Small Numbers (42)

According to the novel The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Adams 1997), 42 is the ultimate answer to life, the universe, and everything. Unfortunately, it is left as an exercise to the reader to determine the actual question.

On Feb. 18, 2005, the 42nd Mersenne prime was discovered (Weisstein 2005), leading to humorous speculation that the answer to life, the universe, and everything is somehow contained in the 7.8 million decimal digits of that number.

It is also amusing that 042 occurs as the digit string ending at the 50 billionth decimal place in each of  and , providing another excellent answer to the ultimate question (Berggren et al. 1997, p. 729).

REFERENCES:

Adams, D. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. New York: Ballantine Books, 1997.

Berggren, L.; Borwein, J.; and Borwein, P. Pi: A Source Book. New York: Springer-Verlag, 1997.

Weisstein, E. W. "42nd Mersenne Prime Found." MathWorld Headline News, Feb. 26, 2005. https://mathworld.wolfram.com/news/2005-02-26/mersenne/.