42 reveals
timeless truths, wisdom, power.
So little, yet large.

***

Did you know both Go Gratitude and World Gratitude are 42 day programs?  Lots of folks have inquired ‘Why 42?’  Well, unlike Douglas Adams, author of the Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy, who claims it was a random number choice, we had a bit more intent.

First, it takes 21 days to create a habit, so we doubled that to extend beyond habit to Mastery.  Also, for a year before beginning Go Gratitude, I was enrolled in Creative Writing classes with Julie Jordan Scott.  She, too, offered many of her programs on 42 day cycles.  Six weeks, 7 days a week … 42 days of writing fortitude!  I am daily grateful for Julie’s nurturing wisdom and planting the love of 42 in my heart!

So, today I feel inspired to share a bit more of the 42 lore with you.  When one dive’s into the deeper mysteries of this numerical powerhouse, it becomes clear there is much magic and meaning for thee to explore.  Enjoy and feel free to reveal any more connections you have found to 42.

Let’s begin …

Natural phenomenon and mathematical sightings:

1. The Earth is 42 orders of magnitude (based on powers of ten) larger than the Planck Length (in case you dont know what that is, it is the smallest length that humans have been able to measure; all below the Planck Length is impossible to measure because time and space merge, and relativity ceases to be the rule. The Planck Length is 1 x 10^-35m.)
2. The angle at which light reflects off of water to create a rainbow is 42 degrees.
3. A 42 mile per hour wind brought down the original Tacoma bridge in the state of Washington in the 1930’s
4. Convert the letters of the word “Iron sulfide” into numbers of the alphabet. (Iron sulfide being (for the record) the true name of fools gold.) I.e:

I   R   O   N   S   U   L   F   I   D   E
9  18  15  14  19  21  12   6   9   4   5

Now then, Adding up the first 3 digits yields a total of 42. Adding up the next 3 digits makes 54, which is what 42 would be in base 10, if 42 was originally written as base 13 (The significance of which is widely known). Adding up the rest gets you 36, which is 42 written in base 12.
5. An interesting and oft-cited factoid states that when asked to choose a random number between 1 and 20, 17 is the number most often chosen. A quick examination reveals the following:
42 = 7 * 2 * 3
17 = 7 * 2 + 3
6. “The Sri Yantra is drawn from nine triangles, four pointed downward and five pointed upward, thus forming 42 (6×7)[sic] triangular fragments around a central triangle. There is probably no other set of triangles which interlock with such integral perfection.” from “Sacred Geometry” Lawlor R., Thames and Hudson NY,1982 p.9.
7. 42 is the natural vibration frequency of human DNA (Ha! Ha!)
8. 42 is the natural vibration frequency of white mouse DNA. (Ha! Ha!)
9. It is 4.2 light-years to the nearest star from our solar-system?
10. The chamber in the Cheops pyramid is exactly 42 metres over the ground
11. The total number of dots on a pair of dice is 42
12. 42 is 4 tens and 2 ones. 4 is the only perfect number (the number is a perfect square AND it is the only number to have the same number of letters as the number represents) 2 squared is 4, the perfect number.
13. Take ANY number, square its digits, and then add them up. Do the same thing with the answer. If you keep doing this indefinitely your final answer will either be a 1, or you’ll enter a loop of solutions that -culminate- with the number 42!!!!!
14. The Department of Mathematics at the Muenster-University are most interested in the relation between the numbers 42 and 17. Here some examples: - the 17th prime number is 59, and this is the sum of 17 and 42. - If dig(n) means the sum of the digits of n, there are numbers with dig(n)+(dig(n)+1)=n (we call them ‘additive dig-numbers’) and there are numbers with dig(n)*(dig(n)+1)=n (the so called ‘multiplicative dig-numbers’) You can show that there is only one ‘additive dig-number’: 17=(1+7)+((1+7)+1) You can also show that there are only four ‘multiplicative dig-numbers’: 12=(1+2)*((1+2)+1) 42=(4+2)*((4+2)+1) 90=(9+0)*((9+0)+1) 156=(1+5+6)*((1+5+6)+1) And you see: 42 is one of them.
15. 42 is the number of the beast 6*6+6=42
16. The latest evolutionary “Missing Link” is 4.2 million years old
17. Water is most dense at 4.2 degrees celsius. Ice therefore floats on water, and allows marine life to survive below it.
18. The integer part of the square root of proton mass divided by electron mass gives 42
19. The element Molybdenum is vital for plant life on earth. The Atomic Number of Molybdenum is 42
20. 5+4 (The parts from 54) = 9; 4+2 (The parts from 42) = 6 “What do you get if you multiply 6 by 9″ The answer is all yours.
21. 1932 Is the year when Ford and Arthur return to the present in “Life, the Universe…” and it’s also the day that the Vogons came to the earth. Therefore: 1986 (The year of the Copyright) - 54 = 1932!!!
22. From Nicholas E. Scripture: 50 Mathematical Puzzles and Oddities, Faber and Faber, London,1963, p.47, chapter “Oddments in Algebra”, No. 30:

