42 Trivia Quiz

Answer: Egypt

The polytheistic religion that the ancient Egyptians followed remains in records to the present: Ma'at was the goddess of harmony, justice, logic, order, and truth. Her male counterpart was Thoth. As time went on, Anubis or Osiris replaced her as the "weigher of souls" in Egyptian mythology, but it was the symbolic feather of Ma'at (an ostrich feather, in fact) that was weighed on the scales of justice to determine how heavy the heart was with sins and whether or not the person could pass into the afterlife.

Ma'at was more than a goddess though- she was the personification of justice itself. The 42 principles (or Negative Confessions) of Ma'at are available in translation online and include basic statements like "I have not committed uttered lies" or "I have not stolen grain."

Answer: Revelation

Kabbalah tradition holds that the "World of Emanation" or "Atziluth" is made up of 42 Hebrew letters divided into four words; some Jewish mysticists say that the universe was created with the number 42. Biblically, there are 42 people listed in Jesus' genealogy from Matthew.

When Elisha was mocked for his baldness, bears mauled 42 different youths who had insulted the prophet. Revelation 13:5 prophesies that the Antichrist will rule the earth for 42 months during the End Times.

Answer: Rainbows

Rainbows form when light waves (generally from the Sun) refract when they enter droplets of moisture in the Earth's atmosphere (generally rain). The light waves refract and bend inside the water droplet, and then are reflected from the back of the drop to move back toward the source of the light.

The angle at which this reflection occurs at the boundary between water and air can be computed by a physical equation known as Snell's Law. The most intense light is reflected off the droplet at 42 degrees.

At the "antisolar point" (the exact opposite of where the Sun is in the sky), the rainbow generally exists as an arc at 42 degrees. This explains why rainbows can only occur when the Sun is low in the sky: at higher than 42 degrees, the colors that would be seen are below the horizon line.

Answer: Pi

Pi is an irrational number equal to the circumference of a circle divided by its diameter, or by its area divided by its radius squared. Often estimated by 3.14 or 22/7, the number is non-terminating and non-repeating, as proved by Johann Friedrich Lambert in the 18th century. Babylon, Egypt, and India all show records of the mathematical basis of pi, although it is certain that they never made accurate-enough calculations to find the eerie number sequence of 4s and 2s.

Some people in modern times have made strides toward memorizing the number, however. Piphilology is the name given to the use of mnemonic techniques to remember the digits of pi in order. On June 17, 2009, a Ukrainian doctor claimed to have memorized 30 million digits of pi, which far outstripped the previous record of fewer than 70,000 digits.

Answer: 42 minutes

Without air resistance, you could literally fall through the Earth and back out the other side in 42 minutes flat! Interestingly enough, even if the tube doesn't pass through the Earth's core, the travel time will remain exactly the same, because the gravitational pull will be proportionally less as the distance traveled also decreases.

Answer: Lewis Carroll

Lewis Carroll is most famous for his nonsense poem "Jabberwocky", as well as "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland", but he was also a noted logician, mathematician, and Anglican deacon. In addition to the appearance of Rule 42 in "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland", the Baker in "The Hunting of the Snark" has 42 boxes. Alice's recital of her multiplication tables in increasing numerical base shows that multiplying 4 and 13 in the expected base of 42 would equal 1A. Hence, "I shall never get to 20 at this rate!"

Douglas Adams borrowed the use of the word "fit", which described chapters in "The Hunting of the Snark" for episodes of the radio series "A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy". However strong the link between them is, Adams has said that he did not borrow the use of the number 42 from Carroll.

Answer: Monty Python

Monty Python probably wasn't influenced by "Hitchhiker's" use of the number 42, but the use of the number 42 by a comedy group famous for "The Meaning of Life" is rather ironical. The group is also famous for the television show "Monty Python's Flying Circus", which spiraled them into fame before they produced movies of note like "Monty Python and the Holy Grail", "And Now For Something Completely Different", and "Monty Python's Life of Brian". Members of the original group included Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin.

Answer: Coldplay

Formed in 1997, Coldplay is a British alternative rock group made up by Chris Martin (lead vocals), Jonny Buckland (lead guitar), Guy Berryman (bass guitar) and Will Champion (drums and backing vocals). The song "42" was likely somewhat influenced by "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy". "Q" magazine asked Chris Martin whether or not the title was related to Douglas Adams' novel; he responded, "It is and it isn't."

Answer: Lost

"Lost" is essentially the story of a group of passengers who survive the plane crash of Oceanic Flight 815 and end up on a suspected deserted island. Premiering in September 2004, one of the show's mysteries is the prevalence of a set of numbers known as the "Mysterious Numbers", which seem to recur in the characters' histories.

The numbers 4, 8 ,15, 16, 23, and 42 commonly appear either in sequence or individually; they were determined by the factors of the fictional Valenzetti equation. Show producer David Fury confirmed in 2008 that the use of the number 42 was indeed a veiled allusion to "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy".

Answer: He chose a random number.

While the answer choices may be perfectly true, author Adams says that they weren't the reason. On November 3, 1993, he posted on his website:

"The answer to this is very simple. It was a joke. It had to be a number, an ordinary, smallish number, and I chose that one. Binary representations, base thirteen, Tibetan monks are all complete nonsense. I sat at my desk, stared into the garden and thought '42 will do.' I typed it out. End of story."

The number itself appears in the story as the answer to the question: "What do you get if you multiply six by nine?" Also intended as a joke, this logical fallacy forced Douglas Adams to halt conspiracy theorists (who remarked that 6 times 9 equals 42 in base thirteen) by pointing out that he doesn't write jokes in base 13.

Since the establishment of 42 as the fictional "Meaning of Life, The Universe, and Everything", it has frequently been referenced in pop culture, not only in the aforementioned places, but also in episodes of "House MD", "Stargate Atlantis", and the title of "The Kumars at No. 42". It appears that 42 will remain famous as a random number for a long, long time.