is 58 But . Our population is 7.4 billion.. 50.6 if we minus that with the number Billion has 7 zeros 50.6 minus 7 That's 41.6 7 is considered as the lucky number And at the casino there are 3 slots If you win 3 sevens you get the lottery So 7-3 is 4. But 4 what? 0.4 41.6 plus 0.4 Boom. 42 4

[@thesandman8669]

The amount of letters in this sentence is forty two. (i typed this expecting to have to change the sentence around to actually make it 42 letters, but i counted and it was right at 42! I am a believer)

[@bulwynkl]

6 x 9 = 42 in base 13...

[@elsc1479]

Isjt 6 x 9 = 45?

[@drakou111]

Pretty unlucky

[@jazzr5398]

Adlcee 4dlceE it’s in base 13 it’s a completely different number system

[@EvolBob1]

I've discovered something amazing... 42 sits between 2 prime numbers 41 & 43. Here are the products, 2*3*7 = 42, and so does 2, and, 2*3 = 6 and that also is surrounded by 5 & 7 two more prime numbers! If you add up the 2+3+7, you get 12 which is also prime number bookended with 11 & 13. Swap the number around 24 and minus that from 42 = 18, and that also between 2 prime numbers, 17 & 19.... need I say more!

[@coopergates9680]

+Evol Bob ... did you say 1 is prime?

[@muffoschmuffo8993]

+Cooper Gates *air horns*

[@EdoTimmermans]

I just discovered using my computer program for tiling polyominoes that the largest square with a square hole that can be formed with inflated pentominoes is a 42x42-square. The V-pentomino is inflated with factor 14, the L, U and X-pentominoes are inflated with factor 7, the remaining pentominoes remain uninflated. It is a nice puzzle to figure out how this is possible, there is just one solution.

[@sadimkminecraftandmontages2257]

"the answer to life the universe and everthing is 42" has 42 characters

[@alanhilder1883]

The actual sentence has more words than that but no "and". The answer to the ultimate question to life, the universe, everything

[@ladylililala]

42 is 'shini' in Japanese 'Shini' in Japanese.....means death... The answer the life, the universe and everything is death, seems fitting....

[@aperson4075]

:)

[@tedrum69]

You're almost correct.

[@aminhassan545]

deep

[@nikned27th74]

The answer to the !ultimate question! to life the universe bad everything

[@ascendingneet2263]

Ah, perhaps the question must be "What comes after this?" If that is it, that is a very underwhelming response by such a big computer :( We already knew THAT part, we wanted to know more specifically :( Be careful whatcha wish for, ya just might get it get it...

[@FaffyWaffles]

“What number is funnier than 42? 71? 68?” We were on the verge of greatness, we were this close.

[@lucianocortes]

every time they said 42 I was thinking of thoughty2

[@lordchickenhawk]

I think that's why he chose that name. If you start looking at popular nerd culture then references to 42 pop up all over the place.

[@BertGrink]

@lordchickenhawk It *_IS_* the reason Arran chose that number, he has said so himself in the 42. episode of his RIF series (RIF stands for Random interesting) in which he answered a lot of viewer questions about himself.

[@MogalMauli]

My favourite KZbin channel !!

[@barticle]

I'm currently reading the DNA biography 'The Frood' by Jem Roberts. Before HHGG was a thing, Douglas worked for some while with Graham Chapman from Monty Python but he also spent a few days working as prop buyer for John Cleese who was making training films. One film was about accountancy and they needed a difficult calculation to give an amusing result. It was an easy choice because evidently Cleese and Chapman had already agreed in the past that 42 was the funniest number.

[@kraigbailey3321]

On April 29, 2005 at the Disney El Cap theater in Hollywood, I attended the first showing of the film version of H2G2. I had a wonderful conversation with an older gentleman who said he was part of the original H2G2 radio broadcast cast. He mentioned that he asked Douglas Adams why the answer to life, the universe and everything was 42. Adams told him that if you count the # of dots on a pair of dice, you will see there are 42- and life is just a roll of the dice.

[@maiq-theliar4692]

When he says "When 42 turns up, you keep noticing it." I don't think it's a coincidence that you're meant to glance around and see if it appears anywhere else, yet this happens at 0:42

[@marijana.majic.]

