42 is the apartement number of Fox Mulder

the poor computer was asked for a single answer to a ridiculously generic question. perhaps the number 42 is the sum of all answers in life, the universe, and everything. remember that this includes negative numbers, which allows it to be so small, and complex numbers -- since imaginary numbers are so rarely applicable in every day use, every positive answer has a negative counterpart and adds up to zero, which is why the answer only has a real component. the limitless magnitude of numbers towards positive infinity is canceled out by their negative counterparts. the only things that don't cancel out are questions regarding people's wages -- which would obviously add up to a positive number larger than 42 -- and other similar questions.

these vastly positive results are canceled out by the counting of particles of anti-matter, which add up negatively. anti-matter out-weights matter just enough that all those aforementioned positive results are beaten down to 42.

perhaps due to the vastness of the question and the impossibility of giving a single answer, the non-numeric answers were either ignored, assigned numeric quantities according to popularity (similar to google's pagerank), assigned values based on the amount of characters involved in the answer, or many other combinations/possibilities.

or am i just being silly?

julz

Julz explanation sounds neat so I'll settle on that one.

42 could be the answer to:

What is the average score of an American on a test?
What age will I die?
How many people have posted in this thread?
How many people are trying to use the warez version of 3DGS today?
How many projects I've made that I've forgotten about?
How many posts Doug replied to today?
How many cigarretts Realspawn smoked today? j/k
How many beers I had last night
How many times We all wanted to slap our ex-girlfriends/wife/etc.?
How many times I wandered why I'm writing all this?
How many people I'm going to bother writing all this retarded stuff because I have nothing else to do?

well, that killed a little bit of time...

exacly 42 seconds

I found it out yesterday while watching some Stargate episodes from the DVD....

How long, in minutes, is one Stargate Episode?
42!

Do you see the 42 on the left side?
Maybe 42 doesnt mean a number... it means this galaxy

the question is pretty simple:

what is the meaning of all life and universe...

the answer is 42. that happens when youre not defining the questions.
basically this means:

ask the right questions and you shall get the right answers

and thats the meaning of 42...

42 also means the number of girls i laid this year, not including my girfriend

Today when i was learning fs flip i screamed f**k 42 times ... Amazing... Seriously, the "mystery of 42" sounds silly to me