It's so bright and vivid; what does it mean? In Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, 42 is the number from which all meaning ("the meaning of life, the universe, and everything") could be derived. 

So what DOES it mean?

--The angle at which light reflects off of water to create a rainbow is 42 degrees. That's so intense.

--Not only were the Mayans advanced in their mathematics, they had a calendar that was more accurate than our own; they had also calculated the solar year for the earth at 365.2420 days while today we have only narrowed it down to 365.2422 days. 

--There are 42 US gallons in a barrel of oil.

--Tower 42 is a skyscraper in the City of London, formerly known as the NatWest Tower. National Westminster Bank Plc, commonly known as NatWest, is the largest retail and commercial bank in the United Kingdom and has been part of The Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc since 2000. The Royal Bank of Scotland Group is ranked as the second largest bank in the world by assets. 

--India signed an agreement with Russia for the licensed production of 42 Sukhoi fighters for which the Russians provided technical and equipment support in Dec. 2011. On Aug. 4, 2006, the US State Department imposed sanctions on Sukhoi for allegedly supplying Iran in violation of the United States Iran Nonproliferation Act of 2000. Sukhoi was prohibited from doing business with the United States Federal Government. In November 2006, the US State Department reversed its sanctions against Sukhoi. 

--In Western Hermetic sphere work 42 is the sum of the values of the 'true' spheres, 3,4,5,6,7,8 & 9 each of which represent one aspect of the body of God through which we observe the world. 1 and 2 are considered modalities of existence and 10 is the completion we see from our own sphere, 11. The sum of the squares of each of these numbers make 216, or 6 x 6 x 6, the number of the beast, which is also the number of the names of God the Jews had to say once a year in the holy of holies to assure blessings from on high. The 'beast' is the perfect sphere, represented in 3 dimensions by 3 bounding circles, each with 6 radii, hence 666 being the number of the beast and directly being linked to 216 and 42. This is the foundation of Western Hermetic sphere work and is echoed in Pythagoreanism.

--42 is the number with which God creates the Universe in Kabbalistic tradition. In Kabbalah, the most significant name is that of the En Sof (also known as "Ein Sof", "Infinite" or "Endless"), who is above the Sefirot (sometimes spelled "Sephirot"). The 42-Lettered Name contains four combined names which are spelled in Hebrew letters (spelled in letters = 42 letters), which is the name of Azilut (or "Atziluth" "Emanation"). 

--There are 42 principles of Ma'at, the Ancient Egyptian personification of physical and moral law, order, and truth. In the judgement scene described in the Egyptian and the Book of the Coming/Going Forth by Day (the Book of the Dead (which evolved from the Coffin Texts and the Pyramid Texts)), there are 42 gods and goddesses of Egypt, personifying the principles of Ma'at, who ask questions of the departed, while Thoth records the answers, and the deceased's heart is weighed against the feather of Truth (Ma'at). These 42 correspond to the 42 Nomes (Governmental Units) of Egypt. If the departed successfully answers all 42, s/he becomes an Osiris.

--The number 42 appears in various contexts in Christianity. There are 42 generations (names) in the Gospel of Matthew's version of the Genealogy of Jesus; it is prophesied that for 42 months the Beast will hold dominion over the Earth (Revelation 1 3:5); 42 men of Beth-azmaveth were counted in the census of men of Israel upon return from exile (Ezra 2:24); God sent bears to maul 42 of the teenage boys who mocked Elisha for his baldness (2 Kings 2:23), etc.

--Jeremiah 51:42 The particulars of this prophecy are dispersed and interwoven, and the same things left and returned to again. Babylon is abundant in treasures, yet neither her waters nor her wealth shall secure her. Destruction comes when they did not think of it. Wherever we are, in the greatest depths, at the greatest distances, we are to remember the Lord our God; and in the times of the greatest fears and hopes, it is most needful to remember the Lord. The feeling excited by Babylon's fall is the same with the New Testament Babylon, Re 18:9,19. The ruin of all who support idolatry, infidelity, and superstition, is needful for the revival of true godliness; and the threatening prophecies of Scripture yield comfort in this view. The great seat of antichristian tyranny, idolatry, and superstition, the persecutor of true Christians, is as certainly doomed to destruction as ancient Babylon. Then will vast multitudes mourn for sin, and seek the Lord. Then will the lost sheep of the house of Israel be brought back to the fold of the good Shepherd, and stray no more. And the exact fulfilment of these ancient prophecies encourages us to faith in all the promises and prophecies of the sacred Scriptures (Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary on the Bible). -Two physical constants in the universe are the speed of light and the diameter of a proton. It takes light 10 to the minus 42nd power seconds to cross the diameter of a proton.

--The atomic number of molybdenum is 42.

--In 1966, mathematician Paul Cooper theorized that the fastest, most efficient way to travel across continents would be to bore a straight hollow tube directly through the Earth, connecting a set of antipodes, evacuate it (remove the air), and then just fall through. The first half of the journey consists of free-fall acceleration, while the second half consists of an exactly equal deceleration. The time for such a journey works out to be 42 minutes. Remarkably, even if the tube does not pass through the exact center of the Earth, the time for a journey powered entirely by gravity always works out to be 42 minutes, as long as the tube remains friction-free, as while gravity's force would be lessened, so would the distance traveled at an equal rate.

--Messier object M42, a magnitude 5.0 diffuse nebula in the constellation Orion, also known as the Orion Nebula. (Information from Wikipedia; thank goodness it is not permanently blacked out.) 

**Do you know of more examples of such synchronicity?!