Talk:42 (number)

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Comments: In the article under "In music" it says:

"... The song So Long and Thanks For All the Fish, was one of 42 possible nominees in the 78th Annual Academy Awards for Best Song ..."

However, the article on the 78th Annual academy awards states that:

"... This was also the first time in 17 years that less than 5 songs were nominated in the Best Original Song category ..."

Which is correct?

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[edit] iPod?

WTF is the ipod nano advertisement doing in this section. The damn thing didn't exist when the show was written and it is only the answer to Seteve Jobs' pension fund problems.

If the nanos indeed weigh 42 grams, it's simply a coincidence, as are most of the references to 42 on this page - many of them have absolutely NOTHING to do with Hitchhiker's if that's what you're thinking. The blatant references to Hitchhiker's are noted here, and on the page The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy cultural references. --JohnDBuell 11:30, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Deep Thought

I removed the line

42 in binary translates to 101010

only because it is made redundant by the Docuan table. However, if someone can elaborate why the binary translation is of interest, they should restore that line and follow it with the elaboration. PrimeFan 22:40, 6 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Have removed reference to Elvis' death from the pop culture section. It was hardly intentional that he lived to only forty-two. And it's already mentioned further down in the article. TRiG 22:19, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

I just added a reference to a web page, Deep Thought, that includes a vast number of sightings of 42. I'd like to copy over the entries to Wikipedia, so I and others could start work on getting references for all of them(many are from TV shows, books, etc.), but I'm not sure if that is OK, what sort of paraphrasing would be necessary, etc... I'll email the webmaster of the page, anyway, and see what reply I get back. JesseW 06:21, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)

If you do start to copy some of these sightings, I think that it would be wise to leave out all the sightings from TV, movies ect. where it is just coincidentally mentioned. Eg. If af person has a phonenumber wich contains "42" then I would say that is beyond the scope of an encyclopedia. If people were interested in that they can always just visit the site. Eruantalon 6 Oct 2004

Do we really need a list of every 42 sighting? Why bother - most of them will be totally insignificant. Gamaliel 19:00, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)

My point exactly, though I do find some of them amusing, especially those that relate directly back to something in Douglas Adams's Books. Eg. the one about mice, though it might be to much work to try to explain in this article. Perhaps we should mention that Douglas Adams claims that he picked the number at random. Eruantalon 6 Oct 2004

Newsflash: Not every reference of the number 42 must relate to HGTTG. I'm removing a couple of sentences to this effect. --195.92.67.68 21:24, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Well no, of course there are plenty of 42's that have nothing to do with the Hitchhiker's Guide, but at least in the realms of science fiction and comedy, many do. Look around the world of professional sports; there's probably a player on every team wearing the number 23. For some, it's simply the numbering system, but for most, it's a tribute to Michael Jordan. As the 23 page says, even David Beckham used the number because of Jordan (although it was Posh's idea). That said, I think it's noteworthy that Elvis Presley, one of the most important musicians of 20th Century America, died at age 42. Akbeancounter 03:04, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Number of eyes in a deck of cards

I don't have a deck of cards handy right now, so I don't want to edit this new tidbit just yet:

The number of eyes in a deck of 52 cards.

But this needs to be verified and clarified (that we're talking about which standard deck of cards, for one thing).

If every Jack, Queen and King has four eyes (two on the top head and two on the head mirrored below), that means that the royal cards of a given suit have twelve eyes total. Multiply that by four suits and you get 48. So if 42 is correct, that means that some of the royal cards, the royal personage is painted in profile so only one eye shows on the top head (and one more eye on the head mirrored below). PrimeFan 21:23, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Hint - think "one-eyed jacks" Bunthorne 19:00, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

In the most common playing card illustrations in use today, there are two one-eyed jacks, and one one-eyed king. Not sure which suits they are, though. Dansiman 17:39, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] God/Devil?

Is the number 6 associated with the Devil and 7 with God? I think that sentence can go.--Lkjhgfdsa 20:22, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

I've heard of it, but I think that that's more of a folklore thing, rather than actual Scripture. Akbeancounter 03:04, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Possible new information for '42'

I am not the most experienced person at making wiki edits, so i bring it up here, and invite someone else to try it. But i do believe the article referenced [here] might contain some new insights into the value of 42.

Reference to Riemann zeta function has been added, since the article looks serious. Some matematician should review that.

[edit] 4orty 2wo

4orty 2wo is actually a ARG gaming company that has nade the ARG's of the like of 'ilovebees' and 'lastcallpoker'

[edit] Unnecessary

Somebody should probably remove the entry of the Capital High students, as it seems as though they added it themselves.

