Simpsons Guide to Math

tu-tone writes "The LA times has done an article titled "Simpsons analysts show how math figures into episodes" based off of work done by two professors Andrew Nestler and Sarah J. Greenwald. The work is a Guide to Appearances of Mathematics and Mathematicians on "The Simpsons" . They even gave a talk on it at Harvey Mudd College. It's a fun read." There's a transcript of one of their presentations available.

Comments

Math...

[ackthpt]

It embiggens the mind of the smallest man.

What? 'Math' is a perfectly cromulent word!

Harvey Mudd???

[Pig Hogger]

Mudd, as in Mudd's Women???

Re:Harvey Mudd???

[Anonymous Coward]

From "About Harvey Mudd College" (http://www.hmc.edu/abouthmc.html):

Harvey Mudd College was founded in 1955 by the family of Harvey S. Mudd, a mining engineer and co-founder of one of the richest copper mines in the world, Cyprus Mines. Although Harvey Mudd died shortly before the college was established in 1955, the Mudd family went forward with plans to make this important institution a reality. Designed to overcome many of the shortcomings of traditional, narrow technical training, HMC has become a leader in science, mathematics and engineering education. Our mission is to educate undergraduate men and women in a demanding academic setting, focusing on mathematics, science and engineering and to provide a rich background in the humanities and social sciences.

Shameless karma whori...wait, I'm not logged in!

Re:Harvey Mudd???

[Wanker]

The writer that wrote the first Mudd episode attended Harvey Mudd College, and yes, it provided the inspiration for the name "Harcourt Fenton Mudd".

Re:Harvey Mudd???

[Anonymous Coward]

It's Harvey Mudd College and I wouldn't get too excited about that. Being a science and engineering school, M/F ratio is about 90/10, and those 10% ain't much to look at. Try Pomona or Claremont McKenna on the same campus for the hot California girls.

Re:Harvey Mudd???

[Anonymous Coward]

Try Pomona or Claremont McKenna on the same campus for the hot California girls

Actually, since they're on the same campus, you're best bet is going to Mudd for the good education, and dating girls from the other colleges.

The ratio is more like 2/1 now, but I'll agree that the 1 generally ain't much to look at. Not that the 2 are either.

Re:Harvey Mudd???

[Anonymous Coward]

The ratio is more like 2/1 now, but I'll agree that the 1 generally ain't much to look at. Not that the 2 are either.

The ratio was about 4/1 when I went there (graduated '96). There was a saying from the women's point of view about the situation: "The oods are good, but the goods are odd." Can't really disagree.

Re:Harvey Mudd???

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, there aren't any supermodels at Mudd. (Or at least, not very many.)

But think of it this way: if your goal in life is to date someone drop-dead gorgeous, and you don't care about any other factor, you're probably not the time who wants to go to Mudd anyway.

But if your goal is to find an intellectual equal, who's interesting and smart, while also attractive, wouldn't you rather surround yourself by smart girls, than ordinary girls?

At UCLA there are 20,000 girls, 10% of whom are very attractive, but only 1% of them are very smart (from the standpoint of someone who can get into Harvey Mudd).

At Mudd, _all_ of the girls are as smart as the smartest girls at UCLA. Mudd has 700 students, and the ratio is about 2:1 men. So there are _more_ smart girls at Mudd.

Re:Harvey Mudd???

[Trepidity]

I disagree. There's plenty of dumb girls at Mudd. Plenty of dumb guys too.

Hint: just because you can memorize equations doesn't mean you're smart.

Re:Harvey Mudd???

[Anonymous Coward]

An excellent saying. And from the other point of view, I had a friend who once said something to the effect of "Attractive girls at Mudd are unapproachable -- not that I'm afraid to approach them, it's just that they're completely surrounded by other guys."

Hmm, I really used to hate how the topic of conversation always turned to the ratio, and now here I am posting about it on slashdot! Damn you Mudd! ('99 BTW)

Re:Harvey Mudd???

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know about plenty, but that last guy definitely is -- sure, there's approximately 700/3 smart women, but only 10% are attractive, and you're competing with approximately 700*2/3 smart guys for their attention. You're much better off at a school with an even ratio.

D'OH

[Anonymous Coward]

marge's hair contains a hidden fractal

Euler's Equation

[Remik]

In the (in)famous 3-D Simpsons when Homer wanders into the freaky 3-D realm, the equation floating in the background [e^(pi*i)=-1] is infact a form of Euler's equation, one of the most important equations in math. In it's traditional form, [e^(pi*i)]+1=0 it relates the 5 most important constants in math.

Re:Euler's Equation

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, did you notice the hexadecimal string in 3D land, "46 72 69 6E 6B 20 72 75 6C 65 73 21", decodes as "Frink rules!" in ASCII?

That's more funny than a stupid "how many gallons in a pound" joke, IMO.

Re:Euler's Equation

[ackthpt]

Math, Physics and occasional fragments of pascal-like code, appear in the Foxtrot newspaper strip. It's rather fun to follow through Amend's work to see if he's goofed. :)

And, yeah, when you mention stuff like this to people they call you a nerd or geek, so it fits Slashdot...

Re:Euler's Equation

[Space Coyote]

Favourite T-Shirt I've ever seen, worn by a math prof of mine:

Math Profs are #-e^(i*pi)

Re:Euler's Equation

[Anonymous Coward]

At STP there are 0.125 gallons in a Pound of water. Doesn't seem really funny.

Exactly! The humor is in the thought that Homer didn't know that well known fact! Doh!

Re:Euler's Equation

[NMerriam]

translation for the mathematically impaired?

Re:Euler's Equation

[Remik]

Math Prof's are #1.

Re:Euler's Equation

[Anonymous Coward]

Doh! I must be as stuid as Homer then, because I never knew that..

On the other hand, I think this is a reference to charts. It's simple to calculate how many gallons of water in a pound, but LOBSTERS?!!?! ;`D

Re:Euler's Equation

[Uri]

In it's traditional form, [e^(pi*i)]+1=0, it relates the 5 most important constants in math...

...and is beaten only by 0*i*pi*e = 1+-1

Re:Euler's Equation

[glyph42]

There were actually several equations! Also there was a hexadecimal string which, when decoded, read "FRINK RULES!" (Dr. Frink is the funny scientist guy, remember?)

Re:Euler's Equation

[glyph42]

In it's traditional form, [e^(pi*i)]+1=0 it relates the 5 most important constants in math.

