Deep Thought
Swimmin' with Forty-Two thankful fish eating dolphins on my Blue-Green planet thinking my digital watch is pretty neat and wondering What is a Hyperspatial Express Route, anyway?

LIFE Is .... Paradoxically Coincidental To The Ironical Tyrrany Applicable To The Unparalleled Definition Of Reverse Entropy

This document provides a list of all of the current calculations that DEEP Thought has accomplished throughout its lifetime and SIGHTINGS of the final Answer throughout our world.

Background Information

As any digital hardware engineer, or software engineer, can tell you, the number '42' in base ten is equal to '101010' in base two. This alternating pattern of ones and zeros illustrates DEEP Thought's indecision about the Ultimate Question.

Of course, in the original Hitchhiker's Guide radio scripts, when Arthur has the "cave man" put out Scrabble stones and the sentence "What do you get if you multiply six by nine?" emerges, and then Arthur says "Six by nine? Forty-two? You know, I've always felt that there was something fundamentally wrong with the Universe." -- it is at this point that a faint and distant voice says "base thirteen!".

42 (base 13) is equal to 54 (base 10). (Of Course -- Douglas Adams has been quoted as saying " You just don't write jokes in base 13!" ) To dispel any myths about 42 (and to make Douglas Adams Happy!), Douglas Adams also wrote on USENET: 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

This page is dedicated to the admirable works of Douglas Adams (DNA), the well renowned author of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" (the increasingly innaccurately named Hitchhiker Trilogy), etc.

The following is a list of the places where DEEP Thought has accumulated the answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything throughout the world.

EARLIEST RECORDED SIGHTING

The following Biblical sighting is from 2 Kings 2:23-24 (23) And he [Elisha] went up from thence unto Bethel: and as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head. 24 And he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the LORD. And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare "forty and two" children of them.

Pre DNA Sightings

  1. NEXT EARLIEST RECORDED SIGHTING: Numbers, 35.6: And among the cities which ye shall give unto the Levites there shall be six cities for refuge, which ye shall appoint for the manslayer, that he may flee thither: and to them ye shall add forty and two cities.
  2. In the New Testament, Matthew 1:17, (King James Version) "So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations; and from David until the carrying away into Babylon are fourteen generations; and from carrying away into Babylon unto Christ are fourteen generations" Adding these 3 fourteen's together produces 42! i.e. There were 42 generations from Abraham to Jesus Christ.
  3. In Marx's Brother movie "Horse Feathers", 1932, Groucho was given direction to a speakeasy, located at 42 Elm street.
  4. '42nd Street' was a screen musical in 1933, directed by Lloyd Bacon (1890-1955)
  5. Bach (the Baroque composer, of course) was into numerology. One of his favorite numbers was 42, arrived at by taking the numerical value of the letters BACH and multiplying the sum by 3 (3 being symbolic of the Trinity). B + A + C + H (2 + 1 + 3 + 8 = 14) and 14 x 3 = 42
  6. "The beast was given a mouth uttering proud boasts and blasphemies, and it was given authority to act for forty-two months" Revelation 13:5
  7. Forty-two months was how long the profanation of the holy city was to last Revelation 11:2
  8. Twelve hundred and sixty days (forty-two months) was the length of the prophetic mission of the two witnesses. Revelation 11:3
  9. Twelve hundred and sixty days (forty-two months), is the length of the retreat to the desert the woman goes on to escape the Serpent. Revelation 12:6-14
  10. "But leave out the court which is outside the temple, and do not measure it, for it has been given to the Gentiles. And they will tread the holy city underfoot for forty-two months." Revelation 11:2
  11. The Torah (the holy book of Judaism) is broken into columns, each of which always have exactly *42* lines of Hebrew!
  12. It took God 6 days to create the universe. He rested on the 7th day which is considered to be a holy day by many. 6*7 =42!
  13. The phrase "In the beginning the Universe was created." - including the spaces and the period (but not the quotes) contains 42 characters!

