The Question

Long, long ago, a race of pan-dimensional beings constructed a powerful computer called Deep Thought to calculate the Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything. After 7.5 million years of calculations, the Answer was found to be 42. The problem is that nobody knows the Question. Deep Thought predicted that a larger, more powerful computer could be built that would reveal the Question. That superior computer was the Earth, which the pan-dimensional beings inhabited in the form of mice. After 10 million years, and just 5 minutes before the Earth was to reveal the Question, it was blasted out of existence by the Vogons to clear the way for an intergallactic superhighway.

Such is the opening of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the first installment of Douglas Adams' science fiction trilogy in five parts. In the second installment, an attempt is made to uncover the Question by pulling letters out of a Scrabble set at random. The result ("What do you get when you multiply six by nine?") is later determined to be a mistake. The characters conclude that it is impossible to ever find the the Question.

Adams' fans tried to salvage the Scrabble-set question by pointing out that 6 x 9 = 42 in base 13, but the author dismissed this theory as groundless. It would seem that the Question can never be known.

But now, my friends, at long last, I have discovered the Question. I was going about life, minding my own business, when suddenly it whacked me between the eyes. It was, predictably, during a game of some kind. I now divulge the Ultimate Question to the world:

"How many dots appear on a pair of dice?"

Rationale: In the Adams universe, everything is random, the result of blind, impersonal chance. What could better symbolize that worldview than a pair of dice?

Adams himself claimed to have selected the number 42 "completely at random." He wrote: "It was a joke...I sat at my desk, stared into the garden and thought '42 will do.' I typed it out. End of story."

If it truly was a joke, order and poetic justice have the last laugh.