42 is important: Douglas Adams may have unknowingly answered the greatest question in the physical world with Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Freeman Dyson postulated that quantum physics and prime numbers are inextricably linked.

This unexpected connection with physics has given us a glimpse of the mathematics that might, ultimately, reveal the secret of these enigmatic numbers. At first the link seemed rather tenuous. But the important role played by the number 42 has recently persuaded even the deepest skeptics that the subatomic world might hold the key to one of the greatest unsolved problems in mathematics.