Ooh! Not only that, but it uses each one exactly once. Also, it uses each of the basic arithmetic operators exactly once: +, *, ^, =.

Re:Euler's Equation

[TDO]

And often UNIX jokes. See this one from feb 25th. Or they poke fun at the RIAA with ones like this one from mar 4th.

Re:Euler's Equation

[NMerriam]

thanks!

Re:Euler's Equation

[Jagasian]

The joke was "how many pounds in a gallon", which compares two different types. Of course, if you talk about how many gallons of water equals on pounds, then you are asking a different question.

Re:Euler's Equation

[Anonymous Coward]

Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.

That's not recursion, it's just a plain ol' infinite loop. So,

Infinite Loop: N. See Infinite Loop.

Re:Euler's Equation

[PhotoGuy]

In the (in)famous 3-D Simpsons when Homer wanders into the freaky 3-D realm, the equation floating in the background [e^(pi*i)=-1] is infact a form of Euler's equation, one of the most important equations in math. In it's traditional form, [e^(pi*i)]+1=0 it relates the 5 most important constants in math.

Why do I tend to believe that the math jokes in that 3D sequence were injected by the geeks (and I use that term respectfully) who did the rendering, rather than the writers. Dunno, there were a few other "in jokes" rendering-wise, that made me think most of the visual math humour in that sequence were done by the company that did the rendering. Could be wrong, though.

There certainly is a lot of other good math humour in the show, tho'

-me

Re:Euler's Equation

[cpeterso]

...and is beaten only by 0*i*pi*e = 1+-1


which is trumped by: 1 = 0

Re:Euler's Equation

[yesthatguy]

This year, in a dusty corner of my physics room, I found a set of masses from Ohaus which were scaled using units of English fluid volume (half-pint, pint, quart, two quarts, gallon). I'm not quite sure what they represented, and haven't actually looked into it until now - I'll try to find them again and see if I can get gram masses of a few. Has anyone seen these before or have any idea of their use? They seem much to small to be referring to water.

Re:Euler's Equation

[oldays]

No, the gallons in a pound one is funnier. It clearly scores 3F on my funny-o-meter while stupid hex joke is only 1A.

Re:Euler's Equation

[imroy]

Erm, I thought it was e^(-pi*i)+1=0, but maybe my memory is failing me at the old age of 25 :P.

Not only does it contain the 5 most important constants in math (0, 1, pi, e, i) but also the 5 most important operations in math - addition, subtraction (or at least negation), multiplication, raising power, and finally equality.

Re:Euler's Equation

[ajmarks]

Another inside joke is the rendered teapot. A teapot was the first image rendered in 3D, so artists like to insert them as an inside joke.

Re:Euler's Equation

[Fjord]

Actally, the traditional form is
0*pi*e=1+i^2

D'oh!

[TechnoLust]

I always new that watching the Simpsons was more important than doing my homework! I remember the one about pi, I did laugh about that one. My favorite math joke ever though, was on Animaniacs, where the teacher asks Wakko if he can multiply, he turns into a hundred Wakko "clones" (Hope Lucas doesn't sue me) and they all say, "How's this?" Ah, cartoons, you gotta love them.

Re:D'oh!

[LighthouseJ]

How dare you compare Animaniacs with The Simpsons, the two are on two completely different levels.

Re:D'oh!

[billcopc]

Aye.. but the Simpsons use subtle humor, while Animaniacs was an all-out parade of witty slapstick, in the true warner-brothers tradition.

Re:D'oh!

[Anonymous Coward]

The best Animaniacs was the one where they went to Einstien's house and they helped him find out E=MC squared. It was ACME backwards, but Wakko would write his A's like a 2 upwards, so it looked like squared. Einstien was like, "That's it! That's what I was looking for!"

That article was too long

[sg3000]

My attention span isn't long enough to read the whole article. Damn TV! You've ruined my imagination! Just like you've ruined my ability to ... my ability to ...

[turns on Itchy and Scratchy]

Re:That article was too long

[mikeage]

Dad, thanks to TV I can no longer remember what happened eight minutes ago...

Re:That article was too long

[Ophidian P. Jones]

Dad, thanks to TV I can no longer remember what happened eight minutes ago...

Your dad reads Slashdot too?

Re:That article was too long

[Saeger]

I know you're only joking, but don't confuse having a short attention span with wanting brevity in todays fast-paced world.

You really can't blame most people for only having the patience to absorb headlines and abstracts; too much information, too little time... and it'll only get "worse" as we progress exponetially...

--

Re:That article was too long

[isorox]

My attention span isn't long enough to read the whole article.

Perhaps you should investigate Speed Reading?

No jokes about maths?

[sstrick]

How about this one?

What does a mathematician use as a contraception?

Their Personality.

Re:No jokes about maths?

[Anonymous Coward]

or the one about the constipated mathematician who worked it out with logs

Re:No jokes about maths?

[the_consumer]

Why didn't the statistician have a significant other?

He was satisfied with 5 significant digits.

Re:No jokes about maths?

[schon]

Or the one about the other constipated mathematician who worked it out with pencil and paper.

Good Lord

[Scorchio]

I can only dream of having the amount of spare time these folks seem to have. Sod this programming lark, I'm becoming a maths professor.

Grocery Store Scanner

[iacyclone]

By the way, what does the scanner register in the grocery store when the clerk scanns Maggie in the opening. I heard it is "NRA 4 Ever". Is that correct?

Re:Grocery Store Scanner

[popular]

Your answer is here: http://www.snpp.com/guides/lisa-3.html#3.1.4

Re:Grocery Store Scanner

[NewbieSpaz]

IIRC, on the (some random #)th episode, hosted by Troy McClure, that was what they claim it said, on one of the 'teaser' trivia questions that they ask on the way to commercial. They slowed the frames down enough to see it. Try taping an episode, and watch it in slow-mo, to verify!

Re:Grocery Store Scanner

[Maran]

"Try taping an episode, and watch it in slow-mo, to verify!"

Did this some years ago. It was just random squiggles (Yes, that's a perfectly cromulant word as well). I think they were making that up.

Maran

Re:Grocery Store Scanner

[WilliamsDA]

No, it does not read "NRA4EVER".

From snpp.com's List of Inquiries & Substantive Answers:

"But the trivia question in The 138th Episode Spectacular said that the cash register read "NRA4EVER". What's going on here?

