Talk:42 (number)

message: Can someone please cite the fact that 42 is used in spore and fable II as a reference to Hitchhikers guide, it seems as though the movie was made before the number!  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 196.23.50.162 (talk) 13:05, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  In Video Games 

message: 2042 isn't a historical date... its a future date  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.231.159.16 (talk) 16:52, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Historical 

message: WTF is the ipod nano advertisement doing in this section. The damn thing didn't exist when the show was written and it is only the answer to Seteve Jobs' pension fund problems.
:If the nanos indeed weigh 42 grams, it's simply a coincidence, as are most of the references to 42 on this page - many of them have absolutely NOTHING to do with Hitchhiker's if that's what you're thinking. The blatant references to Hitchhiker's are noted here, and on the page The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy cultural references. --JohnDBuell 11:30, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: iPod?

message: I removed the line
*42 in binary translates to 101010
only because it is made redundant by the Docuan table. However, if someone can elaborate why the binary translation is of interest, they should restore that line and follow it with the elaboration. PrimeFan 22:40, 6 Mar 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Deep Thought

message: I don't have a deck of cards handy right now, so I don't want to edit this new tidbit just yet:
*The number of eyes in a deck of 52 cards.
But this needs to be verified and clarified (that we're talking about which standard deck of cards, for one thing).
If every Jack, Queen and King has four eyes (two on the top head and two on the head mirrored below), that means that the royal cards of a given suit have twelve eyes total. Multiply that by four suits and you get 48. So if 42 is correct, that means that some of the royal cards, the royal personage is painted in profile so only one eye shows on the top head (and one more eye on the head mirrored below). PrimeFan 21:23, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Hint - think "one-eyed jacks" Bunthorne 19:00, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

text: In the most common playing card illustrations in use today, there are two one-eyed jacks, and one one-eyed king. Not sure which suits they are, though. Dansiman 17:39, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Number of eyes in a deck of cards 

message: Is the number 6 associated with the Devil and 7 with God? I think that sentence can go.--Lkjhgfdsa 20:22, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  God/Devil? 

message: I am not the most experienced person at making wiki edits, so i bring it up here, and invite someone else to try it. But i do believe the article referenced [here] might contain some new insights into the value of 42.
:Reference to Riemann zeta function has been added, since the article looks serious. Some matematician should review that.
In numerology you usually use single digit numbers.. so if you use 42..=>  4+2=6 
6= Devil... what does this mean for the question :: the answer to life, the universe and everything ?
To me it means that we are heading down a "dark path" which means the "Devil" is winning ..  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.54.3.194 (talk) 00:39, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Possible new information for '42' 

message: Somebody should probably remove the entry of the Capital High students, as it seems as though they added it themselves.
:Done. --JohnDBuell 02:46, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Unnecessary

message: Why does the bit about the Nintendo DS Lite being 42 percent smaller keep getting deleted?
:According to the edit summaries, it is removed per Wikipedia:WikiProject Numbers#Numbers in statistics. --JohnDBuell 12:00, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Nintendo DS

message: Someone must have objected to the inclusion of this:
:: The prime factorization of 42! = 
::: \quad\quad 2^{39} * 3^{19} * 5^9 * 7^6 * 11^3 * 13^3 * 17^2 * 19^2 * 23 * 29 * 31 * 37 *41\,
I don't have a problem with it, but I object to the use of an asterisk for ordinary multiplication in TeX.  Here's how to do it:
: 42! = 2^{39} \times 3^{19} \times 5^9 \times 7^6 \times 11^3 \times 13^3 \times 17^2 \times 19^2 \times 23 \times 29 \times 31 \times 37 \times 41.\,
Michael Hardy 22:13, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: 42 factorial

message: I clicked the link "the answer to life, the universe, and everything" into Google, as suggested by the article, and besides seeing the answer from Google's calculator, I noticed that the top result, which is the Wikipedia article, is reported to be 42k long! Itub 03:28, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  This is a funny coincidence... 