Amazing 😂

[@gotcha9983]

Nice

[@prismaflex6195]

The inaudible words that Gerardo said was "It sounds like an innocent property, but it's not."

[@ascendingneet2263]

Wow.

[@ssgcmwatsonusa]

In the digits of pi, the string 424242 occurs at position 242422

[@ericstaples7220]

The meaning to life is to find out the meaning of the number 42.

[@yeh2319]

light broken down by a 42 degree angle into many parts which we perceive visually by a colour spectrum known as a rainbow. We, wholeness, broken down by a prism (prison) into many fractal parts and thats our current "reality".

[@Donk295]

I know what it mean Step add all the number on the faces of a die =21 Do this with two dice Then the take the answers of both die And add them so that's 21+21=42 Then remember how many dice you used 2 in case you didn't remember So you have 2 die The answer Is To die

[@Donk295]

i know just heard it on a show

[@earljohnofucolta404]

This assumes a 6 sided die... If you use an 8 sided die you get a total of 36 Which doesn't help you at all

[@jasonmackenzie3912]

I saw a reason for 42 recently: I'm computer programming '42' is the ASCII code for the asterisk (*) which is used as a placeholder for anything. So the answer to life the universe and everything is 'Anything you want it to be.'

[@erictaylor5462]

So the Ultimate Question then is, What is the only 2 digit primary psudoperfect number?

[@PassionPopsicle]

+Eric Taylor Like we haven't all been wondering for years!!

[@kepler6873]

Eric Taylor in base 10*

[@ryanofarrell186]

The length of the sentence "Answer to life the universe and everything" is 42

[@Suraj_Rao5]

Coincidence? I think not

[@vivafeverfifa2524]

+Kad Leon 42 with spaces

[@MrJimbissle]

I always thought it probably went this way. 'There is a theory stating that any time a sentient being figures out whats going on in the universe and how it all works -[paraphraseing the begininmg of the books]- The universe instantly colapses in on itself and comes back even more inexplicable and confusing than before. ' Q: How many times has this happened? A: 42

[@DeLoN1288]

So, if you count all the numbers on one dice, you`ll get 21. Therefor you need 2 dices to get number 42. Answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything is 2 (to) die. I suppose the ultimate question is What`s the meaning of life? ... To die.

[@lc285]

DeLoN1288 - in Latin die means day. So 2 day= Today.

[@aellalee4767]

At my old university's course fair the philosophy table was table 42 on the map. I walked up and asked if it was on purpose. Then I had to explain. *face palm*

[@user-xx6pr1te7q]

There is a Bollywood movie called Table No. 21. 42/2=21. Coincidence?I think not.

[@stevelc777]

The asterisk, *, is ascii 42. The asterisk is generally used in place of 'anything'. Hence the reference to life, the universe and 'everything' (or the other way of saying 'anything')

[@zoerycroft8314]

"What number is funnier than 42" me - ehe... he... 69

[@wowguy9393]

M8 you aint dank. 420 blaze it upon this bich. #3mlg5you

[@dylansbjpm]

No, 47.

[@bourbonbournvita]

So, I gave you the 69th like 😬

[@Lowtaperdemon]

Did anyone else realize that the video is 8:42 long

[@tiletapper4ever]

Me, _7_ years later. _7_ ×6=42

[@AlistairRiddochSHBEW]

If you google "cuboctahedron" you will find a 14 faced geometric shape that is balanced by sets of twelves. It has 24 equal length edges, 24 equal length "radials" that connect the vertices to the center, 24 external vertices, BUT YET, when you view it in 2D you can count FOURTY TWO sections. And as an added bonus, you will find (and it is not commonly known, maybe not known at all, that a flattened cuboctahedron IS the framework with all snowflakes build upon as they crystallize. When you factor in that it takes 10^20 or so water molecules to make a snowflake, the fact they crystallize persistently around such a framework becomes that much more compelling. Yes, 42 and snowflake shape are intimately related to one another. 42 is GREAT. :-) p.s. Thanks for the video.

[@robertswaine2142]

Video is 8 mins and 42 seconds long, O.O

[@tmcthree]

0:45 Shouldn't that be 1/89th of the time? I'm not a mathematician, but I'm pretty sure there aren't 100 two digit numbers.