The trivia questions in The 138th Episode Spectacular are gags made to troll the audience, just like the images of Matt Groening, James L. Brooks, and Sam Simon in the episode are not what those people really look like. The cash register question is a gag referring to the people who have labeled the show as "the most liberal on television" by portraying it as having an ultra-conservative slant. "

Re:Grocery Store Scanner

[EddydaSquige]

True, it does not say NRA4EVER, but they did do an eppisode (the one where Krusty losses everything to the IRS) where Bart an Krusty are sitting on the curb when a bus drives by. If you slow down the bus, it say's something along the lines of, "Right now you could be watching 'Mad About You' on NBC"

Re:Grocery Store Scanner

[majestyk2000]

$847.63. Sad I knew that off the top of my head.

Re:Grocery Store Scanner

[dongkiru]

If you have the season 1 dvd, you can pause it and go frame by frame. And I think the guy that mentioned 800+ dollars is correct. Some random price. Or perhaps that's how much babies go for in underground market?

Re:Grocery Store Scanner

[3waygeek]

I've always heard that $847.63 was a government estimate of how much it costs to clothe/feed an infant for one year.

Re:Grocery Store Scanner

[Karma Sink]

That's almost funny.

You've obviously never had an infant in the house...

Re:Grocery Store Scanner

[Anonymous Coward]

I've heard the same thing too.
Note that it's a government estimate, which of course means it's completely off.

Re:Grocery Store Scanner

[Anonymous Coward]

I've got the first season DVD... Maggie scans as a dollar value, not NRA4EVER.

Re:Grocery Store Scanner

[big_hairy_mama]

Speaking of math jokes, is there a reason why that is question number "3.1.4"? It's a conspiracy...

Re:Grocery Store Scanner

[big_hairy_mama]

I heard one month, which sounds more accurate (I wouldn't know).

So I'm sure you've all heard about...

[flyingV]

... Britney Spears' Guide to Semiconductor Physics?

Re:So I'm sure you've all heard about...

[loydcc]

That is brilliant. Thank you for sharing it.

Re:So I'm sure you've all heard about...

[Oink.NET]

Love the image on their search engine link to Booble (er, Google...)

Re:So I'm sure you've all heard about...

[Anonymous Coward]

Then check this out...
Gillian Anderson on Lan Switching

...forsight

Re:So I'm sure you've all heard about...

[big_hairy_mama]

Then check this out...
Gillian Anderson on Lan Switching

Also brilliant.. I learned about switches and boobs at the same time!

DOH!

[TestBoy]

I can't believe that Phds wasted their time on this. A third grader could have gone through and found when Simpsons episodes had nifty mathematical phrases. The LA Times calls them analysts. It would take monkeys far less time to come up with this piece of work then write all the works of Shakesphere.

www.hmc.edu

[Anonymous Coward]

www.hmc.edu But you should really check out my alma matter down the street, Pomona College

... and physics too ...

[spoonist]

In this house we obey the laws of thermodynamics!

- Homer Jay Simpson

Re:... and physics too ...

[Anonymous Coward]

hehe that one gets me every time - probably my favorite ever thing to yell out.

Re:... and physics too ...

[majestyk2000]

I could have sworn that was from a Bloom County comic strip, where Oliver Wendell Jones' father tells him that after the young boy invents a superconductor, antigravity device, or perpetual motion machine (I forget which).

Re:... and physics too ...

[majestyk2000]

I stand corrected. A little research answered my own inquiry.

Re:... and physics too ...

[Jonny Balls]

You wouldn't want the king of england coming in here pushing you around, would you? WOULD YOU?

Re:... and physics too ...

[Jagasian]

What I don't understand about that episode is when bart is flying his kite outside at night... what is that a reference to? Its just too weird to not be a reference to something.

Re:... and physics too ...

[YetAnotherLogin]

Um. Benjamin Franklin? Just maybe?

Re:Wha.. Wha... What?

[hij]

Not only that, did they realy have to explain the jokes? Who would have thought that the square root of a million has been found? I realize that the general populace lacks some mathematical sophistication, but that is not a reason to be that condescending.

No short supply of mathematical references.

[thesolo]

The Simpsons, as anyone who has seen even half of a season's worth of episodes knows, is full of constant social commentary, and many things get repeated. However, their math jokes always make me laugh, and never seem to get stale, IMHO. (Bill Amend's "Foxtrot" is the same way.)

Several episodes besides those mentioned in the article contain mathematical formulas, etc. In the episode where Jay Sherman (of The Critic fame) comes to Springfield (the episode is entitled "A Star is Burns", #2F31 for anyone who cares), Homer has to decide which short movie made by fellow Springfieldians to vote on. Homer says "I've got some serious thinking to do", and then the camera pans to a shot of his brain, where two monkeys are doing natural logs and derivatives on a chalkboard!! (This of course was also a play on a previous brain-shot where two monkeys were doing nothing but picking fleas from each other)

They even manage to work in some references into those Butterfinger Shorts. My personal favorite was in a commercial for Butterfinger B.B.s, Bart's math book is entitled "Math For Underachievers"! Lisa tries helping him with math by asking "If you have 15 BB's, and I take 5, what do you have left?" Bart aptly replies "One less sister!" and raises a fist into the air. Even their shameless ads make me smile. ;)

Re:No short supply of mathematical references.

[Anonymous Coward]

two monkeys are doing natural logs and derivatives on a chalkboard

That one is mentioned.

Re:No short supply of mathematical references.

[awol]

Lisa tries helping him with math by asking "If you have 15 BB's, and I take 5, what do you have left?" Bart aptly replies "One less sister!" and raises a fist into the air.

Which in turn is an old joke but one of the best derivatives of this was delivered by Sid Snot (Kenny Everett) when the teach asks if you had 8 lollies and I took half of them what would I have? To which he replies two broken arms, nobody takes half my lollies and gets away with it. Ah the old ones are often the best.

Re:No short supply of mathematical references.

[preed-man]

The Simpsons, as anyone who has seen even half of a season's worth of episodes knows, is full of constant social commentary...

My favorite three commentary's in recent memory (i.e. the last 4 new episodes):

• One week, they're burning all the candy in Springfield, and they put in a Butterfinger bar, and it glows and pops out of the fire, and Chief Wiggum says "Even the fire won't take it."
• The next week, the chalkboard gag on the intro was "I will not bite the hand that feeds me Butterfingers."
• Marge is sending an email to an old boyfriend, and she clicks send, and it shows all the "wires" of the Internet going into a small shack with an old guy sleeping and flies buzzing around a box with a bunch of wires sticking out of it that says "Cisco Systems."
• Finally (and my favorite), there was a copy of Time magazine in one of the episodes and the cover simply said "AOL Rules."