message: There was a third question to the answer 42, implied in the 5th book in the Hichhiker's series, Mostly Harmless. The address of the bar Stavro Mueller Beta is number 42. This is significant, because Arthur Dent, the last bit of the original Earth computer, had been asking everyone where Stavromula Beta was, because he couldn't die untill he had been there. His arrival there was the final key event in the utter destruction of all Earths, as orchestrated by The Guide 2.0 for the Vogons.
I guess my point is, why isn't this on the page?
:Because this is a non-fiction page about the number, and NOT a Hitchhiker's related page? --JohnDBuell 21:01, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mostly Harmless 

message: I find the Television and Film section very pointless and unnecessary. It seems that if the number 42 apears anywhere, someone has to add it to the list. It has no encyclopedic value! Please, someone delete it. Aaron Pepin
*I don't think it should be outright deleted, but there are a lot of references that are way too trivial. We should definitely start trying to cut down the absurd size of the section, while still leaving in references that seem notable. Tozoku 12:18, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Deletion of hte pointless Televion and Film section

message: Probably it is obvious, but I am a biologist and not a mathmatician, but to put a joke in a vector I wanted to write 42 so I squared it to have more nucletides, and I got 0123210 in base 4. is this palindrome of significance to the number part?
: I know this a long time ago, but , so  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 23:33, 4 January 2019 (UTC)
thread_title: Repdigit

message: I have put a mention of Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy in the Film & TV and Literature section as I think it is one of the biggest for both. Should I have? - - Nicko 08:11, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

message: "'What!' ejaculated Mr Pickwick, laying his hand upon his notebook," is what wikipedia has. Is this accurate?
:Probably not, but I'll keep it just in case. Someone who actually has the book can verify. (I do see other vandalism though, which I'll remove. Nowhere in the article about Geoff Fortytwo does it say anything about him winning over 9000 internets. >_>) 205.206.207.250 04:40, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not sure about this instance, but I have seen the word used in this context in another book, so I believe it is a valid definition. Dansiman (talk|Contribs) 06:30, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I've checked with my printed copy of the book, and the word is, indeed, "ejaculated" 
----  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kay Dekker (talk • contribs) 19:12, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wording of the Book 

message: Today I was very bored and noticed something interesting: I couldn't find any integer (aside from zero and multiples/factors of 42) that when divided by 42 didn't produce a repeating decimal pattern. Observe:
*1 / 42 = 0.0238095
*2 / 42 = 0.047619
*23 / 42 = 0.5476190
*41 / 42 = 0.9761904
*666 / 42 = 15.857142 (also, it ends with 42 <_<)
*1,000,000 / 42 = 23809.523809
*4,294,967,295 / 42 = 102,261,126.0714285
*4,294,967,296 / 42 = 102,261,126.095238
In every one of these cases, the last 6 digits after the decimal point repeat forever. (1/42 = 0.0238095238095238095...) Is there a term for this? Is it a known phenomenon or just a strange coincidence? 205.206.207.250 04:53, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: BTW, 21/42 = 0.5 . -- ArglebargleIV 19:32, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  But 21 is a factor of 42. "I couldn't find any integer (aside from zero and multiples/factors of 42) that when divided by 42 didn't produce a repeating decimal pattern." However, 63/42=1.5 -- 31.46.78.244 (talk) 09:52, 21 May 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Repeating Decimals 

message: Granted that there is some stuff in the article that needs to be removed, but I think Eyrian's latest purge was exceedingly random and indiscriminate.
Some items get stated twice (e.g., that 42 is a LOST number) and other items appear rather ephemeral (WP:NUM prefers "ephemeral" over "trivial" in many contexts). But any purging needs to be done carefully, discriminately, and well-documentedly (with edit summaries and maybe even HTML comments). PrimeFan 22:35, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: As I said, 42 can (and generally will) occur in any and every context. Listing each of these is futile. There were no meaningful attachments that belong here at a listing about the number. The few things that might be known by the number (stellar bodes) belong at the disambiguation page. --Eyrian 23:01, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Give us more credit than that. No one's gonna write "I have 42 cents in my pocket right now." But 42 in Hitchhiker's is very much worthy of mention here. So are some tributes to Adams. Knodeltheory 14:54, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  About Eyrian's heavy purge 

