Deep Thought is a computer that was created by the pan-dimensional, hyper-intelligent species of beings (whose three dimensional protrusions into our universe are ordinary white mice) to come up with the Answer to The Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything. Deep Thought is the size of a small city. When, after seven and a half million years of calculation, the answer finally turns out to be 42, Deep Thought admonishes Loonquawl and Phouchg (the receivers of the Ultimate Answer) that " checked it very thoroughly, and that quite definitely is the answer. I think the problem, to be quite honest with you is that you've never actually known what the question was."
Deep Thought does not know the ultimate question to Life, the Universe and Everything, but offers to design an even more powerful computer, Earth, to calculate it. After ten million years of calculation, the Earth is destroyed by Vogons five minutes before the computation is complete.
Appears in:
- the novel The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
On radio, Deep Thought was voiced by Geoffrey McGivern. On television and in the LP re-recording of the radio series, it was voiced by Valentine Dyall. In the feature film Deep Thought's voice was provided by actress Helen Mirren.
In the television series, Deep Thought was shaped like a massive black metal trapezoid with a yellow rectangular display that blinked on and off in time with the computer's speaking. The timing of the light's flashing was done on set by author Douglas Adams. Valentine Dyall's voice was dubbed in later.
In the feature film, it appears as a large, vaguely humanoid computer, with a gigantic head supported, as if in bored repose, by two arms and has a female voice. This particular version of Deep Thought likes to watch television and late in the film can also be seen to have the Apple Computer logo above its eye. This is a reference to Adams being a fan and advocate of the Apple Macintosh. It is also revealed that, in the intervening time, Deep Thought was commissioned by the Consortium of Angry Housewives to create the Point of View Gun.
IBM's chess-playing computer Deep Thought was named in honour of this fictional computer.
Deep Thought can be seen inscribed on a computer in the NORAD VI area of the 1992 computer game The Journeyman Project.
Regarding the name, Douglas Adams was quoted as saying "The name is a very obvious joke".
The Deep Thought episode appears to be a parody of a short story by Frederic Brown, Answer.
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