Ahh... you don't get social commentary like that much anymore...

Re:No short supply of mathematical references.

[preed-man]

For anyone reading at this low of a threshold, I guess I can't count... nor can I pluralize correctly "commentaries" (sometimes, I so possessive).

Oh well... I hadn't had my morning cup of Dew yet.

Re:No short supply of mathematical references.

[Anonymous Coward]

one of the best derivatives of this was delivered by Sid Snot (Kenny Everett) when the teach asks if you had 8 lollies and I took half of them what would I have?

I prefer the BlackadderII episode where Edmund is trying to teach math to Baldrick..

"If you have three beans, and I give you two more beans, what do you have?"

"Lunch?"

Most importantly from a /. perspective

[NoBeardPete]

We now know that P=NP. It said so right in the Tree House of Horror VI http://snpp.com/episodes/3F04.html. Now _that_s news. I mean, e^i*pi = -1, everyone knows that, but showing that P=NP revolutionizes the whole of computing!

Re:Most importantly from a /. perspective

[Anonymous Coward]

No, no. You've made a simple error. They are not doing math, but rather some basic C++ programming. The snippet *actually* reads "set P equal to N times P", not P == NP. That would be ridiculous!

-ac

Calculus

[loydcc]

Derivitive of R cubed. rdrr. I think it was in episode 2.

That's not the point

[kannen]

They weren't talking about the Simpsons as a means of any serious sort of study, they were talking about the Simpsons as a means of making their classes fun.

Their argument is this: for those in college right now, the Simpsons has been on television for almost all of their lives. This year's freshmen were in 1st GRADE when the Simpsons first came on the air. And, these kids LOVE the Simpsons. Lucky for Math professors, a wide range of mathematical topics are covered within the Simpsons. So, if you want to connect with your students, try finding a Simpsons clip that is connected to your current topic and use that as a launch pad for in class discussion.

I think you have to give these guys props, because they are actually trying to break through the wall that is between the professor and the average student so that the student might actually become interested in mat. Wow. Professors who care! This is cool.

Re:That's not the point

[Anonymous Coward]

so that the student might actually become interested in mat.

Hi. I'm Mat. How come students weren't interested in me when I was in college?

Re:That's not the point

[BoBaBrain]

I can't say I agree.
The professors' train of thought seems to go something like this:
- Maths is boring.
- The Simpsons is interesting.
- I'll talk about The Simpsons instead of maths.

Maths can be interesting in its own right and Piggy-backing it on the back of some Simpsons references could take away from that. Maybe they could try pepping up the maths with more maths references.
Or they could go the whole way and just give away free beer at every lecture.

Re:That's not the point

[rnd()]

has any subject ever seemed boring to you at first? If not, then you would not have benefitted from the teaching methods described.

If you have been bored, you will understand the importance of context in how something is presented. Simply showing a Simpson's clip won't necessarily break through any walls, but showing the clip and explaining why it is funny or relevant may just do so. Plus, if it wakes up the class and enlivens the discussion, everyone will benefit. People don't learn in a vacuum. Learning is a social act and is influenced deeply by culture.

Of course, the more you enjoy and appreciate maths, the funnier the references are, so I don't really know where you're coming from with your criticism.

Re:That's not the point

[babbage]

You know, now that you mention it my brother (now a college junior) did exactly this in high school. I forget what the impetus for it was -- I'll have to ask next time I see him -- but he and a classmate did a presentation on the physics of the Simpsons in the form of a lesson to younger students. At first I thought it was a little silly (in a good way mind you :), but it seems like he made all the same sorts of points that you did: the show has been around forever, and has all kinds of good references to scientific & mathematical material in there.

Still, my favorite "damn the writers of the Simpsons are over-educated genuses" gag is from one of the old Halloween episodes, in which they re-created Edgar Allen Poe's "The Raven." If you'll recall, the bird in that show was drawn with Bart's head, so Bart = Raven. Look up the name Bart in a baby book and you'll find that it's the nickname for one of two longer names: Bartholemew, and (much less commonly of course) Bartram (or is it Bertram? I forget the spelling, it's been a while now...). And if you look up Bartram, you'll find that it's an Old English word referring to a person that handles ...ravens. [Kind of the same way that a falconer is a person that keeps & takes care of falcons, a ravener or "bartram" is a person that keeps ravens.] Now this is more than a little esoteric, and it could well be a coincidence (they had to get Bart in there somewhere, right?), but considering how often little gags like this crop up my bet is that it was deliberate. And my guess is that, of all the millions of people that watch the Simpsons, and of all the dozens that know how to speak Old English, there had to be no more than a handful of people that watched that episode, got the joke, realized that millions of others would have totally missed it, and laughed their damn heads off.... :)

Ever since I came across that, I've come to believe more and more strongly that Simpsons is our modern day Shakespeare. This gag is at least on par with Hamlet's "country matters" line in cleverness, and they manage to do it all the time. Will the show be remembered for as long or as fondly as Shakespeare? Who knows, but it could well happen and I wouldn't be surprised at all.

Re:That's not the point

[Anonymous Coward]

What 3 dimensional universe do you live in? Ask the average person and they will tell you math is not fun.

Re:That's not the point

[samweber]

I'd agree with you if we were talking about high school students, but we aren't -- these are college students that we are talking about.

Apparently these professors show a Simpson's video clip in which the Pythagorean Theorem is
misstated, and then proceed to have a class discussion in which the students identify the errors. I didn't do my undergrad in the United States, but do students there really get college credit for this?!! Ay Caramba!

Re:That's not the point

[kannen]

That's funny! I swear I spellchecked it. Eegads - the packet gods are against me.

OY!

Re:That's not the point

[Alpha600]

It's Bertram or Bert in short. So there is no joke. But sometimes things connected so nice to each other ...

b4n

On-Line Simpsons Resource, Par Excellence

[LittleGuy]

To check out more references than humanly possible, visit The Simpsons Archive .

Chemistry too

[loydcc]

I remember a commercial where Homer gets smart and lectures at some prestegious university on the quantum super donut. In the background there are Lewis formulas drawn on the chalk board. After careful scrutiny of a paused tape I can say that the structures would never exist in nature or otherwise. Carbon cannot have 5 bonds. Oxygen must have 2 bonds.