message: I think you're ruining the fun of 42 by taking away all the inane references. Maybe there's need for two versions of the page. 121.45.231.114 09:01, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Fun? Wikipedia isn't a rollercoaster. --Closedmouth 09:17, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: So?128.12.42.36 (talk) 04:47, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Ruining the fun

message: I still don't think it belongs, but I've escalated the problem to Wikipedia Talk:WikiProject Numbers#Super Bowl XLII, etc., which seems the appropriate venue.  — Arthur Rubin |  (talk) 00:44, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Super Bowl XLII]] 

message: Are we trying to write a contextualized encyclopedia article about the number 42, or a list of loosely associated trivia documenting each and every time the number 42 shows up in a film, book, or television show??? Burntsauce 20:11, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think the year list is OK; those are the most likely years for an unadorned 42 to refer to.  I tend to agree with the rest of your suggestions, though.  Perhaps we should bring it up in the WikiProject.  — Arthur Rubin |  (talk) 20:47, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Which WikiProject should this matter be referred to?  I found it especially ridiculous the mention that a canine has 42 teeth.  No one would ever turn to this article, 42 (number), to look up that information.  There are a few dozen more trivia examples just like this, but this one stood out the brightest, and all of them are without a single reliable source, of course.  Burntsauce 20:55, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  WikiProject Numbers would be the one. -- ArglebargleIV 21:29, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

text: Why did you substitute the WikiProject banners? --Closedmouth 05:10, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: What are we doing?

message: "In Japanese, 4 (shi) and 2 (ni) are together pronounced like "going to death" (死に). Because of that, in Japan, 42 is considered as a disastrous number."
Ive never heard of this. Forty two（四十二）is pronounced yonjū-ni (preferred) or shijū-ni. It doesn't sound like 死に at all. Admittedly I have never been to Japan (going on March) but I do study Japanese and I'm really skeptical on this. Jyuichi (talk) 03:22, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I was wondering if someone could possibly explain the above "the golden ratio is the most irrational of all numbers". How can numbers have degrees of irrationality - surely they are either irrational or not? (I could be wrong - I am an undergraduate physicist, not a mathematician!) The Young Ones (talk) 12:09, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You're right, a number is either irrational or it isn't.  However, you can set up a 'hierarchy' of sorts among irrational numbers according to how difficult it is to approximate them with rational numbers.  In this sense one irrational number can be 'more irrational' than another.  For a full explanation, have a read through this series: page 1, page 2, page 3, page 4.   (Needless to say, the 'connection' to 42 from 42 being double the ninth term in the Fibonnaci sequence is meaningless; you can get to pretty much any number you like by kneading a sequence enough).   -- simxp (talk) 19:03, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  42 in Japanese? 

message: The article says the hexagram nro. 42 is the last one in 'The Book of Change'. 
Assuming that we are talking about THE 'Book of Change' - i.e. the I Ching -, it has 64 (sixty-four) hexagrams.
***  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.142.180.213 (talk) 05:29, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Book of Change" (I Ching) 

message: In the old testament book of Numbers, there is a list of forty two travels the Israelites took from Egypt to the promised land.  Many KJV bibles even list "The forty two travels of the Israelites" as a section header.  The travels/journeys are listed in Numbers 33:1-49. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.167.22.166 (talk) 15:29, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Addition to "in religion" topic

message: Is it a notability problem, or what? WNDL42 (talk) 03:33, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is there a problem with adding the "X files" reference? 