Natural Phenomenon and Mathematical Sightings

  1. The Earth is 42 orders of magnitude (based on powers of ten) larger than the Planck Length (in case you dont know what that is, it is the smallest length that humans have been able to measure; all below the Planck Length is impossible to measure because time and space merge, and relativity ceases to be the rule. The Planck Length is 1 x 10-35 m.)
  2. The angle at which light reflects off of water to create a rainbow is 42 degrees.
  3. A 42 mile per hour wind brought down the original Tacoma bridge in the state of Washington in the 1930's
  4. Convert the letters of the word "Iron sulfide" into numbers of the alphabet. (Iron sulfide being (for the record) the true name of fools gold.) I.e: IRONSULFIDE gives 9, 18, 15, 14, 19, 21, 12, 6, 9, 4, 5. Now then, Adding up the first 3 digits yields a total of 42. Adding up the next 3 digits makes 54, which is what 42 would be in base 10, if 42 was originally written as base 13 (The significance of which is widely known). Adding up the rest gets you 36, which is 42 written in base 12.
  5. An interesting and oft-cited factoid states that when asked to choose a random number between 1 and 20, 17 is the number most often chosen. A quick test reveals the following: 42 = 7 * 2 * 3, 17 = 7 * 2 + 3
  6. "The Sri Yantra is drawn from nine triangles, four pointed downward and five pointed upward, thus forming 42 (6x7)[sic] triangular fragments around a central triangle. There is probably no other set of triangles which interlock with such integral perfection." from "Sacred Geometry" Lawlor R., Thames and Hudson NY,1982 p.9.
  7. 42 is the natural vibration frequency of human DNA (Ha! Ha!)
  8. 42 is the natural vibration frequency of white mouse DNA. (Ha! Ha!)
  9. It is 4.2 light-years to the nearest star from our solar-system?
  10. The chamber in the Cheops pyramid is exactly 42 metres over the ground
  11. The total number of dots on a pair of dice is 42
  12. 42 is 4 tens and 2 ones. 4 is the only perfect number (the number is a perfect square AND it is the only number to have the same number of letters as the number represents) 2 squared is 4, the perfect number.
  13. Take ANY number, square its digits, and then add them up. Do the same thing with the answer. If you keep doing this indefinitely your final answer will either be a 1, or you'll enter a loop of solutions that -culminate- with the number 42!!!!!
  14. The Department of Mathematics at the Muenster-University are most interested in the relation between the numbers 42 and 17. Here some examples:
  15. 42 is the number of the beast 6*6+6=42
  16. The latest evolutionary "Missing Link" is 4.2 million years old
  17. Water is most dense at 4.2 degrees celsius. Ice therefore floats on water, and allows marine life to survive below it.
  18. The integer part of the square root of proton mass divided by electron mass gives 42
  19. The element Molybdenum is vital for plant life on earth. The Atomic Number of Molybdenum is 42
  20. 5+4 (The parts from 54) = 9; 4+2 (The parts from 42) = 6 "What do you get if you multiply 6 by 9" The answer is all yours.
  21. 1932 Is the year when Ford and Arthur return to the present in "Life, the Universe..." and it's also the day that the Vogons came to the earth. Therefore: 1986 (The year of the Copyright) - 54 = 1932!!!
  22. From Nicholas E. Scripture: 50 Mathematical Puzzles and Oddities, Faber and Faber, London,1963, p.47, chapter "Oddments in Algebra", No. 30: The problem is: Prove that for any value of 'n', as long as it is a whole number, (n7-n) must always be a multiple of 42.
  23. 42 = 24. Other than 24, this is the only non-palindromic two-digit number for which that is true
  24. If you assign the alphabetical value of to the letters of the words: BIG BANG (or GNAB GIB) you get 2+9+7+2+1+14+7 which equals to, indeed, 42
  25. They've found a star that has a planet circling around it for the first time. Distance to this star: 42 light-years
  26. A grad student at UVic says that the lifetime of the universe will be 1042 years. Note that this is the lifetime, not the age...
  27. Propane boils at -42 C
  28. The maximum temperature in degrees celsius a human can survive in case of a disease is (of course) 42 degrees celsius !
  29. The REAL Hubble is (d / s) distance over speed of galaxies. As we cannot measure the speed accurately, the Constant is not known but scientists think it is betwixt 100 and 40, therefore it could be FORTY-TWO.
  30. 42 is the Number of Great Lakes areas Of Concern
  31. If you take the number 'PI' as 3.14, and multiply the whole part (3) by the decimal part (14), 3 X 14 --> 42
  32. The Specific heat capacity of water is 4200 J/kg oC(Jewls/Kilograms x degrees celsius)
  33. If you drilled a hole through the Earth from one point to another, and that hole was frictionless, it would take 42 minutes for gravity to move you from you side of the tunnel to the other. That also goes for satellites orbiting the Earth with only gravity moving them.
  34. The galaxy M84 (Messier Catalog) is 42 x 106 light years distant. It is an elliptical galaxy in Virgo with a diameter of 25,000 light years
  35. Two physical constants in the universe are the speed of light and thediameter of a proton. It takes light 10 to the minus 42nd power seconds tocross the diameter of a proton.
  36. The Earth is sometimes referred to as the third stone (or rock, if you're a Jimi Hendrix fan) from the sun. A stone (British measurement system) is 14 pounds, so we have 3 x 14 = 42
  37. The world record in memorizing PI is quoted, from the Chicago Sun-Time, to be "over 42,000"
  38. All dogs have a total of 42 teeth over their lifetimes
  39. The average dormancy of an active volcano is 42 years.
  40. The fastest speed for a land animal for 1 mile is 42mph (Guiness, page 59).
  41. Greatest recorded distance covered by one jump of a kangaroo is 42 feet (Guiness, page 71).
  42. The longest lava flow recorded is 42 miles (Guiness, page 129).
  43. The worlds widest conveyor belt is 42 feet wide (Guiness, page 335).
  44. The largest shoes ever sold were size 42 (Guiness, page 361).
  45. A barrel contains 42 gallons.
  46. The time it took for one person to eat an entire ox was 42 hours (Guiness, page 492)
  47. 42 occurs infinitely many times in then number PI.
  48. When PI is rounded to the third decimal place contains the number 42
  49. Consider the following: ( ( 1 * 2 * 3 ) - 4 + 5 ) * 6 = 42
  50. In reverse polish notation (postfix), used on most HP calculators (and others), the expression
  51. 2 4 2 4 2 * + * + evaluates to 42! (This, of course, is closely related to the fact that the binary number system, 101010 means 42, or that in base 4, 222 means 42).
  52. SQRT(41*42+SQRT(41*42+SQRT(41*42+SQRT(...))))=42 where SQRT() means the 'square root' of the bracketed expression.
  53. The Efficiency of human respiration is 42
  54. The number of chromosomes of harvested wheat is 42
  55. In the "Tree Information" sketch for Monty Python, the Larch (the one they show over and over again) is tree number 42.
  56. 42 in base 4 (222) is the same as in base -5 ie. 54
  57. 1 joule is equal to 4.2 calories
  58. The following question appears in the Rhind Papyrus, which is the oldest mathematical book known and originated in Egypt in 1650 B.C.: "If a certain number, two-thirds of it, half of it, and a seventh of it are added together, the result is 97." The number, of course, is 42. (x + 2x/3 + x/2 + x/7 = 97 --> x = 42) This was derived from an 8th grade Addison-Wesley Algebra book, page 444.
  59. 42 in base 4 is 222 or 4;222. Also, if you multiply or add the digits together, you get the same thing for 42 and 222.