Re:Chemistry too

[MaxVlast]

Why do you think it's quantum!? Sheesh, have you people ever been in a high-level physics class?

Re:Chemistry too

[DavidBrown]

Sorry, but carbon can have five bonds - even seven sometimes.

Chemistry is a series of lies built upon lies. As you progress in its study, you learn that a lot of the things you learned before are not quite true.

It's a very weird egghead part of inorganic chemistry called "hyper-valent carbon" that I've forgotten all the details of - along with almost everything else I learned about Chemistry in College.

Homer was correct.

David Brown
BS Chemistry, 1987 U.S. Naval Academy

Re:Chemistry too

[loydcc]

Not according to the formal rules of Lewis bonding structures. You are correct only when talking about excited energy levels but Lewis structures don't take that into account. That would be Molecular Orbital Theory.

Re:Chemistry too

[DavidBrown]

Yes, of course, but that's different from saying that carbon may not have more than four bonds.

Math Humour & Simpsons

[BoBaBrain]

Lisa: What do you get if you cross a pig and a sheep?
<br>
<br>
Homer: I don't know lisa, what <I>do</I> I get if I cross a pig and a sheep?
<br>
<br>
Lisa: The length of the pig by the length of the sheep by the sin of the angle between them.
<br>
<br>
Homer: Go to your room.

Re:Math Humour & Simpsons

[BoBaBrain]

Lisa: What do you get if you cross a pig and a sheep?

Homer: I don't know lisa, what do I get if I cross a pig and a sheep?

Lisa: The length of the pig by the length of the sheep by the sin of the angle between them.

Homer: Go to your room.

Re:Math Humour & Simpsons

[Sir Robin]

I'm not familiar with that episode (or that many others, really). Anyway -- does she say "sin" or "sine"? I think it's funny either way, but written down, it works even better.

Re:Math Humour & Simpsons

[Anonymous Coward]

OK. I'll bite. Where does this come from? What exactly is the math humor here?

Thanks.

Re:Math Humour & Simpsons

[spiro_killglance]

Lisa: What do you get if your cross a elephant with a mountain climber.

Homer: I said you go to your room

Lisa: You can't cross a moutain climber, its a scalar

Re:Math Humour & Simpsons

[zzyzx]

Lisa: Hey dad, what's purple and commutes with all of its elements?

Homer: I don't care

Lisa: An Abelian Grape

Homer: Lisa go to your ro... mmmmmmmmmmmmmm grapes.

Re:Math Humour & Simpsons

[Speare]

The cross of two vectors, or more fully, the cross product of two vectors.

Re:Math Humour & Simpsons

[MarkusQ]

OK. I'll bite. Where does this come from? What exactly is the math humor here?

Cross products & scalars are from vector algebra; "Abelian" is from group theory.

-- MarkusQ

Re:Math Humour & Simpsons

[gowen]

One for the set theorists:
Whats yellow and equivalent to the Axiom of Choice?

Zorn's Lemon

Re:Math Humour & Simpsons

[BoBaBrain]

It's not actually from an episode. It's just a math joke with Simpsons characters tagged on so as not to be modded "Off Topic".

:/

Harcourt Fenton Mudd

[wiredog]

Was the guy in Star Trek. Harvey is probably one of his ancestors.

I can't believe I remembered that.

Also "proves" one important complexity result

[Goonie]

If you watch that episode carefully you'll notice that the equation P=NP floating around. Whether this assertion (which, translated, is the question "is the set of decision problems defined in a certain way (roughly "easy to solve") the same as another set of decision problems defined in another way (roughly "easy to verify a solution, but possibly very hard to get a solution")) is true or not is the most famous unsolved problem in theoretical computer science. It's almost certainly not true, but proving it's not has turned out to be a bit of a doozy, to say the least.

I think this basically indicates that the Simpsons writers and animators are just as geeky as the /. readership.

Re:Also "proves" one important complexity result

[gfxguy]

I think this basically indicates that the Simpsons writers and animators are just as geeky as the /. readership.

I wouldn't doubt they even know about slashdot. At least they apparently read the newsgroup. After one particularly bad season, there were numerous "comic-book-store-guy" references: "Needless to say I was online and registering my dissatisfaction in minutes..." and "worst episode ever!" These were pretty much exact quotes of people posting in the newsgroups.

Not only making fun of how ridiculous people are to do such things, but insinuating a certain stereotype by using the comic book store guy as the geek... They did it again in the episode where Homer gains weight on purpose, the guy at the clothing store says "let me guess... computer programer? Computer operator? SOMETHING to do with computers?"

Re:Also "proves" one important complexity result

[foobar104]

If you watch that episode carefully you'll notice that the equation P=NP floating around.

There was a Futurama on a few weeks ago-- I think it was the one where Fry and Amy hooked up in the closet-- that had two books sitting on a shelf. The titles were "P" and "NP."

let users mod up rejected submissions.

[Anonymous Coward]

a review of the past two days of news on slashdot.

news that hasn't made it:
-flexible ceramics (hybrid polymers) created using nanoscale chemistry at cornell
-a 1mm microscope that can examine individual molecules from within a cell developed at uc berkeley
-nasa and purdue announce serious investment of time and money on advanced life support systems which will likely be the basis for extraterrestrial colonization
-#1 site critical of scientology yanked from google

what has made it:
-resident evil movie review
-simpsons guide to math
-self heating can
-"please help me start my project because i am too stupid to figure it out myself" ask slashdot

Re:let users mod up rejected submissions.

[MicroBerto]

hahaha, i'm *really* surprised that the pathetic baby that posted this did it anonymously.

tool.

Re:let users mod up rejected submissions.

[Anonymous Coward]

"-flexible ceramics (hybrid polymers) created using nanoscale chemistry at cornell
-a 1mm microscope that can examine individual molecules from within a cell developed at uc berkeley"

Crickey...These two are (r)evolutionary...what can be done by these inventions is astounding. I'd say mod the parent post up...

Re:let users mod up rejected submissions.

[Anonymous Coward]

ad hom, how quaint. thank you for your valuable contribution, it is appreciated.

Re:let users mod up rejected submissions.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok I'm interested. Where is the info on the #1 site critical of scientology yanked from google?

Where was this info posted?

Thanks!

Re:let users mod up rejected submissions.

[rbeattie]

I really don't give a flying fuck about any of those topics. If you don't like the stories posted on Slashdot, don't read them. That's simple enough.

-Russ

Re:let users mod up rejected submissions.

