I might have (one of the..) answer… I mean the question to the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything!

If you’re thinking along the line of primes (seeing the answer is a number…42) then there are a few possibilities like:

1 + 41
5 + 37
11 + 31
13 + 29
19 + 23

Interesting that there are 5 possibilities (well strictly 1 isn’t a prime number by itself) – as 5 itself is a prime number. There are 13 prime numbers smaller than 42 – again 13 is a prime. if you add all the prime numbers (plus the 1 that isn’t really one) up to 13 then you get… yep you can guess, 42 – that is 7 numbers.

All in the name of good fun. I’m sure Mr Adams didn’t have any very deep and comprehensive study into the ‘answer’ to that ultimate question. For those that do not understand the ‘todo’ of the whole story, the irony is really in the simplicity of the ‘answer’ instead of ‘what’ the answer is. Mr Adams loved doing things differently – but not always right.