message: I learned of happy numbers from the Doctor Who episode 42.  In describing happy numbers to some friends, I used 379 as an example of a happy number, and 42 as an example of an unhappy number.  It turns out, 42 demonstrates its unhappiness by repeating itself...
42 -> 42 + 22 = 20 -> 22 + 02 = 4 -> 42=16 -> 12 + 62 = 37 -> 32 + 72 = 58 -> 52 + 82 = 89 -> 82 + 92 = 145 -> 12 + 42 + 52 = 42
Likely not worth noting in the article, but possibly of interest to others looking for numerical features of 42.  -FeralDruid (talk) 18:09, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Happy Numbers

message: For the record, I had nothing to do with it.  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 01:00, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[rubin sequence]] 

message: I erased the entry about this because if you saw the movie, the president clearly asked Gates to look at page 47 not page 42. 5 May 19:06 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by RandomHero8 (talk • contribs) 19:06, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: there were two versions of the movie one in which the page is 42 and one in which the number is 47— Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.240.30.189 (talk • contribs) 17:55, 25 August 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: National Treasure 2

message: : The first digit (4) taken to the power of the second digit (2) is equal to the second digit (2) taken to the power of the first digit (4)
: 
Inclusion of silly things like the above is questionable: notice that it depends crucially on the somewhat arbitrary choice of a base-10 numeral system, and just why it matters that the digits occupy particular positions in that numeral system (units, tens) rather than the fact being merely about the unodered pair of numbers {4,2} is not even hinted at.  Yet someone removed the material on the zeta function that has had some press in refereed publications and is not just recreational trivia like the fact quoted above.  I've restored the material on the zeta function. Michael Hardy (talk) 04:17, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Zeta function 

message: The PC game Spore has achievements, one of which is labeled '42' and to complete it, you have to "Find the center of the galaxy". I am sure someone with better linguistic skills than I can edit it for easy reading :). Snugg (talk) 05:19, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  added line under video games in pop culture 

message: Im confused why 101010 is redirected to 42. ♣PrincessClown♥ 22:15, 9 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Someone was having fun -- 101010 is 42 in binary. Go ahead and list it for deletion. --macrakis (talk) 22:42, 9 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Redirect 

message: I think that it might be relevent that the 42nd question of the impossible quiz (http://www.notdoppler.com/theimpossiblequiz.php) should be included. It asks about the answer to the ultimate quuestion of life, the world et cetera. Maybe it should be included in the Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy section of 42.
And it might help if you click on the link.Zheliel (talk) 09:15, 27 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: You beat me to it. --Closedmouth (talk) 14:25, 27 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  The lmpossible Quiz 

message: Is it interesting that Bill Clinton is the 42nd President of the United States? Or that George W. Bush was the 42nd person to be president (Due to Grover Clevelend being counted twice)? Tipto42 (talk) 06:33, 23 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: No.  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 15:09, 23 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Political 

message: needs to go or be explained in some form of context. If it really is the meaning of life, wikipedia has saved my soul. thuglasT|C 16:23, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  42 image and caption

message: Does Scott Vollmer or the Arkon Colts actually exist? A quick Google search turned up nothing on either one.
70.88.213.74 (talk) 17:43, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Sports/Baseball

message: From the above section: "42 is the result given by the web search engines Google, Wolfram Alpha and Microsoft's Bing when the query "the answer to life the universe and everything" is entered as a search." This actually belongs to section 5.1 "In The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", since the result of the search is all about the HG. Agreed? Thanks Kvsh5 (talk) 15:23, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  6 - In technology: search engines 

message: The common word for "42" in Hebrew is "Arbayim-Ve-Shtayim" (ארבעים ושתיים), and not "Mem-Bet" like it is written here. "Mem-Bet" is usually only used by religious people, and even then it's only when they are talking about Jewish stuff. I never use that kind of counting and I am Israeli. --Sharnav (talk) 16:55, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I was wondering the same thing, since online translations for both rendered "42".  It turns out that the editor who made the change, User:Sharnav, explained the reason above.  The explanation sounds reasonable but still leaves me wondering if we should include both.  152.16.16.75 (talk) 10:07, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: In Hebrew

