Public index · Literature
Adams’s 42
42
Recorded
Douglas Adams’s designed Answer
Adams chose 42 on purpose. Adams said so. It was a joke that had to be an ordinary smallish number.
Deep Thought, receiving console. The designed Answer, filed. Cultural wink. Not evidence.
What it supports
An authored literary use, later confirmed by Adams on Usenet (3 November 1993): “42 will do.” The number is designed, not derived.
What it does not
Not evidence that 42 is the universe’s secret. Adams explicitly dismissed binary, base-13 and monastic readings of his joke.
ExactnessAuthored use
Form42
Unitinteger
Strengthattested
When1979 / 1993
Source
Douglas Adams, Usenet alt.fan.douglas-adams, 3 Nov 1993- The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (1979)