The Ultimate Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything.
But don't you dare go looking for the question. If you find it, the universe will be replaced with something even stranger. And that might not necessarily be a good thing. Of course, some say that this has already happened. note
42 is the ASCII code for the symbol * also known as the asterisk. This symbol is often thought to translate to anything or everything. In this instance, 42 = everything, the meaning of life.
Also, 24 reversed. (The Doctor Who episode named "42" was a reference to this, since it took place in Real Time over 42 minutes.) There are also 42 points on Twilight Sparkle's cutie mark, whose special talent is magic, and as we all know Friendship is Magic. Let that sink in for a while. (Twilight also wore number 42 in the Running of the Leaves.) Also the number of lines per page in the Gutenberg Bible. And it is part of a string of lottery numbers that add up to 108. It's also the retired jersey number of Jackie Robinson, who broke the color barrier in American baseball. And the name given to the octopus played by Nathan Fillion in Resident Alien apparently because the alien who pretends to be Harry thought it appropriate since said octopus was number 42 on a restaurant menu. It is seen quite frequently in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse as a nod to Jackie Robinson and the spider that bites Miles Morales, giving him spider-powers, bears the number 42.
101010 in binary (which also happens to be the date that Friendship Is Magic's pilot aired). 52 in octal. 2A in hexadecimal. 10 in base 42. Six times nine in base 13. 42 plus 4 plus 23 equals 69. And 2 plus 3 is 42. Oh, and 42 times 10 equals 420.
Major League Baseball teams occasionally retire a number worn by one of their legendary athletes. The New York Yankees, for example, have retired the number 3 (worn by Babe Ruth) and 4 (worn by Lou Gehrig). 42 (worn by Jackie Robinson) is the only number to be retired not by one team, but by every single team in the National League — and, later, by every team in both leagues. note 42 is the title of the biopic about Robinson.
Considered unlucky by the Japanese, because, when pronounced ("shi ni"), it is a homophone of "death".
Human blood has a shelf-life of 42 days, other species may differ.
For another list of the many occurrences of this number, click here.