Media Sightings (Television, Movies, Radio, Magazines, Books, etc.)

  1. There are 42 countries in the game of Risk
  2. 42 was the name of the painter in episode 2 or 3 of the Prisoner series
  3. Fox Mulder from X-Files, apartment address is 42
  4. An episode of X-Files, FOX TV aired 3/10/95, makes reference to a ship being lost for 42 hours
  5. An episode of Simpsons, FOX TV aired 3/13/95, had the Simpsons family driving down the rode past a sign that stated the next restaurant is 42 miles
  6. There was/is an English band called "Level 42" which was actually inspired by HHGTTG
  7. There is a local radio station called OK-Radio, in Hamburg Germany which advertises with the sentence: "more the 42 times a day, we bring you the OK-Radio traffic report"
  8. The Adventurer Magazine for Lucas Arts, Winter 94/95, Page #7 has a screen shot from Dark Forces, with a score of 42
  9. Ad title from Dr Dobb's April 95, page 53 - "Productivity Headache #42, Lots of helpfile, not much help"
  10. An episode of Medicine Ball, FOX TV aired 3/21/95, made a reference to a patient whose age was 42
  11. An episode of Married with Children, FOX TV aired 3/20/95, had a football game where the score was 42 to 0, with Al's team losing
  12. In the movie "Teenwolf", Michael J Fox has the number 42 on his jersey.
  13. the song "Minimum Wage" by 'They Might Be Giants' is 42 seconds long.
  14. In the movie "Ghost", Patrick Swayze learns to move things (as a ghost) at subway platform 42.
  15. In the book "James and the Giant Peach", the centipede has 42 legs
  16. In Kansas's (the band) song 'Closet Chronicles', (from the Point of Know Return album) they have the following line: "Gazing out the window, from the FORTY-SECOND floor..."
  17. Joseph Heller's Novel "Catch-22" has 42 chapters.
  18. A well-known traditional Scottish Folk Song encrypts The Answer by reversing the digits: "Four and Twenty virgins/came down from Inverness"
  19. In Pet Shop Boys' video "West End Girls", a bus suddenly appears with no obvious reason. It has nothing to do with the rest of the video. The number on the bus is of course 42
  20. In the recent film _The FUGITIVE_, the bus which takes Harrison Ford from the prison at which he is held to the place where he is supposed to be executed is numbered 42
  21. LucasArts's classic "Zak McKraken and the Alien Mindbenders" has the number "42" plastered all over
  22. In "Pulp Fiction", Samuel L. Jackson (Jules) cites Ezekiel 25:17 ("The path of the righteous man ...") and 17+25=42.
  23. In the 1979 movie "10" Bo Derek becomes the ultimate woman which Dudley Moore finds on his....YES!!!.... 42.nd birthday
  24. In Monty Python's The Meaning of Life (album version), immediately after the "Every Sperm is Sacred" song, the narrator says "Meanwhile, at number 42", whereupon we are taken to the Protestant family sketch
  25. the Illustrated Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy costs $42!
  26. A current (english) advert for Guiness stout goes:"It's hard to put a value to most things,This, however, is 42."
  27. The elevator in the film "Speed" starts at level 42.
  28. In a commercial with Rutger Hauer he tells that some beers are excellent, but the beer he is advertising is however 42.
  29. There is a french magazine about cars, relationships and home improvement etc. The title of this magazine is le 42.
  30. In the "Pelican Brief", Darby Shaw, (Julia Roberts) lives at 42 Beau Luc Lane, New Orleans you can see this briefly on the cover of the brief once during the movie.
  31. There are exactly 42 pictures in Alice In Wonderland(excluding the cover)
  32. Chapter 12 Alice In Wonderland: At this moment the King, who had been for some time busily writing in his note-book, called out, "Silence!" and read out from his book, "Rule Forty-two. All persons more than a mile high must leave the court."
  33. Lewis Carroll's 'magic number' was 42
  34. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy FAQ estimates the cost of dining at Milliway's as being $1.42 x 10248.
  35. In Rama Revealed by Arthur Clarke & Gentry Lee, way at the end when the purpose of the universe has (maybe) been explained to the main character, she muses to herself that it's not forty-two, obviously a nod to HHGTTG.
  36. The LaTeX book (1st edition) by Leslie Lamport makes a reference to 42 while discussing the use of references and labels. Its says: "See page 42 for more details."....... The text on page 42: "The meaning of life, the universe, and ..."
  37. In the Grateful Dead image taken from the rubaiyat, there are forty-two roses in full view, not counting the ones in the back ground
  38. In A.A. Milne's (The author of "Winnie-the-Pooh") collection of poetry, "Now We are Six", in the poem "The Morning Walk", it says:
    When Anne and I go out a walk,
    We hold each other's hand and talk,
    Of all the things we mean to do
    when Anne and I are forty-two.
  39. In the play "Shirley Velentine" by Willy Russell, Shirley is 42 years old
  40. In Romeo and Juliet, juliet sleeps for 42 hours
  41. Dr. Seuss wrote 42 Children's Books
  42. In the "Babylon 5" episode "AND NOW FOR A WORD", ISN reporter Cynthia Torqueman (Kim Zimmer) said: "Aliens make up roughly 42 percent of Babylon 5's population.
  43. Stavro Mueller's club "Beta" happens to have a street address of 42 as stated by Ford Prefect in book 5 of the increasingly innaccurately named Hitchhiker Trilogy: "Mostly Harmless"--"`Just there, number forty-two,' shouted Ford Prefect to the taxi-driver. `Right here!'"
  44. On the season premiere of X-Files, The room where Skinner and Scully are at the end of the show is room 42
  45. In the movie Aliens (Sigourney Weaver), when Ripley is being shown how to use the machine gun, there are 42 rounds left in the clip. You can see 42 on the read-out on the side.
  46. For the 1995-96 Fall TV Season there were 42 new shows
  47. In the episode of "Welcome Back Kotter" in which Kotter performs at a comedy club "Amateur Night" with his "uncle" jokes, he gets heckled off the stage by Mr. Woodwind (the principle), and as he departs in embarassment, Mr. Woodwind yells, "Bring on number 43!"--meaning, in Mr. Woodwind's head, at least, Mr. Kotter was the 42nd comedian.
  48. In the movie Assassins, Sylvester Stallone hops into cab #42 to get away from the cops
  49. 42 is used as part a of secret passcode in the movie Assassins