[Anonymous Coward]

no thanks, complaining is nearly as simple as not reading, and as is to be expected, the struggle to affect change for the better is always more satisfying than just remaining inert. i appreciate your valuable input, though. i suggest you take your own advice wrt criticism you disagree with!

No Math jokes ?!

[Tha_Zanthrax]

From the article: Mathematics doesn't exactly have a great reputation for being a source of brilliant humor.
When was the last time you heard a math joke? And, more importantly, did you laugh?

Look here:
http://everything2.org/index.pl?node_id=452276&las tnode_id=124
http://everything2.org/index.pl?node_id=400587&las tnode_id=1140332
And try not to laugh !!

Re:Wha.. Wha... What?

[Tyreth]

They are not trying to make any philosophical/novel statement on the innacuracies of maths in the Simpsons. It is instead something for entertainment, and to serve as a method for getting students to start thinking about maths in a way that's fun, challenging, and friendly rather than daunting.

waste of money

[Anonymous Coward]

you know there are far greater problems in world than figuring out wheither or not the simpson use math in their eposides...

Did anyone else...

[zaffir]

... feel really dumb for not catching these jokes?

Re:Did anyone else...

[Anonymous Coward]

So you are saying the Simpsons is supposed to be a comedy and not a documentary?

why only math'?

[Anonymous Coward]

it would be great to see the same sort of file writen about computers. maybe someday....

Re:why only math'?

[SouthSideMike]

I can't remember all of the details but the episode where Lisa gets accepted in the Springfield nerd club and she walks up to the Comicbook Store Guy and comments on his shirt which says"C:\Dos...:C:\Dos Run...Run DOS Run"

Re:why only math'?

[generic-man]

Lisa looks at Comic Book Guy's shirt reading "C:\DOS / C:\DOS\RUN / RUN\DOS\RUN". She reads it aloud.
Lisa: Only one person in a million would find that funny.
Frink: Yes, we call that the "Dennis Miller ratio." M'hey.

Re:why only math'?

[Anonymous Coward]

Huh! A real nerd would of noticed the slashes on his shirt are the wrong way.

Most likely limited to early seasons

[Masem]

After season 7, there was a major shakeup in the production of the show, and this is typically where most fans of the early season Simpsons say when the show went downhill. I would also suspsect that if one were to look at the references cited in this lecture, they'd find a bulk of them in the early seasons as well. (Those cited in the LATimes story, for example, are mostly early seasons). Or, a better comparison is to look at the type of math references. The 'difficulty' of the cited math references (arithmatic being low, calculus being high) would decline after the first few seasons, and today's episodes would have very low difficulty math, if any.

While approaching the question from a very different direction, I think this study/lecture helps to suggest that there was a significant change in the aim of the show after Season 7. Instead of appealing to the male 18-30 block, with heavy emphasis on college students, the show now is trying to appeal to a younger audience as well as more diverse; the number of these more intelligent gags have dropped drastically since that point, in addition to other noticable changes. I would think it would be hard pressed to find a non-trivial math reference in any recent episode of late, but more than enough pop-culture references are still there.

Re:Most likely limited to early seasons

[Uttles]

While I agree with most of what you said, my favorite two references of any kind are these:

Homer: "Larry Flint is Right!" - speaking of Stephen Hawking when he comes to Springfield to correct the innefective "smart" government

Lisa: "I will NOT be a Gamecock!" - when she thinks that the family being arrested will mean she has to go to one of those schools where they just let anybody in

I don't know what season those are from, but they seem pretty new. They refer less to one's knowledge of theorems and formulas and more to one's familiarity with academic research, but they're still damn funny.

Re:Most likely limited to early seasons

[oscarm]

I have to say that this is the Worst Post Ever.

Re:Most likely limited to early seasons

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree. If you really want to see the cutting edge math jokes, watch Futurama. One of my favorite jokes from Futurama is the Aleph-0-plex movie theater. Advanced set theory references crack me up.

Re:Most likely limited to early seasons

[gowen]

My favourite obscue(ish) reference is also recent, from the one where the go to Japan:

Marge: "You liked Rashomon."
Homer: "That's not how I remember it."

See Rashomon

Re:Most likely limited to early seasons

[dollargonzo]

personally, you can appeal to wide variety of audience (expanding it) without removing all the good gags. however, this seems to be a trend in the media;

executive: we need to broaden our audience

advisor: good idea, chief, but lets keep all the old intelligent humor so we don'y lose our old fans.

executive (feeling stupid): there was intelligent humor???

QED

Re:Most likely limited to early seasons

[LastToKnow]

"Does anybody care what this guy thinks?"

Re:Most likely limited to early seasons

[Jagasian]

Everyone knows that Cantor's lame set theory is totally borked, and Category Theory is the new practical foundation for mathematics.

Re:Most likely limited to early seasons

[chfleming]

Bah, you youngsters and your shnazzy Category Theory. In my day all we had was the axiomatic construction of the real line, and damn it, we liked it.

Re:Most likely limited to early seasons

[Jagasian]

hahahaha!!! God, I wish more people had at least a slightly better mathematics education. So many people fear, hate, or just plain don't understand math. Sad, truely sad.

Also seen.. Guide to Appearances of English

[xTK-421x]

"Me fail English? That's unpossible!"

There is...

[bje2]

you're right, there are some great computer references on the simpsons....

"They have the Internet on computers now?!?

"To start press 'any' key'"

"All this computer hacking is making me thirsty, I better order a TAB"

those were just off the top of my head....but this website actually does list the computer references...

Re:There is...

[xTK-421x]

The two episodes you refer to are:

3F05 - King Size Homer
5F11 - Das Boot

Das Boot also includes a hilarious scene with Comic Book Guy:

Homer: Welcome to the Internet, my friend, how can I help you?
Comic Book Guy: I'm interested in upgrading my 28.8 kilobaud Internet connection to a 1.5 megabit fiber optic T1 line. Will you be able to provide an IP router that's compatible with my token ring ethernet LAN configuration?
Homer: [stares blankly for a few seconds] Can I have some money now?

Re:There is...

[CrazyMadPsychoBandit]

And in the episode where Homer gets stuck in 3D-land (the same one with Euler's equation, P=NP, etc.) there's a string of hexadecimal numbers in the background.

When converted to ASCII, it says "FRINK RULES"

(Glayvin!)

Re:There is...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, F that math shit!

Re:There is...

[Anonymous Coward]

"It was my understanding that during the debates there would be no math." --Chevy doing Ford (now there's an image...)

