There are so many questions and different answers on this Forum …. and the answers are contradictory and sometimes maybe appear / or be wrong or irrelevant...and topics expand... But the answer might actually be 42 and we just did not understand (or appear to have asked the wrong question) :0)

Its all grist to the mill and one of the reasons I am really enjoying the forum.

Long story short I thought this video is a great example of how hard it is to ask and answer even the most simple questions when everything is based on personal knowledge and assumptions... but to truly make an apple pie from scratch you must first know how to create the universe....

 

One of the greatest theoretical physicists of all time, according to Wikipedia. Not the type of guy you should ask to explain what seems to me to be a very simple phenomenon. Ask a guy like this how to get to the nearest pub, and he’d likely tell you that, if you travel east, it is 28,000 miles. But if you travel west, it is one block.

 

@Canuck …. I would rather ask him than a politician :0)
A man is flying in a hot air balloon and realizes he is lost. He spots a man down below and lowers the balloon to shout: “Excuse me, can you help me? I promised my friend I would meet him half an hour ago, but I don’t know where I am.” The man below says: “Yes. You are in a hot air balloon, hovering approximately 30 feet above this field. You are between 40 and 42 degrees N. latitude, and between 58 and 60 degrees W. longitude.”
“You must be an engineer” says the balloonist. “I am” replies the man. “How did you know.”
“Well” says the balloonist, “everything you have told me is technically correct, but I have no idea what to make of your information, and the fact is I am still lost.”The man below says “You must be a politician.”“I am” replies the balloonist, “but how did you know?”“Well”, says the man, “you don’t know where you are, or where you are going. You have made a promise which you have no idea how to keep, and you expect me to solve your problems. The fact is you are in the exact same position you were in before we met, but now it is somehow my fault.”

 

I think this is me, right now...

 

This thread is tough.

 

Know your classics : https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phr...on_of_Life,_the_Universe,_and_Everything_(42)

 

It's unfair and unkind to expect Americans to know about THHGTTG.

 

Are you sure that it didn't appear on PBS, the TV series at least?

BTW, the Universe isn't unkind. Just indifferent.

 

I feel very let down by Douglas Adams. I've read every book he ever published. I've read the books that he started and were finished by others. I am constantly annoyed that he decided to leave this mortal coil and not write anything else. As such, I find myself re-reading all five books of the trilogy every couple of years. (And to those who don't know his work, yes ... that's part of the joke).

 

Watched it on PBS long ago and have the entire series on disc. Also read all the books. Probably more fans of the series in the USA than in the UK.
BTW
Didn't much care for the film, but it had its high points.

 

OK guv it's a fair cop.

 

Sadly this was my late father, Princeton PHD, Stanford Post Doc, Physics Professor.... "helping me with my homework" ... all too familiar. On a more serious note exactly why scientists are having such trouble explaining climate change.

 

Us Yanks are fully aware that the answer is 42 thank you. What we don’t understand is why you spell color wrong and pronounce aluminum wrong. There are more of us then you... hence you blimey red coats are wrong.

Although thanks for the expression “ it’s gone pear shaped”

 

Love watching US military come to Australia with a quad con full of military gear with a beat up printer and some weird sized paper that’s not A4 like the rest of the world uses, only to find out it doesn’t plug into our sockets. Even funnier when they finally get a adapter is to watch them fry it with some good old Aussie 240v.

 

Don’t be too hard on them; they’re


and as for the answer to life the universe and so on, it’s actually 42mm

 

I think we should all have to pass a test and get an OF degree before we can answer any question. This would ensure we all have the right response and knowledge..... it would also mean we would not have to ask any question and, not answer any question..... which would mean we don’t have to post.

I guess then we don’t need a test or degree since we don’t have to post anymore....

Endgame.

 

Excuse me sir. The Agricultural Marketing Resource Center would like to speak to you about your derogatory characterization of the "Pyrus" species. Please pick up line 3.

 

I never said us yanks are smarter...

But play nice we sell you your military toys

 

Like it.
200 posts before you can post

 

I think OF works well when it stays nicely contrarian.....and I don't care to belong to a forum that accepts people like me as members :0)