The problem is:
Prove that for any value of ‘n’, as long as it is a whole
number, (n^7-n) must always be a multiple of 42.

23. 4^2 = 2^4. Other than 24, this is the only non-palindromic two-digit number for which that is true
24. if you assign the alphabetical value of to the letters of the words: BIG BANG (or GNAB GIB) you get 2+9+7+2+1+14+7 which equals to, indeed, 42
25. They’ve found a star that has a planet circling around it for the first time. Distance to this star: 42 light-years
26. A grad student at UVic says that the lifetime of the universe will be 10^42 years. Note that this is the lifetime, not the age…
27. Propane boils at -42 C
28. The maximum temperature in degrees celsius a human can survive in case of a disease is (of course) 42 degrees celsius !
29. The REAL Hubble is (d / s) distance over speed of galaxies. As we cannot measure the speed accurately, the Constant is not known but scientists think it is betwixt 100 and 40, therefore it could be FORTY-TWO.
30. 42 is the Number of Great Lakes areas Of Concern
31. If you take the number ‘PI’ as 3.14, and multiply the whole part (3) by the decimal part (14), 3 X 14 –> 42
32. The Specific heat capacity of water is 4200 J/kg oC(Jewls/Kilograms x degrees celsius)
33. If you drilled a hole through the Earth from one point to another, and that hole was frictionless, it would take 42 minutes for gravity to move you from you side of the tunnel to the other. That also goes for satellites orbiting the Earth with only gravity moving them.
34. The galaxy M84 (Messier Catalog) is 42 x 10^6 light years distant. It is an elliptical galaxy in Virgo with a diameter of 25,000 light years
35. Two physical constants in the universe are the speed of light and the diameter of a proton. It takes light 10 to the minus 42nd power seconds to cross the diameter of a proton.
36. The Earth is sometimes referred to as the third stone (or rock, if you’re a Jimi Hendrix fan) from the sun. A stone (British measurement system) is 14 pounds, so we have 3 x 14 = 42
37. The world record in memorizing PI is quoted, from the Chicago Sun-Time, to be “over 42,000″
38. All dogs have a total of 42 teeth over their lifetimes
39. The average dormancy of an active volcano is 42 years.
40. The fastest speed for a land animal for 1 mile is 42mph (Guiness, page 59).
41. Greatest recorded distance covered by one jump of a kangaroo is 42 feet (Guiness, page 71).
42. The longest lava flow recorded is 42 miles (Guiness, page 129).
43. The worlds widest conveyor belt is 42 feet wide (Guiness, page 335).
44. The largest shoes ever sold were size 42 (Guiness, page 361).
45. A barrel contains 42 gallons.
46. The time it took for one person to eat an entire ox was 42 hours (Guiness, page 492)
47. 42 occurs infinitely many times in then number PI.
48. When PI is rounded to the third decimal place contains the number 42
49. Consider the following: ( ( 1 * 2 * 3 ) - 4 + 5 ) * 6 = 42
50. In reverse polish notation (postfix), used on most HP calculators (and others), the expression