Done. --JohnDBuell 02:46, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Nintendo DS

Why does the bit about the Nintendo DS Lite being 42 percent smaller keep getting deleted?

According to the edit summaries, it is removed per Wikipedia:WikiProject Numbers#Numbers in statistics. --JohnDBuell 12:00, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Third moment of the Riemann zeta function?

This article says:

Actually, the quantity listed is "the sixth moment" of the zeta-function, not the third. There are articles by Conrey & Ghosh and by Conrey & Gonek which conjecture how the number 42 comes into play. It is not exactly as the article describes.

It is believed to be the third moment of the Riemann zeta function, based partially upon evidence from quantum mechanics.

I don't know what this means. Here's a guess:

$\int_{(-\infty,\infty)} s^3 \zeta(s)\,ds = 42.$

I'm accustomed to the definition of momnets of probability measures; if ζ were a probability density function then the integral above would be the third moment of the corresponding probability distribution. But ζ is negative in some places, and from the way ζ(s) blows up at s = 1 it seems we'd have to be thinking of a Cauchy principal value or something like that.

Can someone make the article's statement clearer? Michael Hardy 17:50, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

I've exchanged some email with John Baez, the mathematical physicist who has edited Wikipedia articles as user:John Baez, and he reports that he cannot access Wikipedia because he is in China. He wrote:

“

So, feel free to post this comment for me:

I don't know anything about the "3rd moment of the Riemann zeta function", but perhaps what's meant is the 3rd moment of the distribution of spacings between zeroes of the Riemann zeta function. There's a lot of evidence relating the distribution of these spacings to the distribution of spaces between eigenvalues of a large random self-adjoint matrix. For lots more, try this:

http://www.maths.ex.ac.uk/~mwatkins/zeta/bump-gue.htm

and for general connections between the Riemann zeta function and quantum mechanics, try:

http://www.maths.ex.ac.uk/~mwatkins/zeta/physics1.htm

Best, jb

”

My wild guess seemed so implausible that I'm both relieved to hear that it's wrong and pleased to hear that this otherwise implausible-seeming statement can be construed in such a way that it makes sense. Michael Hardy 16:20, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Update on this: John Baez was wrong too. See the article as it now stands. Michael Hardy 22:13, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 42 factorial

Someone must have objected to the inclusion of this:

The prime factorization of 42! =

$\quad\quad 2^{39} * 3^{19} * 5^9 * 7^6 * 11^3 * 13^3 * 17^2 * 19^2 * 23 * 29 * 31 * 37 *41\,$

I don't have a problem with it, but I object to the use of an asterisk for ordinary multiplication in TeX. Here's how to do it:

$42! = 2^{39} \times 3^{19} \times 5^9 \times 7^6 \times 11^3 \times 13^3 \times 17^2 \times 19^2 \times 23 \times 29 \times 31 \times 37 \times 41.\,$

Michael Hardy 22:13, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] This is a funny coincidence...

I clicked the link "the answer to life, the universe, and everything" into Google, as suggested by the article, and besides seeing the answer from Google's calculator, I noticed that the top result, which is the Wikipedia article, is reported to be 42k long! Itub 03:28, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

now it's 43k. tough luck, :)

Onlyabititalian 19:56, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

42,000 isn't 42 anyway. :-p 205.206.207.250 04:37, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Mostly Harmless

There was a third question to the answer 42, implied in the 5th book in the Hichhiker's series, Mostly Harmless. The address of the bar Stavro Mueller Beta is number 42. This is significant, because Arthur Dent, the last bit of the original Earth computer, had been asking everyone where Stavromula Beta was, because he couldn't die untill he had been there. His arrival there was the final key event in the utter destruction of all Earths, as orchestrated by The Guide 2.0 for the Vogons.

I guess my point is, why isn't this on the page?

Because this is a non-fiction page about the number, and NOT a Hitchhiker's related page? --JohnDBuell 21:01, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Deletion of hte pointless Televion and Film section

I find the Television and Film section very pointless and unnecessary. It seems that if the number 42 apears anywhere, someone has to add it to the list. It has no encyclopedic value! Please, someone delete it. Aaron Pepin

I don't think it should be outright deleted, but there are a lot of references that are way too trivial. We should definitely start trying to cut down the absurd size of the section, while still leaving in references that seem notable. Tozoku 12:18, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Repdigit

Probably it is obvious, but I am a biologist and not a mathmatician, but to put a joke in a vector I wanted to write 42 so I squared it to have more nucletides, and I got 0123210 in base 4. is this palindrome of significance to the number part?

