Why is 42 an important number?

[Mobius1]

What's so special about the number 42? I've heard people say that it's a so-called perfect number, but from what I can tell it's not; at least in a mathematical sense anyway. So what gives?

[sddsddean]

Its claim to fame is that in 'The HitchHikers Guide to the Galaxy' by Douglas Adams, the ultimate answer to life, the universe and everything was...42. It took Deep Thought, a huge super computer, 7.5 million years to work this out. It then pointed out that the real problem was no one had thought of the ultimate question. So it designed another computer, so vast, that organic life itself would form part of its matrix. This computer , called The Earth, was to run for 10 million years. Unfortunately, the Earth was demolished 10 minutes before the program ended to make way for a hyper space bypass. Many possible questions have been tried; how many roads must a man walk down? etc. The favourite is 'What do you get when you multiply six by nine?' Answer: 42.

[xyzzy@bok]

Apart from Hitch-hikers' , there is nothing mathematically special about 42; the first perfect number is 6, then 28, then 496 these numbers are perfect because their factors e.g. 6's factors are 1 2 and 3 which add up to 6.
42 is a Catalan number, the 5th, not very special, google catalan if still interested. :-)

[Mobius1]

Cheers, that's very...insightful. Thanks again people! :)

[Hippy]

But six times nine is fifty-four... doh!

[smorodina]

The problem is that the Golgafrincham (?) B ark crashed on the Earth and therefore ruined its programming. So the resulting question could never have been the correct one and probably explains rather a lot about life.

[darth vader]

I seemed to remember that the reason given for why the answer to the question was wrong was "that's machines for you"

[nona suomy]

Xyzzy, at the risk of opening a can of worms - what is a catalan number??

[strozzi]

A little Spanish dress ?

[xyzzy@bok]

hee hee Strozzi :-) Catalan sequence is complex to explain.. that's why i said google for it.. if you know what a Fibonacci sequence is.. well it's kinda like that, it is of not much use on it's own its like a function thing, a constant, a proof. :-)

[sft42]

I'm going in a huff....nobody thought to mention yours truly or the magnificent Level 42 (fronted by Britians best Bass player Mark King) and it was my old house number.

[bluedolphin]

I spent many seemingly endless times waiting for the number 42 to come along and take me and my family to the beach back when the bus conductor had to hammer the bell twice to get the bus driver moving...or was it once...anyway the sight of the number 42 coming along the road was brill.

[football]

SQRT(41*42+SQRT(41*42+SQRT(41*42+SQ... where SQRT() means the 'square root' of the bracketed expression. It's nearly a football pitch!

[treaclefight]

you'll know when you're 43