2  4  2  4  2  *  +  *  +

evaluates to 42! (This, of course, is closely related to the fact that the binary number system, 101010 means 42, or that in base 4, 222 means 42).
51. SQRT(41*42+SQRT(41*42+SQRT(41*42+SQRT(…))))=42 where SQRT() means the ’square root’ of the bracketed expression.
52. The Efficiency of human respiration is 42
53. The number of chromosomes of harvested wheat is 42
54. In the “Tree Information” sketch for Monty Python, the Larch (the one they show over and over again) is tree number 42.
55. 42 in base 4 (222) is the same as in base -5 ie. 54
56. 1 joule is equal to 4.2 calories
57. The following question appears in the Rhind Papyrus, which is the oldest mathematical book known and originated in Egypt in 1650 B.C.: “If a certain number, two-thirds of it, half of it, and a seventh of it are added together, the result is 97.” The number, of course, is 42. (x + 2x/3 + x/2 + x/7 = 97 –> x = 42) This was derived from an 8th grade Addison-Wesley Algebra book, page 444.
58. 42 in base 4 is 222 or 4;222. Also, if you multiply or add the digits together, you get the same thing for 42 and 222.

Media Sightings

(Television, Movies, Radio, Magazines, Books, etc.)

1. There are 42 countries in the game of Risk
2. 42 was the name of the painter in episode 2 or 3 of the Prisoner series
3. Fox Mulder from X-Files, apartment address is 42
4. An episode of X-Files, FOX TV aired 3/10/95, makes reference to a ship being lost for 42 hours
5. An episode of Simpsons, FOX TV aired 3/13/95, had the Simpsons family driving down the rode past a sign that stated the next restaurant is 42 miles
6. There was/is an English band called “Level 42″ which was actually inspired by HHGTTG
7. There is a local radio station called OK-Radio, in Hamburg Germany which advertises with the sentence: “more the 42 times a day, we bring you the OK-Radio traffic report”
8. The Adventurer Magazine for Lucas Arts, Winter 94/95, Page #7 has a screen shot from Dark Forces, with a score of 42
9. Ad title from Dr Dobb’s April 95, page 53 - “Productivity Headache #42, Lots of helpfile, not much help”
10. An episode of Medicine Ball, FOX TV aired 3/21/95, made a reference to a patient whose age was 42
11. An episode of Married with Children, FOX TV aired 3/20/95, had a football game where the score was 42 to 0, with Al’s team losing
12. In the movie “Teenwolf”, Michael J Fox has the number 42 on his jersey.
13. the song “Minimum Wage” by ‘They Might Be Giants’ is 42 seconds long.
14. In the movie “Ghost”, Patrick Swayze learns to move things (as a ghost) at subway platform 42.
15. In the book “James and the Giant Peach”, the centipede has 42 legs
16. In Kansas’s (the band) song ‘Closet Chronicles’, (from the Point of Know Return album) they have the following line: “Gazing out the window, from the FORTY-SECOND floor…”
17. Joseph Heller’s Novel “Catch-22″ has 42 chapters.
18. A well-known traditional Scottish Folk Song encrypts The Answer by reversing the digits: “Four and Twenty virgins/came down from Inverness”
19. In Pet Shop Boys’ video “West End Girls”, a bus suddenly appears with no obvious reason. It has nothing to do with the rest of the video. The number on the bus is of course 42
20. In the recent film _The FUGITIVE_, the bus which takes Harrison Ford from the prison at which he is held to the place where he is supposed to be executed is numbered 42
21. LucasArts’s classic “Zak McKraken and the Alien Mindbenders” has the number “42″ plastered all over
22. In “Pulp Fiction”, Samuel L. Jackson (Jules) cites Ezekiel 25:17 (”The path of the righteous man …”) and 17+25=42.
23. In the 1979 movie “10″ Bo Derek becomes the ultimate woman which Dudley Moore finds on his….YES!!!…. 42.nd birthday
24. In Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life (album version), immediately after the “Every Sperm is Sacred” song, the narrator says “Meanwhile, at number 42″, whereupon we are taken to the Protestant family sketch
25. the Illustrated Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy costs $42!
26. A current (english) advert for Guiness stout goes:”It’s hard to put a value to most things,This, however, is 42.”
27. The elevator in the film “Speed” starts at level 42.
28. In a commercial with Rutger Hauer he tells that some beers are excellent, but the beer he is advertising is however 42.
29. There is a french magazine about cars, relationships and home improvement etc. The title of this magazine is le 42.
30. In the “Pelican Brief”, Darby Shaw, (Julia Roberts) lives at 42 Beau Luc Lane, New Orleans you can see this briefly on the cover of the brief once during the movie.
31. There are exactly 42 pictures in Alice In Wonderland(excluding the cover)
32. Chapter 12 Alice In Wonderland: At this moment the King, who had been for some time busily writing in his note-book, called out, “Silence!” and read out from his book, “Rule Forty-two. All persons more than a mile high must leave the court.”
33. Lewis Carroll’s ‘magic number’ was 42
34. Lewis Carroll began writing “The Hunting of the Snark” in 1874 when he was 42. The Baker [the major character in this "nonsense ballad"] is introduced with:

There was one who was famed for the number of things
He forgot when he entered the ship:
His umbrella, his watch, all his jewels and rings,
And the clothes he had bought for the trip.

He had forty-two boxes, all carefully packed,
With his name painted clearly on each:
But, since he omitted to mention the fact,
They were all left behind on the beach.

35. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy FAQ estimates the cost of dining at Milliway’s as being $1.42 x 10^248.
36. In _Rama Revealed_ by Arthur Clarke & Gentry Lee, way at the end when the purpose of the universe has (maybe) been explained to the main character, she muses to herself that it’s not forty-two, obviously a nod to HHGTTG.
37. The LaTeX book (1st edition) by Leslie Lamport makes a reference to 42 while discussing the use of references and labels. Its says:

See page 42 for more details.
.
.
Text on page 42:
The meaning of life, the universe, and …

38. In the Grateful Dead image taken from the rubaiyat, there are forty-two roses in full view, not counting the ones in the back ground
39. In A.A. Milne’s (The author of “Winnie-the-Pooh”) collection of poetry, “Now_We_are_Six”, in the poem “The Morning Walk”, it says:

When Anne and I go out a walk,
We hold each other’s hand and talk,
Of all the things we mean to do
when Anne and I are forty-two.

40. In the play “Shirley Velentine” by Willy Russell, Shirley is 42 years old
41. In Romeo and Juliet, juliet sleeps for 42 hours
42. Dr. Seuss wrote 42 Children’s Books
43. In the “Babylon 5″ episode “AND NOW FOR A WORD”, ISN reporter Cynthia Torqueman (Kim Zimmer) said: “Aliens make up roughly 42 percent of Babylon 5’s population.
44. Stavro Mueller’s club “Beta” happens to have a street address of 42 as stated by Ford Prefect in book 5 of the increasingly innaccurately named Hitchhiker Trilogy: “Mostly Harmless”–”`Just there, number forty-two,’ shouted Ford Prefect to the taxi-driver. `Right here!’”
45. On the season premiere of X-Files, The room where Skinner and Scully are at the end of the show is room 42
46. In the movie Aliens (Sigourney Weaver), when Ripley is being shown how to use the machine gun, there are 42 rounds left in the clip. You can see 42 on the read-out on the side.
47. For the 1995-96 Fall TV Season there were 42 new shows
48. In the episode of “Welcome Back Kotter” in which Kotter performs at a comedy club “Amateur Night” with his “uncle” jokes, he gets heckled off the stage by Mr. Woodwind (the principle), and as he departs in embarassment, Mr. Woodwind yells, “Bring on number 43!”–meaning, in Mr. Woodwind’s head, at least, Mr. Kotter was the 42nd comedian.
49. In the movie Assassins, Sylvester Stallone hops into cab #42 to get away from the cops
50. 42 is used as part a of secret passcode in the movie Assassins
51. The 1971 top grossing film about a teenage boy, Hermie, who falls in love with a young woman, Aggie, whose husband is off fighting the war - “Summer of ‘42″
52. on Friday Dec 1, 1995 on Fox on the X-Files: When Mulder looked at the time bomb for the first time, It was exactly 1:42:00 until it would explode
53. At the end of the first X-files episode, evidence is placed in the box to the left of nr. 10042
54. In `Twin Peaks’, episode 2007 (first time aired on 11/10/90; written by Mark Frost, directed by David Lynch): Shelly Johnson and Bobby Briggs pay the bills and end up with $42 instead of expected some hundred (thousand?)
55. A favorite quote from W.C.Fields: “I’d rather have two girls of twenty-one each, than one girl of forty-two!”
56. In the movie ‘Ace Ventura; Pet Detective’ the routine being rehearsed by the dolphin is called “Blue 42″.
57. On the TV show “3rd Rock From The Sun” (which is about aliens coming to Earth and taking on the guise of Earthlings for the sake of studying same) when the Commander of the alien task force is asked his (earth) age, he replies, “42.”
58. Murphy Brown (TV-series) gets seated at table 42 during a Presidental dinner she gets invited to by Corky
59. Malcom Learty pays 42 dollars for the board of his dog Edward in the movie “The Accidental Tourist”
60. In the comic strip “Curtis,” Curtis recently remarked that the “cat woman” who lived upstairs had 42 cats
61. Towards the end of “Paper Moon,” Tatum O’Neil counts the money in her cigar box. It’s eight hundred and some-odd dollars — “and 42 cents.
62. “…watch a garage mechanic get broken into 42 pieces” — Howard Cunningham to Arthur Fonzarelli when hearing that he was going to attempt to jump 14 garbage cans
63. A student-magazine of physics-students at the University of Oldenburg in Germany is called ‘ZWEIUNDVIERZIG’ which is German for forty-two