message: I have fixed the mistake concerning how 42 is written in Serbian. It wrote "četiridesetdva" which translates literaly as 4-10-2, which is incorrect. I have corrected this and wrote it in cyrillic because, although the use both cyrillic and latin letters, the official letters of Serbian language are cyrillic letters.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.189.241.35 (talk) 00:54, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: In Serbian Language (needed correction)

message: Dear Colleagues,
There is an ongoing discussion on the organization of number pages and number disambiguation pages.
Your comments would be much appreciated!! Please see and participate in:
* Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Numbers#Organization_of_number_pages
Thank you for your participation!
Cheers,
PolarYukon (talk) 15:02, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Organization of number pages and number disambiguation pages

message: Sorry, but the Dates paragraph doesn't bring any information, the ones written down there are as important to me as would be 1542, 942, 442 or any one else.
If these are important, why isn't there a link to the correspondant date in History, or at least a small description phrase ?
Thanks.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.128.13.172 (talk) 12:25, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dates ? 

message: 4,200,000,000 is not directly related to 42!  The number 4,200,000,000 being the top number of items in the game (stated at the term page) is due to a reason.  
As you can see in [Long Integer], the range of 4-bytes (32bit) integers is −2,147,483,648 to 2,147,483,647 unsigned, or 0 to 4,294,967,295 unsigned.  Therefore, the game was using a second-degree round to allow a maximum of 4.2e+9 items so it fits within its 32bit counter.  Etamar (talk) 13:38, 28 March 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  4,200,000,000 is just a rounded long integer 

message: I'm not sure if it should be here or in the [The Answer to life] article, but shouldn't it be mentioned that 42 in the Hitchhiker context is a Non sequitur ?  Joeywayne (talk) 19:05, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: No.  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 19:55, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

text: In the books and in the 2005 movie (I don't know about the BBC radio presentations, audiotapes, or miniseries), it's explained that the mice asked for the answer, without specifying the question.  It's a different fallacy, but not a non sequitur.  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 16:11, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Non sequitur 

message: Could 42 possibly be an alchemy reference? God is frequently associated with 7 and man is frequently associated with 6, so could this relate to hermetics? (Why: Lion X Lioness = Cub)  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.55.103.145 (talk) 08:39, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  New interpretation? 

message: In the last instance in the "religion" section this "The sum of the squares of each of these numbers make 216" is completely random, if this is referring to the numbers 3,4,5,6,7,8,9 then the sum of their squares is 280 and not 216, we would have to remove the 8 to bring that to 216, but in that case 3+4+5+6+7+9=34 and not 42; correct me if I'm wrong anyway.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.13.60.20 (talk) 03:25, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Religion

message: The thing about 42 being the number of expected throws of a single die until two 6s show up successively.. How was this calculated? I can't find anything on Google that doesn't look like it was copied from Wikipedia. And why does it have to be 6s? Can't it be 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 as well?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.14.169.216 (talk) 19:09, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Don't get it..? 

message: Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything is "42" From the Movie Hitch Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy And How This Is To Be Is From This.
How the answer is calculated
it's simple. 42. A die has 6 sides- a 6,5,4,3,2,1. 6+5+4+3+2+1= 21 +﻿ another die = 42
The answer is to die
...
TO DIE.
That's the joke.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by En0ch911 (talk • contribs) 06:31, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything 

message: Grammatically correct, two of a game-related object called a die is 'two dice' (its plural form), technically either saying that the computer was not smart enough to know about plurals, or that theory is incorrect. Just saying.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.214.222.24 (talk) 23:03, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  That Can't Be Right...