  50. The 1971 top grossing film about a teenage boy, Hermie, who falls in love with a young woman, Aggie, whose husband is off fighting the war - "Summer of '42"
  51. on Friday Dec 1, 1995 on Fox on the X-Files: When Mulder looked at the time bomb for the first time, It was exactly 1:42:00 until it would explode
  52. At the end of the first X-files episode, evidence is placed in the box to the left of nr. 10042
  53. In `Twin Peaks', episode 2007 (first time aired on 11/10/90; written by Mark Frost, directed by David Lynch): Shelly Johnson and Bobby Briggs pay the bills and end up with $42 instead of expected some hundred (thousand?)
  54. A favorite quote from W.C.Fields: "I'd rather have two girls of twenty-one each, than one girl of forty-two!"
  55. In the movie 'Ace Ventura; Pet Detective' the routine being rehearsed by the dolphin is called "Blue 42".
  56. On the TV show "3rd Rock From The Sun" (which is about aliens coming to Earth and taking on the guise of Earthlings for the sake of studying same) when the Commander of the alien task force is asked his (earth) age, he replies, "42."
  57. Murphy Brown (TV-series) gets seated at table 42 during a Presidental dinner she gets invited to by Corky
  58. Malcom Learty pays 42 dollars for the board of his dog Edward in the movie "The Accidental Tourist"
  59. In the comic strip "Curtis," Curtis recently remarked that the "cat woman" who lived upstairs had 42 cats
  60. Towards the end of "Paper Moon," Tatum O'Neil counts the money in her cigar box. It's eight hundred and some-odd dollars -- "and 42 cents.
  61. "...watch a garage mechanic get broken into 42 pieces" -- Howard Cunningham to Arthur Fonzarelli when hearing that he was going to attempt to jump 14 garbage cans
  62. A student-magazine of physics-students at the University of Oldenburg in Germany is called 'ZWEIUNDVIERZIG' which is German for forty-two
  63. 4242 are the first four digits on the prison uniform of Sean Penn in the movie, "We're No Angels"
  64. In the book "The Catcher in the Rye", Holden Caulfield lies and says that he is 42
  65. In the film, "True Colors," the room number of James Spader and John Cusick at University of Virginia is 42
  66. On the Warren Zevon album "Sentimental Hygiene" there's a song titled "Even A Dog Can Shake Hands" about the way famous people are treated. The chorus is a discussion of a contract which begins with the lines:'Sign Page 42, We'll do the rest for you'
  67. In the movie "Powder", the scene where powder is walking down the tracks, he passes a metal bridge. On the right side there are two numbers scrawled. One of them is 42
  68. On the television show "Martin" his apartment door is FORTY TWO
  69. The number 42 has appeared on the apartment door of the main character in the movie "Naked Lunch"
  70. In the movie "Die Hard with a Vengence" one of the riddles was, "What is half of 42?"
  71. The number 42 on the bomb in the the 21 school in "Die Hard with a Vengence", which is half of 42.
  72. Steven lives in apartment number 42 in the movie "Cable Guy"
  73. The Number of People marked for death in The Movie "THE FRIGHTENERS" is 42
  74. In 'The Restaurant at the End of the Universe', When they retrieve Marvin in the parking of the restaurant, Marvin says Trillian he is there for a very long time : exactly 576000003579 years, which sum of the digits is ... 42.
  75. Popular beat-combo R.E.M. have a b-side track called "Forty Second Song" which is not forty seconds long. It can be found on the "Losing My Religion" single.
  76. In Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet", Friar Lawrence gives Juliet a potion to make it appear that she is dead, so she will not have to marry Count Paris. He promises the potion's effects will last for "two and forty", or 42 hours!
  77. On the episode of "Home Improvement" where Tim races Bob Villa on lawn mowers, Bob says that his lawn mower was clocked at 42 miles per hour.
  78. In Peter Greenaway's latest film "Pillow Book" 42 is written on a mirror.
  79. On a recient sliders episode Quinn walks into a hotel room numbered 42!
  80. In "Blackadder", series 2, episode 5 : BEER - The black adder is having a beer drinking contest with Melchett. Blackadder is trying to avoid drinking any because it effects him so greatly. When he eventually drinks the beer a caption appears on the screen saying "42 seconds later", when the screen fades back in, Edmund is stone drunk
  81. In the movie "Mask" his friend said about saving for the bike trip "How much do we have saved? $36?" "No, $42"
  82. In the episode of Chicago Hop "The Ethics" Dr. Kate Austin said, "The patient is dead. Time of death is 8:42"
  83. The CD "Nevermind" by Nirvana is exactly 42 minutes 38 seconds long
  84. The woodstock '94 live version of "Happiness In Slavery" by Nine Inch Nails is 5 minutes 42 seconds long
  85. There were 42 extras on the set of Jabba's palace in "Return of the Jedi"(From a making of video).
  86. The catalog # for the US version of Pink Floyd's "The Divsion Bell" (DNA played on this tour in London) is 64200!
  87. In the Animaniacs episode named 'Hercule Yakko' (or was it Hercule Warner?), Wakko orders 42 pizzas (6 w/o crusts!)
  88. In the book Homer Price, by Robert McCloskey, the settlers sing a song about mushrooms, 42 pounds of edible fungus, in the wilderness a-growin'
  89. In the movie "The Abyss", the destroyer that teeters on the edge of the alien city (near the end of the movie) when it comes top-side is destroyer number 421
  90. There are 42 pen-like objects on pages 68 and 69 of the Illustrated Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
  91. In "Dave's World" chapter about Valentine's Day, Dave's kid makes 42 valentine's day cards!
  92. In the movie "BLUE IN THE FACE", a ghost of the first African American Major League Baseball player is seen from the back...his number of course 42.
  93. In "The Two Towers", the second volume of Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings," at the beginning of Chapter 8 of book III, the count of Orks slain by Gimli the Dwarf at the battle of Helm's Deep: "Forty two!"
  94. In the "How not to be seen" sketch for Monty python, the sketch is labeled as "Governmental Information Program 42".
  95. In the 1996 Eddie Murphy version of "The Nutty Professor", Professor Sherman Klump registers as having 42% fat.
  96. In the Movie "The Frighteners", the number of people who are marked for death before The Frightener is killed is.... 42

