The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

[Edwardoka]

Serious question for H2G2 nerds. Famously, Deep Thought was built to provide The Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything. It gave the answer "42". Which then brought up the conundrum as to what the question was.

So they built an even bigger computer, called "Earth", which was just about to reveal the question when it was destroyed to make way for a hyperspace by-pass (IIRC). In "So Long and Thanks for All the Fish" (probably some errors here) Ford Prefect was trying to use the remnants of earth amongst the telephone handset sanitisers, middle management and other members of the human race that were not either the great thinkers and movers, or the grafters. Realising that Arthur Dent was also a part of the great computer "Earth", Ford Prefect got him to pick random letters out of a scrabble bag to see what he came up with. And the answer was "What do you get when you multiply six by nine ". (thanks, Wikipedia).

Does this mean that the answer from Deep Thought was wrong, or that despite Arthur Dent generating a cohesive sentance from random Scrabble letters, he failed to provide the question that they were looking for?

Humans are not the intended native inhabitants of Earth. We're descended from the Golgafrincham B Ark colonists, having wiped out the native ape-like inhabitants. Therefore, the program running on the planetary computer we called Earth, designed to work out the question to the answer of life the universe and everything, had a major input error introduced into it.

My take on Dentarthurdent being able to produce a cohesive but incorrect question is a suggestion that the Golgafrinchans cross-bred with the natives.

 

[Specialeyes]

The arrival of the Golgafrinchan B-Ark (iirc the vinyl album track name was "B-Arking up the Wrong Tree"), with its cargo of advertising account executives and telephone sanitisers caused the cavemen to die out...

ARTHUR:
So whatever it was that Marvin spotted in my brainwave patterns is, in fact, the wrong question!

FORD:
Yeah! Well, it might be right, but it’s probably wrong. Ah, if only we could find out what it is…

ARTHUR:
Look, if it’s printed in my brainwave patterns but I don’t know how to reach it - suppose we introduce some random element which can be shaped by that pattern!

FORD:
Like?

ARTHUR:
Pulling out letters from the ‘Scrabble’ bag!

FORD:
Brilliant! That’s bloody brilliant!

 

[captain nemo1701]

Serious question for H2G2 nerds. Famously, Deep Thought was built to provide The Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything. It gave the answer "42". Which then brought up the conundrum as to what the question was.

So they built an even bigger computer, called "Earth", which was just about to reveal the question when it was destroyed to make way for a hyperspace by-pass (IIRC). In "So Long and Thanks for All the Fish" (probably some errors here) Ford Prefect was trying to use the remnants of earth amongst the telephone handset sanitisers, middle management and other members of the human race that were not either the great thinkers and movers, or the grafters. Realising that Arthur Dent was also a part of the great computer "Earth", Ford Prefect got him to pick random letters out of a scrabble bag to see what he came up with. And the answer was "What do you get when you multiply six by nine ". (thanks, Wikipedia).

Does this mean that the answer from Deep Thought was wrong, or that despite Arthur Dent generating a cohesive sentance from random Scrabble letters, he failed to provide the question that they were looking for?

The explanation is....

SPOILER ALERT

By going back in time 2,000,000 years & crashing on prehistoric Earth with the useless Golgafricham's, they've messed up the program. That was not meant to happen so Arthur & Ford have contributed to mucking it up. Adams gag is that humanity is possibly descended from telephone sanitisers & hairdressers.

As Dr who would say...'wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff'...

BTW , DA wrote 'Pirate Planet' & 'Destiny of the Daleks' which features a gag in episode 1 when Tom Baker gets trapped under falling masonry & to pass the time, grabs a book from his pocket called 'History of the Universe' by one Oolon Calluphid, a character from HHG always writing books about the non-existence of God.

Possibly based on Richard Dawkins who is now married to ex-Mrs Tom Baker, Lalla Ward, who played Romana at the time. Adams apparently introduced her to Dawkins.

Incidentally, listen to Phase 2...it's even crazier. It includes the ultimate swear-word in the galaxy, used only by Zaphod....'Belgium'😄 (apologies to Belgian cc'ers!!)

 

[captain nemo1701]

Dammit, while writing the above, faster typists beat me....

 

[Specialeyes]

Hmm, thinking how @captain nemo1701 's post above warranted a suitable swear word (even one uttered by such loose-lipped individuals as Zaphod Beeblebrox, such as "Belgium"), took me to some of Adams' other fabuluous swear words: turlingdrome, swut and joojooflop.

Then, joojooflop took me to this section of Life, The Universe and Everything, which seemed somehow quite apt:

"In today's modern Galaxy there is of course very little still held to be unspeakable....So, for instance, when in a recent national speech the Financial Minister of the Royal World Estate of Quarlvista actually dared to say that due to one thing and another and the fact that no one had made any food for a while and the king seemed to have died and most of the population had been on holiday now for over three years, the economy was now in what he called "one whole joojooflop situation," everyone was so pleased that he felt able to come out and say it that they quite failed to note that their entire five-thousand-year old civilization had just collapsed overnight."​

 

[captain nemo1701]

I know what I'm going to listen to this weekend....dig out the CD box set. It has an interview with DA who reveals where the famous '42' actually came from.

 

[captain nemo1701]

The early 1970's, alcohol, no money for a hotel so kipping out in a field near Innsbruck, an aspiring British comedy writer had a copy of the book that started it all:

 

[Smokin Joe]

Well, as said upthread I dug my boxed set out and I've just finished the first book in the series of five. I read them originally when they first appeared and I had forgotten how good they were - in fact I'd forgotten most of the story. Now to start on "Restaurant at The End of The Universe".