message: The statement that the pop band Level 42 got it's name from Clockwork Orange appears to be a mistake. I suspect someone has confused Level 42 with a similar band of the same era, Heaven 17. The page for Level 42 gives no clue where the name came from. Not sure it's worth mentioning the band at all if we don't know where the name comes from.Lafong (talk) 23:42, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Level 42 from Clockwork Orange? 

message: I've tried to trim out all the trivial entries of the "In popular culture" section, and I think I've trimmed enough to remove the tag from the top of the section (The This "In popular culture" section may contain minor or trivial references. one), but I wanted to discuss it here before removing it. - SudoGhost™ 22:12, 30 June 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I went ahead and removed the tag. - SudoGhost™ 15:54, 6 July 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  "In popular culture" 

message: It should be said somewhere that 42 is the sum of the first 7 primes viz 1,2,3,5,7,11,13,
This is especially relevant to the issue of the ultimate answer since God created the world in 7 days.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Alf Heben (talk • contribs) 15:50, 5 August 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: 1 is not prime.  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 16:39, 5 August 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Primes 

message: I've never written for Wikipedia before so be gentle.
Last week I noticed that if the phrase "To Be" were numerically encoded using 'A=1 ... Z=26' then the answer is 42 (T(20) + o(15) + B(2) + e(5) = 42).
I'm not suggesting any cosmic significance just an interesting and provocative coincidence.
Abstractspoon (talk) 00:46, 17 August 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  New Interpretation of the Possible Origin of the Number 42 

message: As of a few minutes ago, Wikipedia had 4,200,400 articles according to Special:Statistics.
It was probably April 2nd somewhere when we crossed the 4.2M article threshold.  davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 03:17, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  4.2M articles on 4/2 

message: I have done some simple calculations, one came out with the letter U (42 = letter U), another DB (4 = D, 2 = B). Any suggestions? 124.120.114.154 (talk) 11:25, 12 June 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  What is the meaning? 

message: seem to have disappeared from the visible text of the article.  Any ideas?  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 18:21, 26 May 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Other languages 

message: There are a lot of unsubstantiated claims on this page. Half of them have no reference!  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ultan42 (talk • contribs) 00:04, 30 July 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Citation needed! 

message: By my count, "the answer to life, the universe and everything is" has 50 characters. Am I missing something? It's been a long time since I read Hitchhiker's Guide.
Laurasbadideas (talk) 09:48, 11 November 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Looks like you're right. I don't remember anything like this being in the books, I assume it's just somebody's miscounted coincidence. I've cut it. --McGeddon (talk) 09:57, 11 November 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  "The phrase 'the answer to life, the universe and everything is' has exactly 42 characters, including the comma after 'life'." 

message: In the final episode of Douglas Adam's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Arthur Dent attempts to channel the solution to Deep Thought's calculation hidden within in his primate brain by randomly selecting letters one at a time from a bag of Scrabble letters and placing them on a Scrabble board.
The result of this, as depicted in the last episode of the BBC television series, spells 'FOURTY' horizontally, and 'TWO' vertically, using the 'T' of FOURTY as the first letter of the second word.
In the television series image, this is done near the center of the Scrabble board.  However, if you replace the "Y" with a blank, and place the T at the vertex of the triple word score position at the top of the scrabble board, (and also ignore the double letter score for the 'F'), what you get is:
'F'(4) + 'O'(1) + 'U'(1) + 'R'(1) + 'T'(1) + 'BLANK'(0) = 8 x 3 = 24, and
'T'(1) + 'W'(4) + 'O'(1) = 6 x 3 = 18, and
24 + 18 = 42
Notice that the letter 'Y' (WHY?) must be "BLANK".  In other words, there is no 'Y' (WHY?) to the question associated with Life, the Universe, and Everything.
Scrabble is unique as a game because it is the only game which closely associates both letters and numbers in skilled play.   Symbols are quantitative (numbers) and letters are tokens of meaning, the only symbols used as tools by finite minds to assimilate infinitesimal bits of meaning from the whole of infinite truth, which is impossible for a finite mind such as ours to understand in its entirety.
This is, I think, pretty close to the meaning Adams intended to convey in HHG, the greatest work of his genius.  Danshawen (talk)danshawen  —Preceding undated comment added 04:19, 11 February 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  42 as a Scrabble Solution 