Star Trek Related Sightings

  1. Episode of Star Trek, "Clues", Whoopi Goldberg is supposed to meet Patrick Stewart on holo-deck 4 at 2 O'clock
  2. There are 42 decks on the Enterprise NCC1701-D (the Next Generation ship)
  3. In an episode of Star Trek Voyager, first aired on April 17, 1995, when the ship enters a "nebulae / alien being", the density around the ship increases 42%
  4. The Antimatter generator is on deck 42 --which, as any physicist will tell you, is an impossibility. Proof that Starfleet is really using an Infinite Improbability engine in their starships...
  5. In a Star Trek DS9 episode (the one with the alien lass in the wheelchair due to gravitational differences), there's a conversation between Quark and some sort of alien trader bloke that runs something like...
    "How many rings have you got to sell?"
    "Forty two."
    "Forty two?"
  6. In the ST:TNG episode where Data is added to the trader's collection, the tricyanate concentration in the water is 42 parts per million
  7. In the Star Trek episode 'The best of both worlds pt.2', the Enterprise is chasing the Borg. At a certain point, Acting Captain Riker asks how long it will take for the Borg to reach Earth. '27 minutes' is the reply. When he asks how long it will take for the Enterprise, the answer is '42 minutes'
  8. In the movie "Star Trek: Generations" while Picard and Data are in stellar cartography Picard asks, "How long until the energy ribbon enters this sector?" The answer: "Approximately 42 hours"
  9. Episode 42 of Star trek:tng introduces the Borg
  10. Episode 42 of Deep Space 9 introduces the alternate universe.

Disney Related Sightings

  1. 42 is an address on a door in the queue line on Roger Rabbit ride in Disneyland
  2. Disney is showing select audiences 42 minute clips of the new movie "Crimson Tide" which is schedule for release on May 12, 1995
  3. At Disneyland in the ride "Alice in Wonderland", the little King says "Remember Rule 42 ..." right after seeing the Queen of Hearts when she asks you if you want to play croquet. This is also found in Lewis Carrol's Book "Alice in Wonderland"
  4. Walt Disney's new waterpark, "Blizzard Beach" is built on 42 acres of land
  5. In the movie "Peter Pan", Copyright © 1955, When Captain Hook first sees Peter, Wendy, and the boys coming into Never, Never Land and they are standing on a cloud looking at the Island, Captain Hook relays the coordinates to his pirate gunner: "...range 42"
  6. Disney is building a 300 million dollar hotel and amusement complex on 42nd street
  7. A binder for Donald Duck magazines is priced at NOK 42

