Plug Pulled on Secret of Universe

Published in the Herald Sun

AN eight-year experiment to find the secret of the universe has been called off.

Scientists built a $30 million computer capable of a trillion calculations a second but it has finally conceded it is stumped.

Edinburgh University physicists said they had been trying to confirm the Standard Model Theory to explain the behaviour of all matter and energy.

But the Standard Model does not incorporate the law of gravity and the computer's task was to solve the problem.

The plan echoed the novel Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, in which a computer – Deep Thought – found that the answer to Life, the Universe and Everything was 42.