The Question to the Answer to the Great Question of Life,
 the Universe, and Everything....

 1. The Answer to the Question is 42.

 2. Marvin, amongst numerous other complaints, claimed to have a
    brain the size of a planet.

 3. Marvin, like other robots, has a computer-based brain.

 4. The Earth is a planet.

 5. The Earth was built by the mice as a computer, the only such
    planet or computer ever built.

 6. By (2), (3), (4), and (5), the Earth must therefore be Marvin's
    brain.

 7. The sole purpose of the Earth's program was to discover the
    Great Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything.

 8. Marvin once announced that he had, in a moment of boredom,
    found the square root of -1, something never before done in the
    history of the universe, and previously believed by all sensible
    hyper-intelligent beings to be possibly the most difficult
    task to undertake, as it was dependent on the very structure of
    the Universe. (Most normally-intelligent beings gave up, dismissing
    it as impossible)

 9. Marvin announced that he felt a brief, but deep, sense of
    satisfaction after having accomplished the achievement in (8).

10. The Earth was apparently destroyed just as the purpose of its
    program was fulfilled, and a Question was found.

11. By (7), the Earth computer would have felt a deep sense of
    satisfaction at having achieved the task it was designed to fulfil.

12. By (10), the sensation in (11) would have been brief.

13. By (6), and by the fact that emotional feelings are based in
    the brain, the feelings in (9), (11) and (12) are the same single
    feeling.

14. Finding the Great Question was deemed to be the single most
    difficult task undertaken by hyper-intelligent beings in the
    history of the universe, as it was dependant on the very structure
    of the Universe - as well as Life and Everything.

15. By (6), (8), (13), and (14), Marvin (the Earth) had clearly
    solved the Great Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything.

16. By (8) and (15), the Question is "What is the square root of -1?".

17. By (1) and (16), the square root of -1 is 42.

                             --- (c) Daniel Carosone, 1987