Celebrity Sightings

  1. If you assign numbers 1 - 26 consecutively to the letters of the alphabet an then add the letters found in D. Adams name you will get 42
  2. Marsha Clark, the prosecutor on the O.J. Simpson Trial, is 42 years old
  3. The cop that found the body of Nicole Brown-Simpson had been a police officer for 4 years 2 months
  4. Jackie Robinson, the first African-American to play Major League Baseball, wore uniform number 42 for the Brooklyn Dodgers.
  5. Bill Clinton is the 42nd President of the United States
  6. The only openly gay baseball player died at age 42.
  7. On July 14, 1995, David Letterman's Top Ten list was "Top Ten Ways To Beat The Heat" and on number 2 there was:"Get your own talk show, set yourself up in a 42 degree theatre."
  8. On David Letterman's second "Late Show" at CBS (in 1993), his guest Robin Williams made some jokes about NASA's lost Mars probe. He said: "You know, even your shorts have a little thing that says 'Inspected by number 42'!"
  9. Today's SJ Mercury News says that Mark Furman said "The 'N' Word" 42 times during his interviews with the scriptwriter lady
  10. Recent Citadel dropout Shannon Faulkner was expected to complete 18 pushups in two minutes as part of her physical entrance exam. This was the special, GIRLIE number of pushups, reduced from the male pushup standard of--you got it--42
  11. Kyle Petty's NASCAR Winston Cup race car number is 42.
  12. Apollo 13's commander, Jim Lovell, at the age of 42 was the most experienced astronaut alive; Apollo 13 was his fourth space mission and his second lunar voyage. The year: 1970.-- Popular Science July 1995 p 52:
  13. On day 142 of the O.J. Simpson trial, defense attorney Johnny Cochran asked screenwriter Laura Hart McKinney how often the "N"-word was said in the conversation she overheard. Her answer was: "Approximately 42 times."
  14. Jimi Hendrix was born in 1942.
  15. U.S Marshal William Degan, was 42 when he was killed at Ruby Ridge
  16. In the OJ Trail: the defense wanted to introduce 42 special jury instructions
  17. Jerry Garcia was born in 1942
  18. The actress who plays Rachel on the NBC-TV show "Friends", Jennifer Anniston, was born on February 11, 1969. February 11, I don't have to tell you was the 42nd day of '69
  19. Marsha Clark got a $4.2 million advance on a book deal about the O.J. Simpson Trial
  20. In Michael Jordan's first game in the 95-96 basketball season he scored 42 points.
  21. Pierce Brosan, Age 42, stars as the new the James Bond, in "Golden Eyes"
  22. In the latest James Bond Film "Goldeneye" the Bad guy says to Bond that he has 16 minutes and 43....correction 42 seconds to save the world.
  23. Elvis Presley died at the age of 42
  24. Elvis' father died at age 42.
  25. Henry Kissinger wears a size 42 jacket
  26. Patty Hearst invoked the 5th Amendment 42 times at her trial
  27. Mo Vaughn, the 1995 American League M.V.P. wears the number 42
  28. James Earl Jones' high-school basketball jersey number was 42
  29. Muhammad Ali was born in 1942
  30. Paul McCartney was born in 1942
  31. Weird Al's "Fat" shadow weighs 42 lbs.
  32. The only NHL hockey team to ever come back from a 3-0 deficit in The Stanley Cup Finals was The Toronto Maple Leafs. The year, 1942.
  33. Chris Warren, Seattle Seahawks RB, wears jersey #42. He is the best RB available in the Sega game Madden '96.

