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Why is 42 an important number?
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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?
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For more on marking an answer as the "Best Answer", please visit our FAQ.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.
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. :-)
42 is a Catalan number, the 5th, not very special, google catalan if still interested. :-)