64. 4242 are the first four digits on the prison uniform of Sean Penn in the movie, “We’re No Angels”
65. In the book “The Catcher in the Rye”, Holden Caulfield lies and says that he is 42
66. In the film, “True Colors,” the room number of James Spader and John Cusick at University of Virginia is 42
67. On the Warren Zevon album “Sentimental Hygiene” there’s a song titled “Even A Dog Can Shake Hands” about the way famous people are treated. The chorus is a discussion of a contract which begins with the lines:’Sign Page 42, We’ll do the rest for you’
68. In the movie “Powder”, the scene where powder is walking down the tracks, he passes a metal bridge. On the right side there are two numbers scrawled. One of them is 42
69. On the television show “Martin” his apartment door is FORTY TWO
70. The number 42 has appeared on the apartment door of the main character in the movie “Naked Lunch”
71. In the movie “Die Hard with a Vengence” one of the riddles was, “What is half of 42?”
72. The number 42 on the bomb in the the 21 school in “Die Hard with a Vengence”, which is half of 42.
73. Steven lives in apartment number 42 in the movie “Cable Guy”
74. The Number of People marked for death in The Movie “THE FRIGHTENERS” is 42
75. In ‘The Restaurant at the End of the Universe’, When they retrieve Marvin in the parking of the restaurant, Marvin says Trillian he is there for a very long time : exactly 576000003579 years, which sum of the digits is … 42.
76. Popular beat-combo R.E.M. have a b-side track called “Forty Second Song” which is not forty seconds long. It can be found on the “Losing My Religion” single.
77. In Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet”, Friar Lawrence gives Juliet a potion to make it appear that she is dead, so she will not have to marry Count Paris. He promises the potion’s effects will last for “two and forty”, or 42 hours!
78. On the episode of “Home Improvement” where Tim races Bob Villa on lawn mowers, Bob says that his lawn mower was clocked at 42 miles per hour.
79. In Peter Greenaway’s latest film “Pillow Book” 42 is written on a mirror.
80. On a recent sliders episode Quinn walks into a hotel room numbered 42!
81. In “Black Adder”, series 2, episode 5 : BEER - The black adder is having a beer drinking contest with Melchett. Black adder is trying to avoid drinking any because it effects him so greatly. When he eventually drinks the beer a caption appears on the screen saying “42 seconds later”, when the screen fades back in, Edmund is stone drunk
82. In the movie “Mask” his friend said about saving for the bike trip “How much do we have saved? $36?” “No, $42″
83. In the episode of Chicago Hop “The Ethics” Dr. Kate Austin said, “The patient is dead. Time of death is 8:42″
84. The CD “Nevermind” by Nirvana is exactly 42 minutes 38 seconds long
85. The woodstock ‘94 live version of “Happiness In Slavery” by Nine Inch Nails is 5 minutes 42 seconds long
86. There were 42 extras on the set of Jabba’s palace in “Return of the Jedi”(From a making of video).
87. The catalog # for the US version of Pink Floyd’s “The Divsion Bell” (DNA played on this tour in London) is 64200!
88. In the Animaniacs episode named ‘Hercule Yakko’ (or was it Hercule Warner?), Wakko orders 42 pizzas (6 w/o crusts!)
89. In the book Homer Price, by Robert McCloskey, the settlers sing a song about mushrooms, 42 pounds of edible fungus, in the wilderness a-growin’
90. In the movie “The Abyss”, the destroyer that teeters on the edge of the alien city (near the end of the movie) when it comes top-side is destroyer number 421
91. There are 42 pen-like objects on pages 68 and 69 of the Illustrated Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
92. In “Dave’s World” chapter about Valentine’s Day, Dave’s kid makes 42 valentine’s day cards!
93. In the movie “BLUE IN THE FACE”, a ghost of the first African American Major League Baseball player is seen from the back…his number of course 42.
94. In “The Two Towers”, the second volume of Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings,” at the beginning of Chapter 8 of book III, the count of Orks slain by Gimli the Dwarf at the battle of Helm’s Deep: “Forty two!”
95. In the “How not to be seen” sketch for Monty python, the sketch is labeled as “Governmental Information Program 42″.
96. In the 1996 Eddie Murphy version of “The Nutty Professor”, Professor Sherman Klump registers as having 42% fat.
97. In the Movie “The Frighteners”, the number of people who are marked for death before The Frightener is killed is…. 42