Go away I'm doing Research!

[Zarf]

If I only knew I could have justified watching the Simpsons at work as Research for better teaching materials. "No, I can't go to the Campus Pub for lunch, I've got to watch all these damn Simpsons episodes! No, it's research honest! Hey, I've got to teach classes now you know..." Maybe I would have actually become a Professor?

Oh, he's just having an antacid trip...

[plastik55]

As long as we're compiling lists of references the Simpsonsa make to things, you might want to check out this list of Simpsons references to illegal drugs.

I see

[cybercuzco]

NEEEEEERRRRRRRRRDDDD!

Homer, stop that

But marge, nerds are my mortal enemy!

no kidding

[Anonymous Coward]

You'd think those would at least get stuck off in the science section or something.

Mathematicians get to watch TV

[dave_mcmillen]

It's always heartwarming to see someone find an excuse to watch many hours of television in the name of academics. You see this more often in sociology, but it's about damn time that mathematics and the physical sciences got in on the action.

I'm going to compile a list of occurrences of physics in the Simpsons -- "Episode 1: Homer drops a doughnut. Fails to obey Newton's Second Law." [drew guffaws from physics students]

Pretty big stretch

[SamIIs]

It's hard to believe this is anything more than an entertaining collection of Simpson's jokes.

Do you really think students are learning ANYTHING about math from this list? I'm sure they're enjoying the talk, just as much as they would if it were a collection of Simpson jokes about being fat, but it feels like they're learning as much math from the Simpsons Math Lecture as from the Simpsons Fat Jokes.

The Simpsons does amazingly well at delivering jokes that fly over some viewer's head. Especially for younger viewers, there are many jokes that just aren't in their demographic, so the viewer ignores them. Ironically or not, I bet some viewers just assume that Math isn't in their demographic.

-Sam

Re:Pretty big stretch

[marijne]

or they might try to learn and understand it...

Re:Pretty big stretch

[anonymous loser]

If you had bothered to read the article, you'd realize that the point of the lecture is to introduce and discuss mathematical concepts in an entertaining and funny way. The lecturers do not limit themselves to the jokes on the Simpsons, but use them as springboards to talk about related subjects.

Re:Pretty big stretch

[(startx)]

presactly. I'm actually in the process of re-viewing all the earlier episodes from when I was younger, just cause I realize now how many of the jokes I just didn't get back then.

No..No.. [e^(pi * j)] + 1 = 0

[bdoliver]

To clarify the Electrical Engineering stance on the subject its [e^(pi * j)] + 1 = 0.
In the words of a former professor:

• "All those math folks out there just don't know that "i" is already in use as a notation for current."

I am sure that moderation of this will be a direct result of the number of EE's with points at the momment. But its "j" damn it! jaaaayyyy!

Re:No..No.. [e^(pi * j)] + 1 = 0

[Anonymous Coward]

Tell that engineering idiot that every symbol, both latin and greek, is in use already. So j is already taken too!
... and if I was an engineer, I just might know what j represents...

Re:No..No.. [e^(pi * j)] + 1 = 0

[cgray4]

Heh, look, it's an engineer lecturing about math. Next he'll tell us the exact value of pi.

Also, isn't current denoted by "I"? It is in physics. Maybe engineers just mess with everyone's notation.

Re:No..No.. [e^(pi * j)] + 1 = 0

[Yosho]

Actually, at least from what I've been taught, "I" is for constant current while "i" is for variable current.

Re:No..No.. [e^(pi * j)] + 1 = 0

[Tattva]

Heh, look, it's an engineer lecturing about math. Next he'll tell us the exact value of pi.

Dummy, everyone knows pi is exactly 3.14 with a

Re:No..No.. [e^(pi * j)] + 1 = 0

[Tattva]

heheh, oops, forgot that less-than is a reserved html control character, anyway 3.14 is good enough to an insignificant engineering error factor!

Re:No..No.. [e^(pi * j)] + 1 = 0

[csbruce]

Dummy, everyone knows pi is exactly 3.14 with a

In computer science, it's (int) 3 / (int) 22.

Re:No..No.. [e^(pi * j)] + 1 = 0

[Nightpaw]

But its "j" damn it! jaaaayyyy!

What, for "jimaginary"?

Re:No..No.. [e^(pi * j)] + 1 = 0

[csbruce]

In computer science, it's (int) 3 / (int) 22.

Damn, (int) 7 / (int) 22.

Re:No..No.. [e^(pi * j)] + 1 = 0

[portnoy]

Or maybe (int) 22 / (int) 7.

Re:No..No.. [e^(pi * j)] + 1 = 0

[Daniel]

In computer science, it's (int) 3 / (int) 22.

I thought it was $\pi$.

Daniel

Re:No..No.. [e^(pi * j)] + 1 = 0

[glitch!]

In computer science, it's (int) 3 / (int) 22.

Can you remember the string "113355"? If you split it into 355/133, the result is even closer to pi.

Re:No..No.. [e^(pi * j)] + 1 = 0

[Anonymous Coward]

And it's a good thing he put those (int)s there, else the compiler wouldn't know what to make of numbers like 22 and 7.

Re:No..No.. [e^(pi * j)] + 1 = 0

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't Euler's equation hold with any of the three quaternions i, j, k? I think k would be offended.

Re:No..No.. [e^(pi * j)] + 1 = 0

[csbruce]

In computer science, it's (int) 3 / (int) 22.

Damn, (int) 7 / (int) 22.

Damn again. I guess I'm trying to say that even in version 3.0, it's only (int) 22 / (int) 7.

Re:No..No.. [e^(pi * j)] + 1 = 0

[Anonymous Coward]

still wrong, cock smoking bruce!

Re:No..No.. [e^(pi * j)] + 1 = 0

[Anonymous Coward]

its "j" damn it!

Only for some values of i.

Re:No..No.. [e^(pi * j)] + 1 = 0

[Anonymous Coward]

...uh, why wouldn't you just write 3?

Homer vs. New York

[VictimlessChris]

I didn't see the one where Barney loses Homer's car in New York.

Parking Authority tape: "...Please wait by your car between the hours of 9 & 5 for parking officer Steve... [man's voice] Grabowski"
Homer: "Oh...how many hours is that anyway? [looks at watch] 9..11..denominator..."

Re:Homer vs. New York

[Anonymous Coward]

It'll be quite awhile before you see THAT one again, because the Khlau Kalash guy went nuts and brought down the towers.

I guess he was whacked out of his gourd on crab juice.