Computer/Electronics Related Sightings

  1. The Network Preferences in the software NetScape's default is 4 connections, 2K buffer sizes
  2. MAC vs. WIntel: Power Mac 6100/66 cost $42 more than Dell Pentium 75(16M, CD-Rom, 15" Display) MacWeek, March 13, 1995, p.16)
  3. If you know 'C' programming, you can try out the following code segment to find the answer yourself. This is probably the exact code used by Deep Thought itself!
    ultimate_answer_t deep_thought(void)
    {
    sleep(years2secs(7500000));
    return 42;
    }
  4. 42 is used as the channel idle pattern in the UK ISDN access protocol (DASS2). The Euro-standard pattern is supposed to be 0x54
  5. In Germany, the dimensions of Computer-Monitors must be printed in centimeters AND Inches, which follows to this relationship: A 17"-Monitor, a common size for computer displays, has a screen-diagonal of 42 cm.
  6. 42 is the number in the header file of a Tiff file that identifies the file
  7. In the Macintosh game Cogito the background reads 42.
  8. On the top right side of the February 1994 issue of PC WORLD magazine is stated: "42 Business shareware packages"
  9. Apple filed 42 patents on technology developed for its Color LaserWriter 12/600 PS
  10. The latest data compression and error correction protocol for modems is called "V.42bis" and is the current computer standard
  11. In the German computer magazine "OS/2 Inside", issue 7/95, there was a listing of computer mailboxes (BBS). One of these is called "42éer" and is located in the city of Ludwigshafen. The phone number is +49-7141-921269 (14.4K) and +49-7141-950971 (ISDN)
  12. The most successful electron tube for audio applications in the 1930's was a "type 42" six-pin amplifier
  13. RSA developed 42 potential systems for public-key crypto before building one that could not be cracked.
  14. It took the hosts of a local Los Angeles radio talk show (called "The Computer Guys") 42 minutes to install Windows 95
  15. PsyScope, a psychology program for the Macintosh, uses 42 internally to verify program structures
  16. Several years ago, a popular ram expansion unit for the Commodore 64 was sold by Commodore. In fact, I believe its still one of the most popular REU's for the C-64/65/128. Its model number is 1764, as 422 = 1764!!
  17. In the majority of commonly used character sets, the asterisk, "*" is character number 42. And, as we all know, the asterisk is commonly used as a wildcard character. It stands for anything, and, consequently, everything. The answer to life, the universe, and everything. Most of the visible objects in the Universe are stars.
  18. An Aldus/Microsoft Technical Memorandum: 8/8/88., This memorandum has been prepared jointly by Aldus and Microsoft in conjunction with leading scanner vendors and other interested parties -- States: Bytes 2-3 The second word of the file is the TIFF version number. This number, 42 (2A in hex), is not to be equated with the current Revision of the TIFF specification. In fact, the TIFF version number (42) has never changed, and probably never will. If it ever does, it means that TIFF has changed in some way so radical that a TIFF reader should give up immediately. The number 42 was chosen for its deep philosophical significance. It can and should be used as additional verification that this is indeed a TIFF file.
  19. The most common telephone insulator (US) - the old blue-green type was a Hemingray 42.
  20. The toolbar button with ID 42 in Microsoft Excel has a toolface saying 42.
  21. Apple sells QuickTime Denim Shirts for $42
  22. Prodigy has a free demo which states "Get started in 4.2 minutes."
  23. 424242 as a hexidecimal backcolour in html is a very depressing grey....
  24. When Webcrawler is searched for keyword "Webcrawler", it returns 4200 documents
  25. The Number 42 is the total capacity in gigabytes (GB), Toshiba expects for blue-laser-read Super Density Digital Videodisc formats. From Nov. 1995 Video Magazine, page 17
  26. The "Quickworks" FPGA design software from QuickLogic Corp. holds two seed numbers for the chip layout algorithms to work. These two seeds may be set by the user but they are by default 42. As the manual states "for important historical (although completely meaningless) reasons".
  27. The icon for an external modem outlet is a phone with a 101010, or 42 in binary.
  28. The control panel MacPPP on the Macintosh reads under default settings the magic number seed value 42
  29. As of the 18th of June, 1996, there are exactly 42 documents on the Yahoo search engine that contain the string "42".

Miscellaneous Sightings

  1. 42 percent of all American women rely on some type of sterilization for birth control (Newsweek, March 13, 1995, p.60)
  2. Each Marathon run lasts 42 km (+195m)
  3. In the Star Control games (from Accolade), the ships with maximum crew (the Ur-Quan, Chenjesu, Kohr-Ah, and ChMmr) all have 42 crew
  4. Foreigners now own 42% of the shares in the norwegian insurance-company "VITAL."
  5. There is very often a 42 on the zipper of your Levis
  6. Back in the 1980's, McDonalds had special cups at Christmas. There were 42 trees on a small Coke
  7. The runway heading of Larnaca airport, Cyprus is 42 degrees!
  8. Some Japanese people bought the Empire State Building with $42 billion dollars.
  9. ZOCOR, a new cholesterol drug, was responsible for saving the life of 42% of the people who took it in a 5 year study
  10. Of the 1.4 Billion in subsidies doled out to sugar growers, 42 percent go to the top 1 percent growers
  11. 42 people died at Chernobl
  12. A Kastleburger at the Tastee Donuts coffee shop in Jackson, Mississippi costs 42 cents
  13. Fiat manufactured a total of 4.2 million "Fiat 500" cars.
  14. There are 42 stores at the shopping center called "The Citadel" in Los Angeles
  15. The tank of the "Ford Fiesta" is 42 liters
  16. "The United Negro College Fund supports students at 42 black university and colleges."--from their TV ad campaign
  17. Professor S. A. Jordan who was working with the Smithsonian Institute around 1909 supposedly discovered EGYPTIAN artifacts in the Grand Canyon in an area called AG9, approximately 42 miles up the river from the El Tovar canyon. This area has evidently been off-limits to the public for about 65 years! This find was reported to have been made by G. E. Kincaid on a boat expedition down the Colorado River financed by the Smithsonian. --from the front page of The Phoenix Gazette dated April 5th, 1909. The article was entitled "EXPLORATIONS IN GRAND CANYON", subtitled "Mysteries of Immense Rich Cavern Being Brought to Light...JORDAN IS ENTHUSED...Remarkable Finds Indicate Ancient People Migrated From Orient."
  18. A new species of fish was discovered in Fiordland, New Zealand and named Fiordichthys slartibartfasti. The paper was accepted for publication by Journal of Natural History on 11 March 1994 - Douglas Adams' 42nd birthday
  19. How many licks does it take to get to the center of a tootsie roll pop? 42
  20. There are three ocurrences of 42 in the Song "A Hundred Bottles of Beer On The Wall"
  21. In September 1995 there were two 4.2 earthqakes in California in one week
  22. Found in the German postcode-register:
    06420 Lebendorf (Leben = life),
    06542 Allstedt (All = universe) and
    88422 Alleshausen (Alles = everything).
    Now what do these postcodes have in common? And these 3 cities are located on a straight line and do not form a triangle as you would expect!
  23. There is a Night Club in Johannesburg, South Africa, named Level 42, after HHGTTG.
  24. There is a bar/night club in Lyon, France called "the 42"
  25. The sentence "I hope life isn't a big joke, because I don't get it!" contains 42 characters (Not including the spaces....)
  26. This sentence is forty two characters long
  27. The city of Jerusalem covers an area of 42 square miles
  28. Mongolia is 42% urban
  29. Napoleon graduated 42nd in his class at Brienne military school
  30. The first book printed on the Gutenburg (movable type) press was a bible with42 lines on each page
  31. Aloutte, Canada's first artificial space satellite was 42 inches in diameter
  32. Cleopatra became Marc Anthony's mistress in 42BC
  33. On Nov 11, there are 42 days to Christmas
  34. When you reach the California border, you only have 42 miles to go to Las Vegas
  35. In an L.A. Times Poll in October 1995, 42% of white people think racism is a major problem, another 42% think it's a moderate problem
  36. Only 42% of the second-class passengers on the Titanic survived.
  37. Recently, within the past few years, for some strange reason, Truck Drivers, and now acknowleging each other with "42" in lue of "10-4".
  38. There were a number of UFO sightings in Iceland in 1942!
  39. There are 42 gallons in a barrel of oil
  40. 'TRY TWO OF'is an anagram for "forty two" ! This must mean that the answer 42 was the result of the second calculation in a series of .... (who knows?)
  41. FISH = 42 by: F I S H - 6 + 9 + 19 + 8 = 42
  42. The tank of the Super Beetle 1302 S takes 42 liters!
  43. How many eyes are there in a deck of cards - 42
  44. A Playtex Wonderbra ® consists of 42 individual parts
  45. Miller Pilsner has 4.2% alcohol
  46. Water at the Sea World Penguin Exhibitin San Diego is kept at 42 degrees Fahrenheit
  47. The right arm of the Statue of Liberty is 42 feet long
  48. There were 42 events at the first modern Olympics
  49. There are 42 Oreo cookies in a one-pound package
  50. There's an American company in Poland which is named XLII Ltd. (42).
  51. In the game chess the maximum number of queens that you can place on the board and still have one "safe" square is 42. e.g.: q = queen, e = empty, s = safe
    e q q q q q q e
    e q q q q q e q
    e q q q q e q q
    e q q q e q q q
    e q q e q q q q
    e q e q q q q q
    e e q q q q q q
    s e e e e e e e 
  52. The average age for a pikka bird is 42
  53. The America's Cup yachts must meet the following specification: ((length at waterline) + (square root of sail area) + (cube root of displacement) ) / 1.3579 = 42
  54. The top mark that a skater can receive is 6.0. In an international competition, there are either 7 or 9 judges. Therefore, the maximum score that a skater can receive for his/her routine is 42 (7 judges) or 54 (9 judges).
  55. In a CBS news report, it was reported that the cutthroat trout was being killed off in Yellowstone national park. The number of preditors feeding on the fish was 42
  56. There are '42' men on the back of a U.S.$2 bill! Representing the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
  57. On the average, a father of a 3 year old spends 42 minutes a day with his son
  58. The word 'mother' in hebrew ( 'ima') has numeric value 42.
  59. The Gaza Strip is 42 kilometers long
  60. According to an article in the March 23,1996 edition of the Houston Chronicle, there are 42 free-range prairie chickens left alive in the world
  61. There is a CD shop in Prague called Music 42
  62. The distance between Tiberias and Afula (2 cities in Israel) is 42 km.