And more from wikipedia.com

In religion

* The number of generations in the Gospel of Matthew’s version of the Genealogy of Jesus.
* The number of months the Beast will hold dominion over the Earth (Revelation 13:5).
* In the ancient Chinese text the Tao Te Ching by Lao Tsu, chapter 42 is an explanation of the universe.
* The number of men of Beth-azmaveth in the census of men of Israel upon return from exile (Ezra 2:24).
* God sends bears to maul 42 of the youths who mock Elisha for his baldness (2 Kings 2:23).
* There are 42 principles of Ma’at.
* The number of lines on each page of the Gutenberg Bible, the first and oldest surviving book printed with movable type.
* 42 is the number with which God creates the Universe in Kabalistic tradition
* 42 is satan’s number (6) multiplied by god’s number (7).

In science

* The atomic number of molybdenum. The element following molybdenum with atomic number 43 (technetium) has no stable isotopes.
* The number of teeth wolves and dogs (canines) have.
* 42° is the critical angle of refraction by water - it is the angle between a rainbow and the antisolar point.
* The light leaving a rainbow is spread over a wide angle, with a maximum intensity around 42°
* The number of minutes it would take a theoretical “gravity train” to travel to any point on earth.
* In one Grand Unified Theory, the Georgi-Glashow model, the inverse of the coupling constant is approximately 42.
* 10! (10 factorial) seconds is exactly 42 days.

We truly are the One’s we’ve been waiting for!

Remember — caring is sharing, and we each hold a ‘peace’ of the Grande Design.  By opening our hearts, and shining Light on the beauty of our Lives, we inspire others to find and share the Great*Full*Ness of Life, too — together weaving a vision for our emerging world into being, and laying the foundation for change with Truth, Beauty, Freedom and Grace!

Let this image, feeling, or memory flood through you, and fill every particle of your being.  Take joy in accomplishments made.  Release any attachment to how this might have been imagined, and simply BE with the beauty and perfection of NOW.

Thank you for sharing your lives, thoughts, and experiences.