In Memory of Douglas Adams

Author Douglas Adams, who wrote The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, has died suddenly aged 49.

Mr Adams died on Friday morning in Santa Barbara, California, following a heart attack, said his spokeswoman Sophie Astin.

The author became a household name when the cult science fiction novel was turned into a BBC TV series.

"He managed to combine fantasy and humanity in books which enthralled generations of readers"

Alan Yentob

Prominent figures at the BBC, who worked with Adams on many projects, have spoken of their shock and sorrow at his death.

Alan Yentob, the BBC director of drama and entertainment, said: "Douglas was a big character who will be hugely missed by a host of friends and millions of fans around the world.

"He was a gifted writer; a one-off talent who managed to combine fantasy and humanity in books which enthralled generations of readers. We'll miss him enormously."

The BBC's head of comedy, Geoffrey Perkins, who produced the original Hitchhiker's radio series, said: "I'm absolutely devastated. I've known Douglas for 25 years. He was absolutely one of the most creative geniuses to ever work in radio comedy.

"He probably wrote one of the greatest radio comedy series ever; certainly the most imaginative.

Film

"For somebody who was so involved in breakthroughs in new developments in technology, it's a tragedy that he's died before most of the things he's talked about have come about."

Ashley Highfield, the BBC director of new media, who worked with Adams on his website, said: "I've been a huge fan of Douglas and working with him on the h2g2 website was the culmination of childhood dreams.

"He was pretty unique in being innovative in media after media - from radio to the web. He was still coming up with more new ideas than almost anyone I've met.

"His brainchild - the h2g2 website - which the BBC has taken forward, is groundbreaking in enabling an online encyclopaedia to be created by the people for the people."

Pioneer

Adams was born in Cambridge in 1952 and educated in Essex before returning to Cambridge to study at St John's College.

His career included work as a radio and television writer and producer before his life was changed by the publication of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in 1979.

The satirical tale chronicled the journey of alien Ford Prefect and his human companion Arthur Dent throughout the Universe after the destruction of Earth.

It centred around the search for an answer to life, the universe, and everything - which turned out to be 42.

The novel went on to sell more than 14 million copies worldwide and was followed by the sequels The Restaurant at the End of the Universe; Life, the Universe and Everything; and So Long and Thanks For All the Fish.

In recent years, the author had been working on a Hitchhiker's Guide movie.

There was much speculation about who would play Arthur Dent, with Hugh Laurie, Rowan Atkinson, Jim Carrey, Ben Affleck and even Bruce Willis said to be in the running.

Adams was also an internet pioneer, presenting a series on it on BBC Radio 4.

He believed something powerful was created when people pooled experiences and information and the internet offered a unique opportunity to do just that.

He said part of the internet's extraordinary power was the fact that it "evolved as an organic entity, a bottom-up design rather than being hierarchically controlled from above".

Adams married Jane Belson in 1991 and had a daughter, Polly, in 1994.

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BBC News Online's science editor, Dr David Whitehouse, pays tribute to Douglas Adams, the creator of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, who died aged 49.

Douglas Adams changed the way I looked at the Universe. Before he came along, I'd read much science fiction but I soon discarded Isaac Asimov, not because his ideas weren't good, but because of his schoolboy prose.

I dwelt on Arthur C Clarke for longer because of his grand ideas but none of these space prophets ever realised that the Universe had a sense of humour.

Behind the gas clouds, the star clusters and the mighty, whirling galaxies was a joke being played on all who took life, the Universe and everything too seriously.

It was with humour that Douglas explored the cosmos and the paradoxes of space in time.

He reasoned that if we ape-descended things made such a mess of our lives, cramming them full of petty, stupid things and thinking digital watches were a really neat idea, then just imagine what the really serious and powerful lifeforms would get up to.

So for me, and my fellow budding scientists, eager to overthrow authority, it was Zaphod Beeblebrox who was our hero.

Star Wars had a semi-mystical mumbo jumbo about the force that pervades all living things bringing order to the galaxy.

Star Trek had everyone joining the military, exploring space with orders not to interfere, before they poked their nose into every alien's business.

But Douglas Adams had a completely different view. Although not the first to combine science fiction and comedy he was by far the most successful.

And in so doing perhaps he probed a little deeper into the deepest of mysteries. He once wrote of a computer - the most advanced ever built to determine the answer to the ultimate question.

After seven and a half million years of processing, the answer was 42 - only stupid ape-like creatures hadn't formulated the question properly. And so it is with modern science.

Scientists can find out how the Universe works but they do not know the question to which the laws of the cosmos are the answer.

'Don't panic'

And when I try to explain the scale of space, I can do no better than: "Space is big - really big - you just won't believe how vastly, hugely mind-bogglingly big it is. You may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space."

It should be in every science textbook.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is, of course, a wholly remarkable book that contains advice for any conceivable situation and predicament.

Behind its cover with its warm, friendly words Don't Panic, it says writers are destined to inhabit the universe they made.

So let's imagine Douglas Adams having dinner at the restaurant at the end of the Universe, cracking jokes with the intelligent sea mists of Krakafan and tossing scraps for the ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal, and teaching us as much about our place in the cosmos as any scientist.