In this thread… and this thread I see people say that six times nine is 42… nobody disputes it either so I have to assume that it’s a joke of some sort…
What’s the joke?
Read Douglas Adams’ The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and The Restaurant at the End of the Universe. Otherwise you won’t understand the joke. 
LL
I should have known it was from that series. I read it so long ago that all I remember is 42.
In either the third or fourth book in the five part trilogy, Arthur Dent is on prehistoric earth trying to teach the cavemen to play scrabble, but the only word they know is “grunt” and they don’t know how to spell it. Arthur and Ford Prefect are talking and decide that a good way to find out the ultimate question (the ultimate answer has long been known to be 42) is to introduce some kind of random element- picking scrabble tiles out of a bag made from a marks and spencer towel. The reasoning behind this is that Arthur Dent is a product of the earth (destroyed by the vogons in the first book) which was built for the mice to determine the ultimate question, the answer to which is 42. When Arthur pulled out the tiles and placed them in order, the phrase he got was “What you get when you multiply six by nine”
Hope that clears it up.
By the way, if you work in base 13, six by nine -is- 42.
Wonko - that bit occurs at the end of the second book, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe. (You should know it isn’t the fourth book; that’s where your namesake shows up. ;))
Say, wouldn’t “Ark Two from Golgafrincham” be a good name for a rock band? How about “The Azgoths of Kria”?
I confused c_goat! Yippee! 
I used to think I was smart until I started coming here.
Surprisingly, it’s not terribly difficult to confuse me. If you confused Cecil however, then you can jump up and down.
Is this a flattering comment about everyone’s intellegence, or is c_goat saying something insulting about the kind of person that shows up on this board?..
Tune in next time when you’ll hear C_Goat say Ba-a-a-a-a…
Is this a flattering comment about everyone’s intelligence, or is c_goat saying something insulting about the kind of person that shows up on this board?..
Tune in next time when you’ll hear C_Goat say Ba-a-a-a-a…
Ba-a-a-a-a…
(BTW: I wasn’t insulting anyone but myself)
LOL!!!
Arrrgghh! I’ve done the dreaded double post!!!
<gets up from desk, makes a mystical hand motion, and jumps into a vat of lemon pudding>
gurgle… gurgle… snipsau!
oh great. now i know the question, i might as well quit reading the books. 