The ultimate question:
What do you get if you multiply 6 by 9?
The ultimate answer:
42
They are not one int he same. There is not answer to the ultimate question, as is there no question to the ultimate answer.
The question was wrong. The humans were supposed to be the ones to come up with the answer but the original humans were killed off by the stupid aliens who then inhabited the planet, meaning that Arthur is infact a descendent of these aliens, and not the humans that were meant to be the ones on Earth.
Also, yes they all die in the end. The one spirit trapped through time as being reincarnated to be killed by Dent managed to keep them all alive by himself not being killed by Dent when he was on earth. Thus when he tried to kill dent in his temple created of hatred or whatever, he was unable to as dent hadn't killed him the final time yet. However once they went back to earth (which was recreated in order to sustain this paradox) and Dent ducked the blaster shot thing, and it hit the one reincarnation dude, killing him, the cycle was fulfilled, and thus earth was not needed to exist any more, therefor it didn't, and all those involved in it vanished at that point.
I love the logic used in the book but I still didn't like the sequence after he returned to the missing dolphin earth for the first part. But whatever.
Anyways, yes its a good book.
the movie was pretty funny
Book was much better (entirely different actually, but the difference between it and the original story kept true to douglass's legacy if inconsitancies in reproductions of his work)