According to Douglas Adams in “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”, that’s the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything. Many theories abound as to why Adams chose that number. 101010 is 42 in binary code; light refracts off water at an angle of 42 degrees; light requires 10-42 seconds to cross the diameter of a proton. Adams dismissed them all. “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.”

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