Posted on 10/10/2010 6:55:24 AM PDT by Daffynition
Today is October 10, 2010. 10/10/10. In binary, that's 42. And 42 is The Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything. Or at least, that's what Douglas Adams says.
Many people wonder what Adams exactly meant by 42, the answer given by the supercomputer Deep Thought in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Why did Adams pick that number? Is there a connection to something the world doesn't know about? Is the CIA and the MI6 involved in all this? Real aliens, perhaps?
On November 3, 1993, he gave an answer on alt.fan.douglas-adams:
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.
Later, talking to BBC Radio 4 Iain Johnstone, he explained that the number was chosen by none other than John Cleese as the punch line for one of his skits. The famed Python thought it was a funny number, and Adams borrowed it for his book, turning it into a recurring integer through all his work.
But that comment wasn't the end of the mystery. Stephen Fry—a friend of Adams—also jumped into the debate, claiming that the latter explained to him why it was 42. Fry will not reveal the secret, but he says it is "fascinating, extraordinary and, when you think hard about it, completely obvious."
Today Is 101010: The Ultimate Answer to the Ultimate Question
Whatever it is, it sure has had a deep impact in geeklore. One example: The Allen Telescope Array—the radio telescopes system erected by Microsoft's Paul Allen for the SETI program—has 42 dishes in honor of Adams. And in Lost, 42 is the last number in the sequence that has to be entered on The Swan's computer, which is also the sequence picked by Hurley for his winning lottery ticket, and Kwon's number in the cave. In a Lostpedia interview, one of the show's producers confirmed that this was indeed a homage to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
This date only repeats itself every hundred years. The next one will be in 2110. [Thanks Paul Cohen!]
Nope, I was wrong. 11 yr cycle is not definitive. Friday Oct 1 occurs in 2027 as well.
...my coffee finished brewing. I guess I'll go get a cup now.
{butt-scratch}
>>>>This October has 5 Fridays, 5 Saturdays and 5 Sundays, all in 1 month. It happens once in 823 years.
Not quite:
http://www.geekosystem.com/5-fridays-saturdays-sundays-not-823-years/
See above post #23
I’ll bet you that it happened at precisely 10:10:10.1010101010... , or ten hours, ten minutes, ten and 10/99 seconds.
Yes, but will October have 31 days that year?
Thanks, Keith in Iowa, for setting me straight. I should have known better and checked it myself!
Gasp! on 12-12-12 we’ll be in a month that has 5 Saturdays and 5 Sundays and 5 Mondays. I wonder if Dr. Rosenthal will point that out on FOX News when the time comes. (back to napping now...)
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