message: Please see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Numbers#List of British bingo nicknames for a centralized discusion as to whether Bingo names should be included in thiese articles.  Arthur Rubin (alternate) (talk) 23:34, 3 June 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bingo names -

message: This Connect Four set was from a mental ward in SCUH, Australia, between Jan and March 2019. At the time I thought that the meaning of life, etc, (Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy) was 42, and the question was "what's 6x7?". For some reason I thought I'd count the pieces and the result was unexpected. I wonder how often sets are like this - 1 in 1000? And it was the first time I'd ever tried counting the pieces. There should be 21 of each because tied games are possible.  Zephyr103 (talk) 03:46, 19 April 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Connect Four 

message: I am doing a similar round-robin analysis, and my answer is different. Since there is no external links for validations, is there anyone here with mathematical background so that we can verify this statement: ″It is the number of isomorphism classes of all simple and oriented directed graphs on 4 vertices. In other words, it is the number of all possible outcomes (up to isomorphism) of a tournament consisting of 4 teams where the game between any pair of teams results in three possible outcomes: the first team wins, the second team wins, or there is a draw. The group stage of the FIFA World cup is a good example″. My answer is 40, by the way.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Long Doan (talk • contribs) 11:49, 3 June 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: It is 42; a Google search will reveal images of all possible graphs, and it is also included on the OEIS (oeis.org/A001174). Thank you though, you're right that it should have a reference. Justinorbit (talk) 00:06, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

text: I have searched up on OEIS and the first part is indeed correct. However, the second FIFA World Cup part seems to be different, as I found another OEIS sequence that state directly to the case of a round-robin tournament (https://oeis.org/A064626, the sequence state directly for World Cup rule of 3-point for a win and 1-point for a draw) and the answer with number of teams = 4 is 40. However, since I do not have much mathematical background, I do not know why do we have differences in answer and thus, if it is okay, to have someone with mathematical background to re-verify the second part. Long Doan (talk) 03:27, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

text: Okay I understand. 42 comes from the outcomes, so win, draw, lose. 40 comes from the total points at the end. There are 42 possible outcomes for the games played, but when looking at total point distribution, two pairs of these outcomes give the same points, namely [7,4,4,1] and [6,4,4,3] (win = 3, draw = 1, lose = 0). So the original statement is correct as it talks about outcomes, but you're also correct if you change that into points. Justinorbit (talk) 08:36, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

text: Got it, so the fact still stand (although a bit modification would be nice). However, one question remains: the sequence (https://oeis.org/A317723) that gives n points for win and 1 point for draw also give the answer 40 for n=4; since the number a win could be found by having points divides by n only take integer, number a draw could be found by having points modulos n, this methods finds number of unique results, like 1.(2,0,1); 2.(1,0,1); 3. (1,0,1); 4 (0,1,2) (written in the form ranking.(win,draw,lose)). Do you mean by having two [7,4,4,1]s, they are 1) first-place got the win with two 4-point participants and draw with the last-place; 2) first-place got the win with one 4-point participant in addition with last-place, and draw with other 4-point (which is pretty much differences if Head-2-head is used as an tie-breaker like in UEFA competitions)? I am asking because I am not quite sure if there is any additional cases like that in other point distribution. By the way, thanks for your time looking into the question! Long Doan (talk) 12:17, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

