What The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is a comic science-fiction novel by Douglas Adams, first published in London by Pan Books on 12 October 1979. Publisher Pan Macmillan calls it “An international phenomenon and pop-culture classic” and the first book of a “trilogy in five parts.” The novel adapted the first four parts of Adams’s radio series of the same name, first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on 8 March 1978. The story begins with Earth demolished to make way for a hyperspace route: ordinary human Arthur Dent is carried off his planet by a friend, carrying a towel and a galactic guidebook whose cover reads “DON’T PANIC.”
42 and adaptations
The novel’s best-known joke is 42: the supercomputer Deep Thought computes 42 as the answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything — but since the Ultimate Question itself is unknown, the answer is meaningless. Beyond radio, the work includes a television series broadcast on BBC Two in January and February 1981, and a film directed by Garth Jennings released in the UK and elsewhere on 28 April 2005; Pan Macmillan also issued a “42nd Anniversary Edition” in 2020.
Mention in the show
In Weekly #003’s chapter “用模型过滤隐性广告” of the Chinese transcript, while discussing turning tasks into questions with small, finite answer sets, Orange jokes with the novel’s 42: “42 就是终极答案，其实可以的” (“42 is the ultimate answer, that actually works”). It is an analogy borrowing the “ultimate answer” joke from the novel, not a discussion of the book itself.
Frequently asked questions
What does 42 mean in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy?
In the novel, the supercomputer Deep Thought computes 42 as the answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything; the joke is that nobody knows the Ultimate Question, so the answer cannot be explained. The number has since become a part of popular culture.
Did the radio series or the novel come first?
The radio series came first: it premiered on BBC Radio 4 on 8 March 1978, and the novel followed on 12 October 1979, adapting the first four parts of the radio series.
What screen adaptations exist?
A television series aired on BBC Two in January and February 1981; the film, directed by Garth Jennings, was released in the UK, Australia and New Zealand on 28 April 2005, and in the US and Canada the following day.