42 (number)
42 is the natural number following 41 and preceding 43.
Mathematics
42 is a pronic number, an abundant number as well as a highly abundant number, a sphenic number, a practical number, and a Catalan number.The 42-sided tetracontadigon is the largest such regular polygon that can only tile a vertex alongside other regular polygons, without tiling the plane.
42 is the magic constant of the smallest non-trivial magic cube, a cube with entries of 1 through 27, where every row, column, corridor, and diagonal passing through the center sums to forty-two.
42 can be expressed as the sum of three cubes: 3 + 3 + 3.
Wisdom literature, religion, and philosophy
- Abrahamic religions
- *42 is the number with which God creates the Universe in Kabbalistic tradition. In Kabbalah, the most significant name is that of the En Sof, who is above the Sefirot. The Forty-Two-Lettered Name contains four combined names which are spelled in Hebrew letters. While there are obvious links between the Forty-Two Lettered Name of the Babylonian Talmud and the Kabbalah's 42 Lettered Name, they are probably not identical because of the Kabbalah's emphasis on numbers. The Kabbalah also contains a 45 Lettered Name and a 72 Lettered Name.
Popular culture
''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy''
The number 42 is, in The [Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (novel)|The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy] by Douglas Adams, the "Phrases from [The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy#Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything (42)|Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything]", calculated by an enormous supercomputer named Deep Thought over a period of 7.5 million years. Unfortunately, no one knows what the question is. Thus, to calculate the Ultimate Question, a special computer the size of a small planet was built from organic components and named "Earth". The Ultimate Question "What do you get when you multiply six by nine" is found by Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect in the second book of the series, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe. This appeared first in the radio play and later in the novelization of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.The fourth book in the series,, contains 42 chapters.
According to, 42 is the street address of Stavromula Beta.
In 1994, Adams created the 42 Puzzle, a game based on the number 42. Adams says he picked the number simply as a joke, with no deeper meaning.
Google also has a calculator easter egg when one searches "the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything." Once typed, the calculator answers with the number 42.
Jackie Robinson
- The jersey number of Jackie Robinson, which is the only number retired by all Major League Baseball teams. Although the number was retired in 1997, Mariano Rivera of the New York Yankees, the last professional baseball player to wear number 42, continued to wear it until he retired at the end of the 2013 season. As of the 2014 season, no player ever again wore the number 42 in Major League Baseball except on Jackie Robinson Day, when all uniformed personnel wear the number.