text: I'm not entirely sure what you are asking so I'll explain my method and hope it helps (it's probably not the most efficient way but it's how I saw it). Each team can be represented using a vertex. If a team wins against another team we can draw an arrow pointing to the winning vertex from the losing vertex. If two teams draw, we can leave the vertices unconnected. After all six games, we will have one of these 42 possible outcomes (up to isomorphism) (https://www.researchgate.net/figure/The-42-isomorphism-types-of-oriented-graphs-of-order-4_fig4_335258169). Now if we want we can assign points to each vertex depending on wins/loses/draws, say win=3, draw=1, lose=0 to start with. So for example, looking at G8, one vertex has won two games and lost one (total 6), two vertices have lost one game and drew two (total 2 each), and the last vertex has won one game and drew two (total 5). It doesn't matter which specific team has which points (isomorphism), all we care about is that we have the points 6, 2, 2, and 5, which we represented as [6,5,2,2]. Doing this for all possible outcomes, we see that both G25 and G26 have the points [7,4,4,1], while both G32 and G34 have the points [6,4,4,3]. Although unique outcomes in regards to win/lose, points-wise these are the same up to isomorphism, hence we only have 40 unique point outcomes. Now if win=n=4, draw=1, lose=0, we see again G25 and G26 have points [9,5,5,1] while G32 and G34 have [8,5,5,4], hence 40 again. Both being 40 is coincidental and depends on the point weighting. Similarly for greater n, say n=5, there are a total of 582 outcomes but only 355 unique point distributions when win=3, and 367 unique point distributions when win=n=5. Hope this helps and clears my answer up a little, feel free to ask if not though! Justinorbit (talk) 13:32, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

text: After looking at your sources and again at my sources, you are absolutely right. Just like what you said, it is a matter of perspective. I look at the raw result numbers and thus the number is 40, but when we looks at different tournament results possible (which is the better and more useful views), the correct number would be 42. For clearing my questions (which now I got the answer, but I still want to share you my observation, and of course you might have already know it), if we write the win-draw-lose table, both G32 and G34 (for example) would both look like this: 
 Caption text
Rank	Win	Draw	Lose
1   	2  	0   	1
2   	1  	1   	1
3   	1  	1   	1
4   	1  	0   	2
which in my calculation treated both the same (in fact, if we give points for winning larger or equal than n, hence both OESIS sequence I gave you agree with the answer 40). However, if we need to have a deep tournament analysis, G32 and G34 are indeed very differences. And actually, your (and the current method) are much more useful for round-robin tournament analysis, since separating G32 and G34 reveals more information (I gave the confusing UEFA tournaments example, to clarify, UEFA tournaments first tie-break is head-to-head result (team with better result in head-to-head match is ranked higher). If we merge both G32 and G34, we cannot sure whether the match between second and third place is decisive and need to look up the exact match to check whether the second-place ranked higher than the third-place. However, if we keep the separated results, if we know our tournament falls in the case G34, we can surely know the second team ranked higher than the third team. 
Again, thank you very much for looking up to the problem and answer all my questions. I am really clear now!Long Doan (talk) 15:24, 4 June 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Prove for the information about isomorphism classes 

message: The transcript for the television adaptation has the following:
The shoe, it was discovered
on the bus with a number 42.
Now, that bus, I believe,
passes close by.
That bus goes to the hospital.
Notably, the number is not mentioned in the novel. --Lmstearn (talk) 12:53, 7 February 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Agatha Christie: Hickory Dickory Dock 

message: The following error message is in red following the phrase "42 is the smallest number  such that for every Riemann surface  of genus"
Failed to parse (SVG (MathML can be enabled via browser plugin): Invalid response ("Math extension cannot connect to Restbase.") from server "http://localhost:6011/en.wikipedia.org/v1/":): {\displaystyle \#\text{Aut}(C) \leq k\ \text{deg}(K_{C})=k(2g-2)} Dlcarlson (talk) 20:52, 26 February 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't see an error.  It may have been a transient problem.  Does anyone else see an error? Certes (talk) 10:14, 27 February 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Formatting