[dcminter]

He posted (on his own usenet fan group) the following:

"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."

But of course nobody is an entirely reliable narrator, and certainly not the author of The Guide so... Maybe?

(Edit: I see a peer respondent already linked it, but I'll leave this anyway)

[banana_giraffe]

There's also this little bit from an interview:

Q: About three-quarters the way through the Illustrated Hitchhikers Guide there is a strange illustration of 42 multi-coloured balls lined up in columns 6x7. I can only assume this is the famed "42 Puzzle". My question is, how do you play? What's the puzzle?

DNA: The point of the puzzle was this: Everybody was looking for hidden meanings and puzzles and significances in what I had written (like 'is it significant that 6 * 9 is 42 in base 13?'. As if.) So I thought that just for a change I would actually construct a puzzle and see how many people solved. Of course, nobody paid it any attention. I think that's terribly significant.

[sixstringtheory]

This is what's so great about art IMO. You can craft a piece with deep personal meaning, or a totally frivolous piece, and it can be perceived in infinitely many ways by others according to their own worldview and life experience. I wish I could know what it feels like to learn a new interpretation of your own work on a regular basis. Beauty, eye, beholder.

It sounds somewhat equally exciting to, and less frustrating than, releasing software and seeing all the ways people break it.

[shoto_io]

Of course, no one wants to believe this. Me neither. I recently turned 42. And, I finally had the guts to start my own business... it's gotta mean something!

[dcminter]

If I remember rightly Adams played guitar with Pink Floyd to celebrate his 42nd birthday. Beat that!

Congratulations & good luck. I'm sure it will take you to interesting places!

[SpaceInvader]

Way to go! :)

[iggldiggl]

Before Hitchhiker's, he'd interestingly already used that number in a sketch for the Burkiss Way [1], which featured a reference to "42 Logical Positivism Avenue".

[1] https://www.buttercookie.de/The%20Burkiss%20Way/Transcripts/...