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| Thread ID: 35745 | 2003-07-20 08:21:00 | OT The ultimate answer to the meaning of life, the universe and everything | Misty (368) | Press F1 |
| Post ID | Timestamp | Content | User | ||
| 161538 | 2003-07-20 09:34:00 | I think with the answer so aptly put,that we will all sleep better tonight,the question remains,what is the piont of getting up in the morning?or do we think Arthur's answer does the trick? | Thomas (1820) | ||
| 161539 | 2003-07-20 21:21:00 | Billy T: ... 'nuff said - David |
DangerousDave (697) | ||
| 161540 | 2003-07-21 02:15:00 | > However, it was later pointed out that 6 x 9 = 42 if > the calculations are performed in base 13, not base > 10. If only Douglas Adams (and the later TV incarnation), had foresight to make the Golgifrinchans 13-fingered creatures, it would have rounded off the whole arrangement... |
Lizard (2409) | ||
| 161541 | 2003-07-21 02:22:00 | Well said Liz. Interesting to note there are no philosophers on the board. One supposes geekdom and philosphy are mutually exclusive. |
Thomas (1820) | ||
| 161542 | 2003-07-21 02:43:00 | Don't worry about the ending, it's the bit before it that matters. They cheat, they all say "the end" at the end. You'd think someone would be more creative. robo. |
robo (205) | ||
| 161543 | 2003-07-21 08:25:00 | I don't think it was necessarily the Golgifrinchans ! If you check the same edition of the Herald ie Friday 18th - you will see on Page C12 that it says that it is the 33rd anniversary of the Apollo landing on the moon (if that actually happened). Now since it supposedly happened on my 25th birthday, then I can confidently say that it should really be the 34th anniversary ! (ie 1969) What is the sinister underplay that is happening here ! ........thirteen fingers would not produce that particular result. B-) |
Misty (368) | ||
| 161544 | 2003-07-21 09:13:00 | > Gentle reader, this dimension is responsible for those eerie "out of body" experiences men suffer whan they do what their wife or life partner requests, carrying out their instructions to the letter, only to find that they wanted something entirely different Well Billy, there would never be a problem if men actually listened to the instructions or read them properly in the first place. It does not matter how carefully something is explained men think they know it all and switch off after the first sentence. No wonder they never get it right. :| > and life will never be the same again, at least not for at least 48 hours. Be grateful you still actually have a life after a major stuff-up!! :D |
Susan B (19) | ||
| 161545 | 2003-07-21 10:34:00 | Ok, here goes. What Doctor West is interested in is the scale of all forms of life - except for Ford Prefect, Douglas Adams et al. He is a physicist at Los Alamos, New Mexico. Fascinatingly, life in all its myriad forms has a proportional scale depending upon mass ie. size. So a mouse has a similar number of heartbeats to a human but much faster and thus doesn't quite make the three score and ten years mark. It runs out quicker. The ratio isn't linear. Twice as big a body doesn't necessarily yield twice the size of organs etc. However in regard to metabolic rates with increasing size, the change is to the power of 1/4 of mass over 27 orders of magnitude. And for life spans and growth rates the change is 3/4-power over 27 magnitudes. This leads Dr West (Geoff to his mates) to say that the scaling relationship between all living things represents a fourth spatial dimension of life. And that is where we get the magical 4. Check this out.... "....life at all scales is sustained, and ultimately constrained, by space filling, fractal-like hierarchical branching networks (both real and virtual) which are optimised by the forces of natural selection" Simple eh. Actually I am struggling with this a little but the basic idea is easy enough. One consequence is that extending our lifespan is directly opposed by this symmetry in Nature. Doubtless there are similar laws for computers. Eg. the whizzbang box you bought yesterday will lockup and have the speed of a snail on Prozac in 8 to the power of 3 days. Any others? |
Winston001 (3612) | ||
| 161546 | 2003-07-21 10:57:00 | *Cough* I guessed I might cop some flak from the gentler side of PF1 Susan, but at least we are keeping it in the family . :p I was, of course, poking gentle fun at male failings so your comments are not entirely out of order . However, as much as we may have our communication (AKA hearing) difficulties, the fairer sex has its own problems from time to time, namely an inability to get to the point in time for us to get back and see the match-winning play . IMHO the weaknesses balance out nicely, and for proof-positive, look no further than the continued existence of the human species . Cheers Billy 8-{) :D |
Billy T (70) | ||
| 161547 | 2003-07-21 11:14:00 | So Misty, just to round the discussion off, the meaning of life can variously be described as your mass to the power of 1/4 or 3/4 depending on whether you are considering your speed of digestion or your age. The present state of knowledge does not extend to 42 or 54.....yet. Cheers Winston001 |
Winston001 (3612) | ||
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