quote: One prospect stood out: an asteroid given the provisional designation 2001 DA42, discovered by the Lincoln Near Earth Asteroid Research project, or LINEAR. It's a relatively unremarkable space rock, orbiting 224 million miles (358 million kilometers) from the sun in the main asteroid belt, between Mars and Jupiter. But its name held triple significance.
Not only did it memorialize the year of Adams' death (2001) and his initials (DA), but it also referenced the number 42 — which is absurdly meaningful in the "Hitchhiker" saga as the "answer to the Ultimate Question." (The problem was, no one ever knew precisely what the Ultimate Question was.)
That was the flawed question left imprinted on Arthur's brain despite the fact that he was not descended from the original cavemen designed to provide the Question.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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So who was he descended from? I don't remember. Oh wait, I remember. The coach class freighter of disposable humanoids.
That is great about the asteroid. Though it would have been funnier if it had near earth colliding potential.
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The exact question, spelled out in handmade Scrabble tiles, was "What do you get if you multiply six by nine?"
It is, however, clearly not the right Question -- as verified by Prak, who pointed out that if the Question and the Answer were ever actually known by anyone at the same time, the universe would be destroyed and replaced with something stranger.
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