The answer to life

But there is only 1 muffin?

i want to answer, but i dunno if joke.

Fail. There is no answer to life the universe and everything yet. The computer they used (Earth) fucked up bad and the only message they managed to find was on some distant planet in the far reaches of the universe where it said "we apologize for the inconvenience".

You're an idiot, that is the meaning to the Life, The Universe and Everything, but they didn't have the ultimate question.

No you're the idiot. That number was utter nonsense. To get the ultimate answer they needed to find the ultimate question. The number 42 wasn't the ultimate answer, it was just the answer to the badly worded question they gave to Deep Thought.

Um... YES, it was the answer to THAT question. They asked her what the meaning of life, the universe and everything was, the computer said 42, that was the answer. The ultimate question would be totally different and would have a different ultimate answer. But as of now, 42 is the answer, seeing as the ultimate question has not been determined.

Read the book twice. Good shit.

I'm pretty sure that "SORRY FOR THE INCONVENIENCE" is supposed to be the last message left by the creator.
The number 42 is indeed the answer to life, the universe and everything. They just never found the question to go with it, in the books.
If you're going to call someone on an error, in the future, make sure that you're not the one whose wrong. I agree with comment #20, go read a book.

Also, the movie sucked... Just throwing that out there.

It's "We apologize for the inconvenience" you pleb. And it says in the book that some people who went on the pilgrimage to see those words thought that the message was going to say why (just why). Obviously they were wrong but that doesn't detract from the fact that there is no ultimate answer.

Actually in the books: A humanoid race crash landed on the earth during the cavemen days, completely corrupting the computational process, resulting in the question being permanently lost.

What is responsible for the question being lost happens in the first chapter of the first book. Earth gets destroyed right before somebody comes up with the question. The humanoid race that crashes on Earth in one of the later books turns out to be humans(supposedly, we humans owe our origin to an alien civilization that had decided to ship out all its useless people, one-way, to some random backwater planet), and they end up getting integrated into the system and replacing what was already there.

the replacement corrupted the system, so the question that was formed wouldn't make sense to the answer 42

It has been a while since I have read the books, but I'm sure that if anything, it helped. Earth just gets destroyed right before its finished though. Doesn't Arthur end up with the chick who nearly found it?

HER. NAME. WAS. FENCHURCH!

but...zooey deschanel...

I was unaware that she was in it, but that does not constitute an excuse for that utter abortion of a movie...

Read a book

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy IS a book though!

We know, Spearpwi should read them.

Ah! I second that notion.

A - I have read them...Twice
B - None of statements were incorrect.
C - The number 42 was utter nonsense and had nothing to do with the actual answer. To get the answer they needed the question. The question would be generated by Earth. Earth get's blown up once and inhabited by refugee aliens the second time around so they never find the question and thus never find the answer.
D - The last message left by the creator was what some believed to be the reason that everything is at it is but instead turned out to be an apology note ("We apologise for the inconvenience").
E - You better check yourself before you riggedy wreck yourself. WORD!

42 is the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything, as arrived at by Deep Thought. Who then goes onto design Earth as the computer that will calculate the ultimate question. I am sure that it is, though I admit the last time I think I read all five books was just before the movie. I have also read most of them at least twice.

No shit Sherlock...

Elementary, my dear Watson.