For those few who have never read the book and/or were vacationing on the third moon of Acturus IV when the radio and television dramatizations were aired.

From Douglas Adam's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (I don't have the book in front of me at the moment, so I am paraphrasing as I remember it):

The question is put to "Deep Thought," the most powerful computer ever built, "What is the meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything?"

Deep Thought hums a lot and its lights flash frantically—for seven years. At the end of that time, it says "42."

Those who asked the question say, "I don't understand the answer."

Deep Thought responds by saying, "No. You don't understand the question!"

At the very end, our two protagonists, Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect find a carving in a stone that says

6 x 9 = 42

They absorb this for several minutes, then as they are walking away, one says to the other, "You know, I always thought there was something fundamentally wrong with the universe."

So—if one keeps this in mind and if one knows where one's towel is, one should be able to muddle through reasonably well

Words to live by.

Don Firth