From owner-freebsd-chat Mon Jan 17 21:20: 4 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from css.tuu.utas.edu.au (css.tuu.utas.edu.au [131.217.115.65]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id DBE3214CC8 for ; Mon, 17 Jan 2000 21:19:58 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from iaint@css.tuu.utas.edu.au) Received: from localhost (iaint@localhost) by css.tuu.utas.edu.au (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id QAA12931 for ; Tue, 18 Jan 2000 16:19:55 +1100 (EST) (envelope-from iaint@depravitas.tuu.utas.edu.au) Date: Tue, 18 Jan 2000 16:19:55 +1100 (EST) From: Iain Templeton To: chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: 42 (was Re: Microsoft go it right ;-)) In-Reply-To: <38851E6F.23416412@outpost.co.nz> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org On Tue, 18 Jan 2000, Craig Harding wrote: > Much later, after a series of unlikely adventures, Arthur Dent and Ford > Prefect ended up on prehistoric Earth with its indigenous population of > cavemen in the company of a starship-load of Golgafrincham telephone > sanitisers. Ford and Arthur realised that the Question locked in > Arthur's brain could be recovered through the unconscious direction of a > random act (pulling scrabble letters from a bag) and came up with "what > do you get if you multiply six by nine". > Although six by nine is 54, which if expressed in a base 13 number system does come out at 42 (4 x 13 = 52 + 2 = 54). I sat there for a few minutes trying to make sense of it, and that was the best I could do. Although... > The incorrect Question is explained by the fact that the presence of the > Golgafrincham settlers on Earth killed off the native pre-human > population, distorting the original setup conditions for the experiment. > Makes far more sense. > (no, I don't have the books with me at work. Entirely from memory. Very > disturbing!) > Wow! Iain To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message