Douglas Adams said he simply picked a number that felt ordinary and unremarkable.
In The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, a giant supercomputer spends millions of years computing the ultimate answer and returns 42. Fans have hunted for hidden meaning ever since, but Adams insisted there was none. There is a small bonus for our lesson, though: 42 also happens to be 7 × 6, a fact you can now rebuild from your 35 anchor in one step.
