The Answer to the Great Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything, as given in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, is 42.

Stephen Fry, a good friend of Douglas Adams’s, claims the punchline is fascinating, extraordinary, and obvious when thought really hard about.

One day, having just finished writing a play with a hidden joke in base 13, walking down the street, I had a sudden deep thought.

Forty-two.
Tea for two.

The meaning of life is… tea for two.
Something Douglas Adams was passionate about.
Something computers in the book just can’t seem to make right.
Simple, brilliant, clever, fitting, funny, and probably true. It has to be.

“…Just tea for two / And two for tea…”