42

Not sure how many aikido people are Douglas Adams fans - used to be lots - but I recently heard an explanation of where Adams's use of 42 as "the ultimate answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything" may have come from...

42 is the decimal ASCII code for the asterisk (*) symbol.

The asterisk, is used to represent "whatever you want" or "anything".

So the ultimate answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything is - whatever you want ...

Adams had a lot of hidden references to religion, society, government, bureaucracy, and other things - some not so hidden.

Walter Martindale wrote: Not sure how many aikido people are Douglas Adams fans - used to be lots - but I recently heard an explanation of where Adams's use of 42 as "the ultimate answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything" may have come from... 42 is the decimal ASCII code for the asterisk (*) symbol. The asterisk, is used to represent "whatever you want" or "anything". So the ultimate answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything is - whatever you want ... Adams had a lot of hidden references to religion, society, government, bureaucracy, and other things - some not so hidden.

Who knew - but so obvious on hind sight. I saw that recently too.

Walter Martindale wrote: The asterisk, is used to represent "whatever you want" or "anything".

That actually would be ".*" - match anything any number of times, in regular expression speak.

David Soroko wrote: That actually would be ".*" - match anything any number of times, in regular expression speak.

That's true, and "any number of times" can also be "zero" in this case.

However, while an old standard, I don't think Regular Expressions would have been as well known or well used among computer nerds of Adams' era as the de-facto * and ? file matching patterns. Especially for nerds who were tinkerers rather than programmers.

I'm an English teacher and like to have fun with my form class.

Two year 9 (aged 13) kids were arguing about whether 7x0 equalled 7, 1, 0 or infinity. The whole class was laughing at them. So what should a good teacher do?

I asked - "If you have no 7s how many 7s do you have?" None came the reply.
Then I asked - "If you have 7 zeros how many zeros do you have." Seven came the rely. Ah ... came the enlightened reply.

So 0 x 7 = 0 but 7x0 = 7 came the enlightened shoutback from one of the kids.

The rest of the class sat in stunned silence as they were all rethinking their math skill. I left it at that. Newly enlightened, not. Ha ha.

Walter Martindale wrote: 42 is the decimal ASCII code for the asterisk (*) symbol. The asterisk, is used to represent "whatever you want" or "anything".

"*" is anything that's not fractional or hidden, in regular expression speak. you need "*.*". if you are on unix/linux systems, running as root id, and execute "cd /; rm -rf *.*" would cause some interesting reaction from your boss, and his/her boss, and his/her boss boss,......

methink, aikido is "!"

Phi Truong wrote: "*" is anything that's not fractional or hidden, in regular expression speak. you need "*.*". if you are on unix/linux systems, running as root id, and execute "cd /; rm -rf *.*" would cause some interesting reaction from your boss, and his/her boss, and his/her boss boss,...... methink, aikido is "!"

Oh my... must look that up. NOT gonna try it out on my Linux box...

Rupert Atkinson wrote: I'm an English teacher and like to have fun with my form class. Two year 9 (aged 13) kids were arguing about whether 7x0 equalled 7, 1, 0 or infinity. The whole class was laughing at them. So what should a good teacher do? I asked - "If you have no 7s how many 7s do you have?" None came the reply. Then I asked - "If you have 7 zeros how many zeros do you have." Seven came the rely. Ah ... came the enlightened reply. So 0 x 7 = 0 but 7x0 = 7 came the enlightened shoutback from one of the kids. The rest of the class sat in stunned silence as they were all rethinking their math skill. I left it at that. Newly enlightened, not. Ha ha.

Kids can be so fun when you get them to think outside the box like that

Rupert Atkinson wrote: Two year 9 (aged 13) kids were arguing about whether 7x0 equalled 7, 1, 0 or infinity.

Nice!

Rupert Atkinson wrote: I'm an English teacher and like to have fun with my form class. Two year 9 (aged 13) kids were arguing about whether 7x0 equalled 7, 1, 0 or infinity. The whole class was laughing at them. So what should a good teacher do? I asked - "If you have no 7s how many 7s do you have?" None came the reply. Then I asked - "If you have 7 zeros how many zeros do you have." Seven came the rely. Ah ... came the enlightened reply. So 0 x 7 = 0 but 7x0 = 7 came the enlightened shoutback from one of the kids. The rest of the class sat in stunned silence as they were all rethinking their math skill. I left it at that. Newly enlightened, not. Ha ha.

Well, no sevens is none, yes. But seven zeros is "0000000" (still equals zero) and 7x0 is indeed 0