[1693] in Humor
HUMOR: ''Hitchiker'' book beats astronomers to universal key
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Andrew Bennett)
Tue Nov 12 08:47:59 1996
Date: Tue, 12 Nov 1996 08:43:56 -0500
To: humor@MIT.EDU
From: abennett@MIT.EDU (Andrew Bennett)
From: mabehr@MIT.EDU
Date: Mon, 11 Nov 1996 13:23:16 EST
From: Rourke McNamara <rourkem@rourkem.com>
From: "Steve Frid" <fridb@eniac.seas.upenn.edu>
LONDON (Reuter) - Scientists searching for one of the
fundamental keys to the universe found they had been beaten to
the answer by the comic cult novel ``Hitchhiker's Guide to the
Galaxy''; and the answer was 42.
In the British novel and radio serial by Douglas Adams, an
alien race programs a computer called Deep Thought to provide
the ultimate answer to understanding life and the universe.
In the novel, seven and a half million years later Deep
Thought comes back with the result - 42.
Astronomers at Britain's Cambridge University took a little
less time - three years - to calculate the Hubble Constant that
determines the age of the universe. But the answer was the same.
``It caused quite a few laughs when we arrived at the figure
42, because we're all great fans of The Hitchhiker's Guide,''
Dr. Keith Grange, one of the team of Cambridge scientists who
worked on the project, said Friday.
``Everyone thought it was quite fun.''
The scientists were using a new technique to determine the
value of the Hubble Constant, a source of constant controversy
among astronomers. The Constant is a measure of the rate at
which galaxies are receding from each other as a result of the
Big Bang that created the universe.
Knowing how quickly everything is flying apart can enable
scientists to work out the universe's age.
This has presented a problem, since the large Hubble
Constant values estimated by some experts would mean that the
universe is younger than its oldest stars. The Cambridge team
put the age of the universe at between 14 and 16 billion years.
Grange said the answer was unlikely to remain 42, however.
The team plans to observe more galaxy clusters and take an
average of a larger number of measurements.
``After averaging out all these values we'll have a
relatively accurate answer,'' he said. ``It may be 42, but it
could be anything between 30 and 55.''
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