[@RuneKillerz109]

00 is a two digit number so are 01; 02; 03; 04; 05; 06; 07; 08 and 09

[@tmcthree]

RuneKillerz109 Seems a bit arbitrary. Wouldn't that make ten a three digit number? 010, 011, 012 etc?

[@tmcthree]

***** Right, but if we were dealing with three digit numbers, we could say that any number below 99 has three digits, just by adding enough zeros to make it so? Or if we were dealing with 6 digit numbers, any number below 999999 has six digits. So 1 then has six digits because we can write it 000001. If fact any number can have almost any number of digits because we can add as many zeros in front of it as we like. See what I mean about it being arbitrary? So what would your answer be to the question, "How many digits are in the number one?"?

[@RuneKillerz109]

tmcthree Originally just one digit but if you use this method there can be as many digits as you want

[@tomtom9509]

Well it also assumes that numbers are equally probable, but in real life, I'd bet that this isn't the case. For instance date numbers (

[@zappawoman5183]

I have slight synaesthesia, to the extent that numbers are colours. 4 is blue and 2 is green, and the Earth in Hitchhikers is described as a "small, blue-green planet". Then the Earth is revealed to have been created as a supercomputer to calculate the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything, so to me it was a very apt number.

[@BallyBoy95]

6:37 What number's funnier than 42? You guessed 71, then 68... you missed it completely, it's SIXTY NINE!! COME ONNNNNN 69 69 69 69 69 69!!!

[@jamesbrowne6351]

No, no. He said, "What's funnier" not what's funner.

[@jamie7647]

This annoys me a lot. 42 is not the answer to life, the Universe, and everything, it is the answer to the Ultimate Question. These are 2 very different things.

[@cachotognax3600]

Ultimate Question About Life, The Universe, And Everything, to be correct, since capital letter makes everything looks cooler(or symilar it was explained in the first book)

[@lostfractal4801]

I highly recommend reading Hitchhikers Guide out loud with a group of fellow nerds.

[@natarito2056]

It's also the "mega lotto number" in LOST. (4 8 15 16 23 42)

[@randomvideosagain1981]

42. Minus 1 from four and add 1 from two. Each digit would be 3. Half life 3 confirmed.

[@caklnl]

Using the Moon distance of 3.85 x 10^11 mm = 2^n (paper thickness) and using the number n = 42 foldings gives a paper thickness of 0.0875 mm. Rounding that to 0.09 mm thick paper and solving for n gives essentially 42 foldings. If I use your assumption of 0.1 mm thick paper, the foldings comes out to 32.

[@ffggddss]

I get, using for the number n, of foldings of material of thickness t, to make a stack of thickness D: n = log(D/t)/log(2) For D = average Earth-Moon distance ≈ 384,400 km = 3.844·10¹¹ mm, and t = 0.1 mm D/t = 3.844·10¹² ; n = 41.8 For n = exactly 42, 2⁴² = 4,398,046,511,104 ≈ 4.398·10¹², t = D/2⁴² ≈ 0.0874 mm I think you got everything right, except for the n=32 for t = 0.1 mm [Looks like you might have used t = 0.1 m to get that 32 . . .]

[@ArcaneEther]

I am still butthurt about Fenchurch.

[@izd4]

I know, right!

[@CJBurkey]

XD

[@CJBurkey]

Sense Locke Read the seventh book.

[@ArcaneEther]

Christmas Burkey Wait...what? The series continued after book 5?

[@CJBurkey]

Jeremy Higgins The sixth was the last one that Adams wrote, but the seventh was picked up by someone else. It's called "And another thing" or something like that.

[@frankienphil9261978]

I was so surprised to hear this that I actually did the math, and it's pretty accurate. If you fold a 0.1mm piece of paper 42 times it will actually be 273281.3937795 MILES thick. The distance to the moon on average is 238900 miles give or take a bit.

[@atouloupas]

Miles or metres?

[@frankienphil9261978]

+Απόστολος Τουλούπας miles (converter app)

[@atouloupas]

+frankienphil9261978 Ok👍 I asked because the thickness of the piece of paper was in millimetres

[@frankienphil9261978]

+Απόστολος Τουλούπας yeah I converted it to miles, because I'm American and kilometers don't mean a lot to me. I have a great understanding of a mile, kilometer not so much. Also the number in km. is even more ridiculously huge.

