Answer to Life the Universe and Everything

Dr. Hakan Oztunc
3 min readJul 28, 2021

All numbers are favorite numbers, but some of them are more favorable than others.

Unsplash photo by Greg Rakozy

Researchers asked thirty thousand participants the same question: “What is your lucky number?” in the survey. When the thirty most preferred numbers are enlisted, the number 42 comes in the eleventh place. What are the unique features of that number? I have some outstanding specifications about the number 42.

The number 42, coming after the top ten, is exceptional. To understand the story of why this number, which is considered the myth of modern times, was preferred, we need to analyze a novel. The origin of this myth is a novel: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. The book mentions an imaginary race of hyper-intelligent beings who lived millions of years ago and dominated all dimensions. Millions of years ago, a race of hyper-intelligent beings dominates all hyper-spaces in the universe. To put an end to the futile debates on life’s meaning entrusts two of the most intelligent and brilliant people to build an enormous supercomputer that can calculate Life, the Universe, and Everything. These people, who think a lot about the meaning of life, ask for an answer from this supercomputer they call “Deep Thought” — perhaps a quantum computer; there is no information about it in the book. They are waiting for an answer.

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Dr. Hakan Oztunc

Statistics Professor, Math Lover, Teaching @UOFT. Author of numerous Math Novels. Always looking to make math fun for everyone. MyBook: https://amzn.to/2M5F5Nz