What is the meaning of life?

Throughout history, people have wondered about life. In Douglas Adams’ book The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, a race of extremely intelligent beings decided to answer the Ultimate Question:

What is the meaning of life?

They were getting fed up. They were getting so fed up with the constant bickering about the meaning of life, which used to interrupt their favorite pastime of Brockian Ultra Cricket (a curious game which involved suddenly hitting people for no readily apparent reason and then running away), that they decided to sit down and solve their problems once and for all. And to this end they built themselves a stupendous super computer which was so amazingly intelligent that even before its data banks had been connected up it had started from I think therefore I am and got as far as deducing the existence of income tax before anyone managed to turn it off.

On the day of the Great On-Turning two programmers with briefcases arrived and were shown into the office where the computer was located. They were aware that this day they would represent their entire race in its greatest moment, but they conducted themselves calmly. Their names were Lunkwill and Fook. Lunkwill leaned forward and touched a small black panel. The subtlest of hums indicated that the massive computer was now in total active mode. After a pause it spoke to them.

"What is this great task for which I, Deep Thought, the greatest computer in the Universe of Time and Space, have been called into existence?"
"O Deep Thought, the task we have designed you to perform is this. We want you to tell us... the Answer!"
"The Answer? To what?"
"Life!"
"The Universe!"
"Everything!"

Deep Thought paused for a moment’s reflection.

"Tricky."
"But can you do it?"
"Yes, but I’ll need time to think about it."

Suddenly, the door flew open and two angry men wearing the uniforms of the Cruxwan University burst into the room.

"We demand admission!"
"Come on, you can’t keep us out!"
"Who are you? And what do you want?"
"I am Majikthise!"
"And I demand that I am Vroomfondel!"
"It’s all right, you don’t need to demand that."
"Oh, sorry. I am Vroomfondel, and that is a solid fact. What we demand is solid facts!"
"No, we don’t! That is precisely what we don’t demand!"
"We don’t demand solid facts! We demand a total absence of solid facts! I demand that I may or may not be Vroomfondel!"
"But who the devil are you?"
"We are philosophers."
"Though we may not be."
"We are. We are from the Union of Philosophers, and we want this machine off right now!"
"What’s the problem?"
"Demarcation! Under law the Quest for Ultimate Truth is our job. Any machine that goes and actually finds it and we’re out of a job. I mean, what’s the use of out sitting up half the night arguing that there may or may not be a God if this machine only goes and gives you His phone number the next morning?!"
"That’s right. We demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!"
"Might I make an observation at this point! All I wanted to say is that right now, my circuits are committed to calculating the answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything. But the programs will take me a little while to run."

Fook glanced at his watch.

"How long?"
"Seven and a half million years."
"What?!"
"I said I needed time to think about it. Besides, this is the best thing that could happen to the philosophers. This is bound to create an enormous amount of popular publicity for the whole area of philosophy in general and the philosophers have all that time to develop their own theories on what answer I’m going to come up with. They’ll be getting so much media attention. Just as long as you guys can keep disagreeing with each other, you can keep yourselves on the gravy train for life. How does that sound?"

The two philosophers gaped at him.

"Now that is what I call thinking. Vroomfondel, why do we never think of things like that?"
"Dunno, think out brains must be too highly trained."

So they turned and walked out of the door and into a life-style beyond their wildest dreams.
Seven and a half million years later, two philosophers, Loonquawl and Phouchg, were sitting in that very office, waiting for the answer. They were quite nervous.

"Good morning."
"Er... good morning, O Deep Thought. Do you have... er, that is..."
"The Answer? Yes, I have. Though, I don’t think you’re going to like it."
"Doesn’t matter! We must know."
"All right. You’re really not going like it."
"Tell us!"
"All right. The Answer to the Great Question of Life is..."
"Yes..!"
"Is.."
"Yes!!"
"Forty-two."
"That’s it?!"
"Yes."
"Is that what you have to show for seven and a half million years’ work?!"
"I checked it very thoroughly. But the problem is, we never really knew the question."
"Yes we did. It was the Ultimate Question!"
"But what exactly is it?"
"It’s, you know, everything... everything, you know?"
"Once you know the question the answer will make sense."
"Well, can you find out the question?"
"Hmmm... Tricky."
"Can you?"
"Yes, but it will take time."
The men groaned. "How long?"
"Ten million years."
"No, that will be quite all right."

Then, Phouchg shut off Deep Thought.

"We haven’t got time for this. We’ll just have to think of a question ourselves."
"But what?"
"Hmmm.. How about What’s yellow and dangerous??"
"No. Doesn’t fit the answer. What about What do get when you multiply six by seven??"
"Too factual. Wouldn’t sustain their interest. Here’s a thought. How many roads must a man walk down?"
"Aha. Now that does sound promising. Sounds very significant without actually tying you down to meaning anything at all. How many roads must a man walk down? Forty-two. Excellent. We are made!"

- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy