---
title: "Douglas Adams: Deep Thought and Last Chance to See"
lang: en
source: "https://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/hitchhikers/dna/lastchance.shtml"
fetched: 2026-10-31
via: research.topic
---

# Douglas Adams: Deep Thought and Last Chance to See

In *The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy*, Deep Thought calculates for seven and a half million years before giving 42 as the Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything. The answer fails because the question itself was never properly formulated.

*Last Chance to See* documents Adams's travels with zoologist Mark Carwardine to encounter endangered species. It began as a BBC radio project and became a book.

The essay places these works together as an interpretive arc: answer, question, last chance to see. It does not claim that Adams intended this connection.

## Sources

- Douglas Adams, *The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy*.
- Douglas Adams and Mark Carwardine, *Last Chance to See*.
- [BBC archive: Last Chance to See](https://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/hitchhikers/dna/lastchance.shtml)