42 ( forty-two ) is the natural number that follows 41 and precedes 43 .
Additional properties of the number 42 include:
The number 42 is, in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams , the " 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"