[edit] Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

I have put a mention of Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy in the Film & TV and Literature section as I think it is one of the biggest for both. Should I have? - - Nicko 08:11, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wording of the Book

"'What!' ejaculated Mr Pickwick, laying his hand upon his notebook," is what wikipedia has. Is this accurate?

Probably not, but I'll keep it just in case. Someone who actually has the book can verify. (I do see other vandalism though, which I'll remove. Nowhere in the article about Geoff Fortytwo does it say anything about him winning over 9000 internets. >_>) 205.206.207.250 04:40, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure about this instance, but I have seen the word used in this context in another book, so I believe it is a valid definition. Dansiman (talk|Contribs) 06:30, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Repeating Decimals

Today I was very bored and noticed something interesting: I couldn't find any integer (aside from zero and multiples/factors of 42) that when divided by 42 didn't produce a repeating decimal pattern. Observe:

1 / 42 = 0.0238095
2 / 42 = 0.047619
23 / 42 = 0.5476190
41 / 42 = 0.9761904
666 / 42 = 15.857142 (also, it ends with 42 <_<)
1,000,000 / 42 = 23809.523809
4,294,967,295 / 42 = 102,261,126.0714285
4,294,967,296 / 42 = 102,261,126.095238

In every one of these cases, the last 6 digits after the decimal point repeat forever. (1/42 = 0.0238095238095238095...) Is there a term for this? Is it a known phenomenon or just a strange coincidence? 205.206.207.250 04:53, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Known phenomenon -- in base 10, any fraction (where common factors are removed from the numerator and denominator) whose denominator is divisible by any prime other than 2 or 5 (the factors of 10) will have a recurring decimal.

BTW, 21/42 = 0.5 . -- ArglebargleIV 19:32, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] About Eyrian's heavy purge

Granted that there is some stuff in the article that needs to be removed, but I think Eyrian's latest purge was exceedingly random and indiscriminate.

Some items get stated twice (e.g., that 42 is a LOST number) and other items appear rather ephemeral (WP:NUM prefers "ephemeral" over "trivial" in many contexts). But any purging needs to be done carefully, discriminately, and well-documentedly (with edit summaries and maybe even HTML comments). PrimeFan 22:35, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

As I said, 42 can (and generally will) occur in any and every context. Listing each of these is futile. There were no meaningful attachments that belong here at a listing about the number. The few things that might be known by the number (stellar bodes) belong at the disambiguation page. --Eyrian 23:01, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Give us more credit than that. No one's gonna write "I have 42 cents in my pocket right now." But 42 in Hitchhiker's is very much worthy of mention here. So are some tributes to Adams. Knodeltheory 14:54, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Science items for consideration

I removed the following:

10! (10 factorial) seconds is exactly 42 days.
On page 7-10 of Volume 1 of "The Feynmann Lectures on Physics" is a marginal figure that illustrates the strength ratio of gravitation attraction and electrical repulsion between two electrons as 1/4.17 x 10^42. The denominator is also written out by hand as a long, snaking 4,170,... followed by 39 more zeros. Feymann mentions the unified field theory, the similarity of the inverse square laws, the disparity of the relative strengths, and asks "Where could such a large number come from? ... it involves something deep in nature."

I don't think anyone would expect an article on 42 to have these items, but I could be wrong. Knodeltheory 14:53, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your handling of this removal, and your humility in acknowledging you might not always be right. PrimeFan 21:16, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand why you're removing them. If it's because you aren't sure of their accuracy, well...

10! = 3,628,800. 3,628,800 / 60 (sec->min) = 60,480. 60,480 / 60 (min->hour) = 1,008. 1,008 / 24 (hour->day) = 42.

They're certainly interesting points, and I see no reason to leave them out. 205.206.207.250 10:21, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Because they bloat the article with useless information. Just because it's true doesn't mean it belongs in Wikipedia. Please see WP:NOT#IINFO. --Eyrian 13:14, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

IMHO this fits nature of this article: it is interesting observation. And: it is smalles number of days which seconds equals to fatctorial of natural number (and next 462). This is more interesting than Orion Nebula has name M42, because some nebula must have numner 42, but 10!s=42d is ... ehm ... more rare. --Vitas 19:51, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Ruining the fun

I think you're ruining the fun of 42 by taking away all the inane references. Maybe there's need for two versions of the page. 121.45.231.114 09:01, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Fun? Wikipedia isn't a rollercoaster. --Closedmouth 09:17, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Super Bowl XLII

I still don't think it belongs, but I've escalated the problem to Wikipedia Talk:WikiProject Numbers#Super Bowl XLII, etc., which seems the appropriate venue. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 00:44, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] What are we doing?

