Why 42?

So why 42? What is the significance of number 42?  Why I chose the name as newbie42 and not just newbie?

Because domain name newbie was not available. Simple. But why 42? why not 99 or 100 or any random number?

commons.wikimedia.org

Ok so google this phrase "answer to the ultimate question of life the universe and everything" and see what you get.

Surprised?

Why google gave us 42 as the answer?

Have you seen the film  "The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" ? So this number 42 received considerable attention from this film.

According to wikipedia article,

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (published in 1979), the characters visit the legendary planet Magrathea, home to the now-collapsed planet-building industry, and meet Slartibartfast, a planetary coastline designer who was responsible for the fjords of Norway. Through archival recordings, he relates the story of a race of hyper-intelligent pan-dimensional beings who built a computer named Deep Thought to calculate the Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything. When the answer was revealed to be 42, Deep Thought explained that the answer was incomprehensible because the beings didn't know what they were asking. It went on to predict that another computer, more powerful than itself would be made and designed by it to calculate the question for the answer. (Later on, referencing this, Adams would create the42 Puzzle, a puzzle which could be approached in multiple ways, all yielding the answer 42.) 

Since then Geeks have  wasted years and massive effort trying to ascribe some deep, symbolic significance to the number and its occurrences.

When asked Adams why he chose this number he said -

"The answer to this is very simple," Adams said. "It was a joke. It had to be a number, an ordinary, smallish number, and I chose that one. Binary representations, base 13, Tibetan monks are all complete nonsense. I sat on my desk, stared in to the garden and thought 42 will do. I typed it out. End of story."

For cricket fans - Today is the 42th birthday of  Sachin Tendulkar. Do I need any more reasons to choose the number 42.

More on number 42.