Letter: Life, the Universe and clever newts

Tuesday 12 November 1996 00:02 GMT

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Sir: As for any other physical constant, the value of the Hubble constant depends on the units in which it is measured and astronomers, for convenience, use kilometres per second per megaparsec. That is not a standard unit and it even contains an anthropomorphic element in that a parsec refers to the size of the earth's orbit around the sun. Therefore, to marvel at the significance of the number 42 for the value of the Hubble constant is nothing but numerology.

Dr WERNER WEIGLHOFER

Department of Mathematics

University of Glasgow

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Letter: Life, the Universe and clever newts

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