The Answer is 42 - but what about the Question?

Douglas Adams stated that the ultimate Answer to Everything is 42.
I've never heard about the Question, though, so what is it?

How many roads must a man walk down?

How much is that doggy in the window?

What do you get when you multiply six by nine?

In the books, somebody (Prak, iirc) says "The Question and Answer are mutually exclusive. Knowledge of the one logically precludes knowledge of the other." Which, in simpler terms, means if you know the Answer, you cannot know the Question and vice versa.

On a scale from 1 to 50, how fat do I look in this dress? :confused:

What is the average age of people who claim to be teenage girls on the internet?

Being the Answer to Everything, the Question can be assumed to be anything.

Actually, it's an interesting one. Douglas Adams was a bright fellow, pretty good at maths and physics from what I've heard. If I remember right, it's the mass (or size) of the graviton which is 4,19 x 10^-42 some something(or something like that). Of couse, this is not stated anywhere in the book.

Meh, I heard he just picked a random number. I think in one of the later books it was

"What do you get when you multiply six by seven?"

What is love? Baby don't hurt me.

The question is:

What is the sum of characters in Old Manus' last post (#10 in this thread) and the characters in his name?

"What is love? Baby don't hurt me.Old Manus"
or
"Old ManusWhat is love? Baby don't hurt me."

This equation includes spaces as characters.

You catch on better than I thought possible

I'm trying to think of a clever question, but I'm not witty enough :cry:

What is the number of people who read this thread and faced the same dilemma as Jessweeee♪ but decided not to post about it?

Actually the question is very simple.

Q. What is the answer to everything?
A. 42

Simple is it not?