[@frankienphil9261978]

+World's Biggest Booty Hoes I never even mentioned the Brits. I said that I'm American so km don't mean a lot to me. Metric in general has little meaning to me. The only time I ever use metric is buying soda but even then we switch to oz's. The Brits on the other hand use metric all the time. They even buy gasoline in liters in stead of gallons. They do use miles quite a bit but not exclusively they switch to kilometers when convenient. For example with speed / velocity they use kph far more often than mph. It is very rare to see a speed limit sign is America in kph but they're all over the UK.

[@Digitalhunny]

Numberphile, thank you _si_ much, for the "spoiler warning" at the very start. You see I _just_ started reading the book & I'm not ready for this yet. I'll catch a different video instead. 🤗💖

[@BLiZIHGUH]

What number's funnier than 42? ....43

[@AumchanterPiLetsPlay]

It's the number of Mulder's apartment in the X-Files. Deliberate?

[@birchthompson4378]

42 also features heavily in Lewis Carroll's "Hunting of the Snark" I've also heard it claimed that 42 was chosen because it sounds like 'fortitude' -- necessary to get through life!

[@robodragonn9506]

Never has my screen name been more appropriate.

[@neelmodi5791]

wow i just finished watching this video... and what do you know... its 11:42 pm

[@aformofmatter8913]

For me its 12:06. 12/2 = 6 so we now have 6*2:06 we now set the first 6 aside 2:06 let us extract a 0 0 is divisible by 5 so we replace the 6 with a 5 2:5 2+5=7 now we bring back that 6 6*7=42 I just blew your mind.

[@katzen3314]

Illuminati confirmed.

[@R.F.9847]

The ASCII code for the asterisk (*), which is used as the wildcard character, is 42. Life is what you make of it.

[@Thoughtso573]

So I'm guessing the ultimate question is: What is 21 multiplied by 2?

[@Chaosligend]

Lauren Opara The ultimate question is "What is 6 multiplied by 9". And yes it has to be 56, but it is, for some reason, 42.

[@handtomouth4690]

Chaosligend 6*9 = 54...

[@Chaosligend]

Handtomouth 8991 Ye :)

[@SKyrim190]

Chaosligend It is being done in base 13. 6 x 9 = 42 (in base 13)

[@72Nicholls]

Or (9+10) x 2

[@Peter_1986]

*SPOILER ALERT BETWEEN THESE EXACT TIMES:* 2:10-2:38 In other words, it starts at 2:10 and then continues up until 2:38.

[@eris4734]

42 is the number of 5-second segments of happy-dancing in a 3-1/2 minute vlogbrothers video.

[@platinoir]

I heard that 4 and 2 individually in Japanese spell death so the answer to life, universe and everything is death

[@jeroenverschaeve3090]

+DAKN Nonono, it is death and death, which means it's pure life

[@TheDwagonHD]

+DAKN Yon and ni? I don't know what you mean. :P

[@hermmendez]

well.... it's 4 (shi) and 7(shichi) that sound like death 死(shi)

[@Joeby]

42 is the answer and the question is 6 x 7

[@coopergates9680]

+Joeby What's the second sphenic number? What base smaller than 60 has a ton of finite fraction representations that decimal does not?

[@niclouds5292]

The question is 'how many roads must a man walk down'+Joeby

[@Mister_NO.]

+Joeby hahaha

[@willstace7786]

+Joeby actually... Having return to the supercomputer Earth, albeit in a prehistoric stage, Ford Prefect got Arthur Dent to randomly pull Scrabble tiles out of a bag. This resulted in the Question: "What do you get if you multiply six by nine?"

[@lisiej4327]

Don't you think calling one side of any equation "question" and another "answer" quite strange? It would mean that question is the same thing as an answer.. OK, where am I wrong here?

[@bocajuniorboca]

I was in a training session for a new software system and told the password had to be changed every 42 days. Why? the instructor asked. I was the only one to know why!

[@solwarda2]

According to the book "Pi: A Source Book, by Berggren, Borwein & Borwein", on page 729, it says this: "For those who are familiar with The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, it is amusing that 042 occurs at the digits ending at the 50 billionth decimal place in each of Pi and 1/Pi-- thereby providing an excellent answer to the ultimate question "What's is forty-two?" Hope, you will find that interesting. Thanks.