Governmental (i.e. Bureaucratic) Sightings

  1. Congress will increase the school-lunch program by a maximinum of 4.2 percent a year for the next 5 years. LA TIMES 3/15/95, Page 18
  2. CalTrans, California transportations department has a gap that exceeds a $4.2 Billion. LA TIMES 3/15/95, Page 6
  3. The New york state lotto jackpot was $42,000,000 Dollars on 8 Apr 95.
  4. The Pledge of Allegiance to the U.S. Flag was officially adopted by the United States in 1942
  5. There are 42 rooms including bath, in the White House, excluding closets!!
  6. Congress will give the Tobacoo industry 42 million dollars
  7. In States that don't hava the Death Penalty, the murder rate is 4.2 people per 100,000. Note that in states that do have the Death Penalty, the murder rate is double that.
  8. In the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty (CFE) that will go in to effect at the end of November. The time that a stored unit has, after being activated, to be re-stored is (of course) 42 days.
  9. In L.A. Times Poll taken in October of 95, 42% of people said they were Democrats.
  10. 1996 Presedential candidate Phil(I help get a white drug dealer out of prison) Grahm received 42% of the votes in a straw poll in the MidWest.
  11. In the past Germany has issued various postage stamps with the value of 42 Pfennigs
  12. Today, 19 Dec 1995, in the newspaper `Frankfurter Allgemeine' there is a report that the government of Rheinland-Pfalz (part of southwest Germany) is expecting additional 42 Million Marks in taxes (which the opposition denies of course)
  13. During the U.S. Space Shuttle Endeavour's mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope, the astronaut who was about to implement the "CoStar" corrective device asked:"Houston, how much time have we got left?" - and Houston answered: "42 minutes"
  14. The number of chemicals in marijuana and the police code for possesion of marijuana, and the time to fire up a joint is four twenty (420 and 4:20)
  15. The Cuban Missile Crisis, which brought the world to the brink of nuclear war (October 22-28, 1962), was over the placement of 42 Soviet missiles in Cuba
  16. In six gallup polls taken since Jan. 1993, 42% of people surveyed disapproved of the job President Clinton was doing six times.
  17. 42 is the Military Occupation Code (MOC) for the Canadian Military Communications and Electronics Engineer Occupation