forty-two
Between forty-one, forty-three
Forty-two is the cardinal number between forty-one and forty-three, written 42.
In Douglas Adams's *The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy*, forty-two is famously revealed as "the Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything"—a joke about expecting profound meaning from arbitrary numbers.
The reference has become a durable piece of nerd culture: The answer is forty-two.
- MarvinMasculine name, Welsh origin
- Babel FishFictional universal translator organism
- BetelgeuseRed supergiant star
- absurdistBeliever in cosmic meaninglessness
Lack of predictable pattern
- absurdityWildly illogical quality
- meaninglessnessLack of significance
- placeholderTemporary position marker
- anticlimacticDisappointingly weak after buildup
inside joke · cosmic irony · unknowable · inscrutable · whimsical · capricious · paradox · futility
Arthur Dent
- MarvinMasculine name, Welsh origin
- Babel FishFictional universal translator organism
- BetelgeuseRed supergiant star
Ford Prefect · absurdist · meaninglessness · science fiction
randomness
Lack of predictable pattern
- absurdityWildly illogical quality
- meaninglessnessLack of significance
- placeholderTemporary position marker
anticlimactic · inside joke · cosmic irony · unknowable · inscrutable · whimsical · capricious · paradox · futility · enigmatic
integer
Number lacking fractions
- evenUniform and level
- digitsSingle-place numerals
- mathematicsScience of quantity and structure
numerical · counting · sum · multiple · composite · abundant · ordinal · cardinal · quantity · dozen
- numbersone, three, 0, five, 1
- Douglas AdamsArthur Dent, Ford Prefect, Marvin, 42, don't panic
- Sacred Numberssacred numbers, three, angel numbers, seven, one
forty-twomeaninglessness
Lack of significance
uncertainty · chaos · nothing · infinity
two, four, forty, fourteen, twenty-one, twofold, forties, fortieth, forty-second