Forty-Two

In "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy," the ultra-computer, "Deep Thought," is asked to give "the meaning of Life, The Universe and Everything." After a very long time calculating, Deep Thought declares the answer is "Forty-Two," which mystifies everyone. Douglas Adams, the author of the "Hitchhiker" series, was familiar with computer programming. The symbol for a "wild card" -- a value that can be whatever the programmer desires and/or what the program needs to run -- is the "asterisk," which is this symbol * , sometimes called the "star" symbol." In the American Standard Code for Instructional Interchange, or "ASCII," the "asterisk" is symbol number "42." Thus, "42" became a programmers' inside joke meaning "whatever you want it to be." Deep Thought could have said given its answer as, "anything" or "whatever you want it to be," but being a computer, it gave the ASCII code number, instead.