I have a Get Fuzzy page-a-day calendar, and the May 5th cartoon shows Rob with a T-shirt on that simply says,
6
x9
42
Any thoughts on this? is it part of some secret society?
It’s from the Hitchhiker’s guide to the Galaxy. The seceret to live, the universe and everything is 42. The question is 6 x 9. Why it was for Cinco de Mayo is anyone’s guess.
It’s a reference to Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. 6 x 9 = 42 in base 13.
It’s a reference to the Hitchhiker’s Guide To the Galaxy books by the late Douglas Adams.
Essentially, Earth is destroyed, and the two surviving Earthlings, as well as two alien friends are informed that Earth was actually a giant supercomputer. Billions of years ago, a super-intelligent race built a computer (called “Deep Thought”) to calculate the Answer to the Great Question of Life, the Universe and Everything. Deep Thought declared that the answer was 42. This meant that that race never knew what the Question itself actually was, so, acting on Deep Thought’s instructions, they built the Earth - a giant supercomputer to calculate the Question. But Earth was destroyed five minutes before the Question could be revealed.
After a series of interesting and hilarious mishaps, one of those Earthlings and his alien friend ended up on Earth in prehistoric times. One of them tries to teach a caveman Scrabble, but the cavemen show no talent for it…until once, the Earthman, Arthur, notices that a caveman has left, on the Scrabble board, tiles spelling out “Forty Two”. Thinking that the question itself might be achievable by pulling random Scrabble tiles from a bag, he proceeds to lay out the following question: “What do you get when you multiply six by nine?”
This comes from the second book of the series, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe.
Hence, Rob’s T-Shirt - 6 * 9 = 42.
I always thought the idea was that since earthlings weren’t “native”, Arthur Dent only had a slightly corrupted version of The Question that had seeped into his head, hence the mathematical mismatch. Am I making this up? It’s been a while since I read the books…
No, that’ll be when the tee-shirt refers to 1920’s style "D…aagh!
I’m an idiot… I knew 42 was from HHGG, but forgot they had to determine the question.
As I understand it, the base 13 thing wasn’t Adams’ intention. Some math geek set out to figure out in what base 6 * 9 would come out to 42, and it turned out to be 13. The corrupt version due to not being a native does make sense, but I don’t think it’s actually in the books. It might be implied, though.
When Arthur asked what the hell it meant, Ford said, “Cock up.” Implying that it was all a load of bullocks. Draw your own conclusions… 
Heh. Heh heh. Heh heh heeeee!
That’r right. It’s a fan intention. The purpose of the passage in the book is to show the irrational nature of the universe. The fact that Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect seek meaning from this confusing message is supposed to be humorous.
Douglas Adams, the author of the series, often responded directly to these types of questions on usenet. Here’s one example of his explanation of the meaning of 42.
So the Base 13 thing is only a happy coincedence?
In the 5th book of the trilogy, when the Vogons finally succeed in destroying all the Earths, they had to do it on *all *the parallel planes in the plural Z sector. And for some reason I seem to recall that there were a total of 13 parallel universes in that sector, and thus 13 planet Earths to be destroyed. Am I making that up?
I feel like such a nerd for knowing this reference, but I take comfort in my inability to remember it clearly.
In the radio drama, there is Ark B from Golgafrincham with all the hairdressers and telephone sanitizers and the like. They kill off the native population of the earth (cavemen) and so Arthur is not a fully descended earthling.
Yes I carry my book with me to work. 
I meant… in the book AND in the radio drama. :smack:
I think so, at least in terms of the original part of the gag (not the 6 times 9 part). I recall an interview in which Adams said that he had nothing special in mind when he had Deep Thought come up with “42” for an answer - it was just a random-seeming number to him, suitable for the joke of there being a numerical answer to the ultimate question of life. He said he was surprised when fans came up with all sorts of reasons that 42 might be significant. Given that, he MIGHT have been aware of the base 13 thing by the time he got there.
“Wonderful! It sounds good without actually tying you down to meaning anything!”
“How many roads must a man walk down?”
(Together) “Forty-two!”
[/squeaky mousies]
That was explicit in the book, actually. Earth was destroyed just a few minutes before it’s program was finished - and Arthur had been there all of his life, right up to the end of the world. So Ford and Aurthur figured (well, because Marvin told them) that Arthur might have some sort of latent proto-Answer imprinted in his brainwaves. That’s why Arthur started grabbing Scrabble tiles at random from the bag.