Throughout our little journey down this road called recursion, we examined recursive definitions, their use in recursive algorithms, and applications in math and computer science such as compilers and Fibonacci numbers. Now comes the time when you must prove your knowledge in a little test of skill and brains I like to call the quiz. Don't skip out now though, because if you do, you won't get the answer to life, the universe, and everything.

     Now that we've learned as much about recursion as we can cram into our poor brains, we're equipped to attempt answering our opening question.

     What is the meaning of life, the universe, and everything?

     Well, this can be reduced into a mathematical question. What we're really asking is what the true meaning is, taking into account the meaning of all specific things that compose life, the universe, and everything. So, if we define the meaning of something as meaning(something), we can write a nice little algorithm for our problem. We can see by the previous logic that we want to find meaning(all)=meaning(something)+meaning(everything else). We can split that everything into life+the universe+everything. Since everything is simply life+the universe+ideas, meaning(all)=meaning(life)+meaning(universe)+(meaning(ideas)+meaning(universe)+meaning(life))=2*meaning(life)+2*meaning(universe)+meaning(ideas)

     Before we can get this into the perspective of what we can plug into the recursive definition, we need to get the meaning of all in terms of one variable. First we notice that ideas exist simply to give meaning to life and the universe. So, meaning(ideas)=meaning(life)+meaning(universe). Since the universe is space+matter, meaning(universe)=meaning(space)+meaning(matter). Space is a negative existence, a nothingness, so the meaning of an infinite nothing must be infinity*0=0. So now, we have meaning(all)=3*meaning(life)+3*meaning(matter). Let us start by figuring out the meaning of life. We defined the meaning of life as the meaning of one small part of it plus the meaning of the rest. Now we need a base case. What is common of all life on the smallest possible level? carbohydrates and water, so carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. Since all the meaning that an atom can have on this scale is its amount of valence electrons (ability to inter-act with other atoms), and its atomic weight. Carbon has 4 valence electrons and a weight of 12, therefore, carbon has a meaning of 4*12=48. Hydrogen by the same logic has a meaning of 1. And oxygen's meaning is therefore 2*16=32. Therefore, we have a base-case: meaning(life)=meaning(carbon+hydrogen+oxygen)=meaning(carbon)+meaning(hydrogen)+meaning(oxygen)=81.

     Going back to the original formula, the meaning of all matter by the same respect must be zero, as there is always an element of opposite valency, so the net meaning of matter is 0. Therefore meaning(all)=3*meaning(life)+3*0=3*81=243.

     There we go, the meaning of life, the universe, and everything is not 42 as previously suspected, it is 243. We used the following recursive logic to solve this problem:

m(all)=m(life)+m(universe)+m(everything)

=m(life)+m(universe)+(m(life)+m(universe)+m(ideas))

=m(life)+m(universe)+(m(life)+m(universe)+(m(life)+m(universe))))

=3*m(life)+3*m(universe)

=3*(m(carbon)+m(hydrogen)+m(oxygen))+3*(m(space)+m(matter))

=3*(48+1+32)+3*(infinity*0+0)

=3*81

=243

     There, now that you understand the meaning of everything, your lives are complete, now you are free to go about your business. And you have recursion to thank for it.