Are we trying to write a contextualized encyclopedia article about the number 42, or a list of loosely associated trivia documenting each and every time the number 42 shows up in a film, book, or television show??? Burntsauce 20:11, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

I think the year list is OK; those are the most likely years for an unadorned 42 to refer to. I tend to agree with the rest of your suggestions, though. Perhaps we should bring it up in the WikiProject. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 20:47, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Which WikiProject should this matter be referred to? I found it especially ridiculous the mention that a canine has 42 teeth. No one would ever turn to this article, 42 (number), to look up that information. There are a few dozen more trivia examples just like this, but this one stood out the brightest, and all of them are without a single reliable source, of course. Burntsauce 20:55, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject Numbers would be the one. -- ArglebargleIV 21:29, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Why did you substitute the WikiProject banners? --Closedmouth 05:10, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 42 in Japanese?

"In Japanese, 4 (shi) and 2 (ni) are together pronounced like "going to death" (死に). Because of that, in Japan, 42 is considered as a disastrous number."

Ive never heard of this. Forty two（四十二）is pronounced yonjū-ni (preferred) or shijū-ni. It doesn't sound like 死に at all. Admittedly I have never been to Japan (going on March) but I do study Japanese and I'm really skeptical on this. Jyuichi (talk) 03:22, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

42 is actually related to both string theory and the golden ratio:

1. Take any two integers and add them together (e.g. 8 and 4 = 12), then add that one to the previous one and continue this way (e.g. 8,4,12,16,28...). Then it can be proved that dividing any number in this series by the previous one more and more closely approaches the golden ratio as you go higher and higher in the series. The Fibonacci series (0,1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21...) is the one such series that approaches the golden ratio most quickly. (The golden ratio is the most irrational of all numbers: (1+sqrt(5))/2 = 1.618....)

2. Double the Fibonacci series and you have the series 0,2,2,4,6,10,16,26,42,..., which happens to add up to 108 (considered a number of completion in Hinduism and Buddhism and critical--along with 42--in the popular "Lost" tv series).

3. This doubled Fibonacci series shows up in string theory, in the "hierarchy of dimensional compactification", starting with 26 dimensions. However, some physicists, including Mohammed El Naschie, believe that an extended string theory would begin with at least 42 dimensions (the next number in the series). 209.132.142.122 (talk) 21:05, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

I was wondering if someone could possibly explain the above "the golden ratio is the most irrational of all numbers". How can numbers have degrees of irrationality - surely they are either irrational or not? (I could be wrong - I am an undergraduate physicist, not a mathematician!) The Young Ones (talk) 12:09, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

You're right, a number is either irrational or it isn't. However, you can set up a 'hierarchy' of sorts among irrational numbers according to how difficult it is to approximate them with rational numbers. In this sense one irrational number can be 'more irrational' than another. For a full explanation, have a read through this series: page 1, page 2, page 3, page 4. (Needless to say, the 'connection' to 42 from 42 being double the ninth term in the Fibonnaci sequence is meaningless; you can get to pretty much any number you like by kneading a sequence enough). -- simxp (talk) 19:03, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "Book of Change" (I Ching)

The article says the hexagram nro. 42 is the last one in 'The Book of Change'. Assuming that we are talking about THE 'Book of Change' - i.e. the I Ching -, it has 64 (sixty-four) hexagrams.

- - —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.142.180.213 (talk) 05:29, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Addition to "in religion" topic

In the old testament book of Numbers, there is a list of forty two travels the Israelites took from Egypt to the promised land. Many KJV bibles even list "The forty two travels of the Israelites" as a section header. The travels/journeys are listed in Numbers 33:1-49. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.167.22.166 (talk) 15:29, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Is there a problem with adding the "X files" reference?

Is it a notability problem, or what? WNDL42 (talk) 03:33, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Happy Numbers

I learned of happy numbers from the Doctor Who episode 42. In describing happy numbers to some friends, I used 379 as an example of a happy number, and 42 as an example of an unhappy number. It turns out, 42 demonstrates its unhappiness by repeating itself...

42 -> 16 + 4 = 20 -> 4 + 0 = 4 -> 16 -> 1 + 36 = 37 -> 9 + 49 = 58 -> 25 + 64 = 89 -> 64 + 81 = 145 -> 1 + 16 + 25 = 42

Likely not worth noting in the article, but possibly of interest to others looking for numerical features of 42. -FeralDruid (talk) 18:09, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] rubin sequence

For the record, I had nothing to do with it. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 01:00, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] National Treasure 2

I erased the entry about this because if you saw the movie, the president clearly asked Gates to look at page 47 not page 42. 5 May 19:06 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by RandomHero8 (talk • contribs) 19:06, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

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