Re:Homer vs. New York

[metachimp]

I would have written it Hal'Kalash, just to make sure I got that glottal stop in there. You can't have a semitic language without that famous glottal stop!

WHERE IS CALCULUS TROLL

[Anonymous Coward]

math discussion, your favorite

Careful!

[Anonymous Coward]

If the editors see this, you (and everybody who replies to you, including me) are basically screwed, regardless of what the user moderators think. Just a word to the wise.

Fermats last theorem

[Lord Ender]

At the end of the article they talk about how fermats last theorem 'proves' that x^12 + y^12 z^12. However, Fermat did not have a computer, and he was wrong. For powers of 3 and 4, fermat has been proven wrong by computers already.

Re:Fermats last theorem

[cgray4]

That's funny, because Fermat's last theorem was proved by Andrew Wiles a few years ago. What are the counterexamples?

Or maybe you're making a Simpsons reference that I just don't get.

Re:Fermats last theorem

[heliocentric]

Not only that, but they state that if that one equation (the one in the episode) were true it would prove Fermat's entire theorem. What's this now - proof by ellegant example? Isn't that right up there with proof by lack of counter example, or proof by confusing picture?

Re:Fermats last theorem

[zzyzx]

It would disprove fermat's theorem. Disprove by counterexample is a valid technique.

Re:Fermats last theorem

[gilroy]

Blockquoth the poster:

However, Fermat did not have a computer

True...

and he was wrong.

Well, Andrew Wiles will have issues with you, and most of the math community agress with him, I believe

For powers of 3 and 4, fermat has been proven wrong by computers already.

Um, no. Fermat's Last Theorem was the statement that

x^n + y^n = z^n

has no solution where x, y, and z are all integers, if n>3.

To disprove Fermat's Theorem, all you would need to do would be to find a triplet of integers that obeys the equation above. Computers proved that for n < 12 (IIRC), there were none. But that doesn't prove the Theorem and (of course) fails to disprove it.

I think you confused the sense of the Theorem, perhaps because it is phrased negatively.

Re:Fermats last theorem

[fatbastard10101]

It's close, that makes it more cleverer b/c they did the math:

1782 ^ 12 = 1.02539783562263E+39
1844 ^ 12 = 1.54572062047814E+39 +
--------------------
2.57111845610078E+39

1922 ^ 12 = 2.54121025931480E+39

Lameness filter is powerfully lame.

Re:Fermats last theorem

[jack1323]

Sorry, but I fail to see how doing the math is more clever than a proof--unless I missed some sarcasm here.

Minus the fact that "it's close" doesn't really count in Math, especially proofs. (If it did, I would've had a 4.0!)

Re:Fermats last theorem

[markmoss]

It's fairly easy to check Fermat's theorem to finite values of x, y, and n: Say, checking everything up to x, y 2000 and n 15 ought to run in a few hours. (Hint: you cannot use floating point -- so you've got to program multiplication and addition for _extremely_ long integers.)

But how in heck could a computer check this for n=4 and _all_ values of x, y, and z?

OTOH, as the transcript pointed out, you don't need to know how far Fermat's theorem has been tested to see that 1782^12 + 1841^12 = 1922^12 is wrong. Multiplying even numbers by even numbers always gives an even number. The equation is wrong, no arithmetic required. Multiplying odd numbers by odd numbers always gives an odd number. Add even to odd, and you get odd. Make it 1921^12, and we might need a forty-digit calculator to be absolutely _sure_ this wasn't the disproof of Fermat's last theorem...

Re:Fermats last theorem

[Stridar]

I believe the previous poster (Lord Ender) confused Fermat's last theorem with Euler's conjecture. The latter is that w^n + x^n + y^n = z^n does not have any solution in the positive integers.

This conjecture has been proven false for n 4; however, to the best of my knowledge, no one has produced any results for n > 4.

-Stridar

Re:Fermats last theorem

[Lord Ender]

Ok I read in my discrete math book that integers x, y and z have been found such that x^n + y^n = z^n for n=4. However the article states that fermats last theorem said there is no solution for n > 2.

Re:Fermats last theorem

[foobar104]

If you're curious,

fishbulb 9# bc
1782^12 + 1841^12
2541210258614589176288669958142428526657
1922^12
2541210259314801410819278649643651567616

So while it's technically wrong, it's still pretty friggin' close. It's only off by 700212234530608691501223040959. ;-)

Re:Fermats last theorem

[markmoss]

Which is a pretty good illustration of round-off error in floating point. The first 9 digits are the same; many calculators only carry 8 digits, so they'd probably calculate it out as equal, even though anyone who knows basic number theory can see that it's NOT equal. On my Sharp EL-506A calculator (10 digits), it properly recognized the inequality, but the leading digit of 1922^12 - (1782^12 + 1841^12) was 3 instead of the correct 7. Thirtytwo bit floating point (type "float", on most computers) is either going to have too few bits in the mantissa to detect the difference, or too few bits in the exponent to do the calculation at all.

Of course, what is worse for engineers and programmers is that most calculations that _should_ come out to 0 or equality, don't if you do them in floating point. Numbers derived from real world measurements (including vote counts in the 2000 election) are usually only accurate to 2 or 3 figures, so exact calculations are pointless anyway, but if you forget that the numbers are fuzzy it's real easy to write "if (x==y)" and go nuts figuring out why the "then" branch is never taken. Or worse, to write "while (x!=y)", which will never terminate if the variables are floating point...

Re:Fermats last theorem

[adamy]

I can't help but think that the numbers being used are historical references: Maybe something about the US consitution? The French Revolution? Physics?

Re:Fermats last theorem

[khoborerkagoj]

It is quite obvious that this cannot be true. Since 1782^12 is even and 1841^12 is odd, their sum is odd. 1922^12 on the other hand is even, and hence
1782^12 + 1841^12 != 1922^12
without invoking Fermat.

Re:Fermats last theorem

[Dominic_Mazzoni]

Your discrete math book is wrong.

Either that or you misunderstood it.

Re:Fermats last theorem

[cshor]

Ok I read in my discrete math book that integers x, y and z have been found such that x^n + y^n = z^n for n=4. However the article states that fermats last theorem said there is no solution for n > 2.

You can have integers x, y, and z such that that is true.. only problem is that for n > 2, one of x, y, or z will have to be 0. (For example, 0^4 + 3^4 = 3^4).

Fermat's last theorem, which has been proved, says that for n > 2, there are no triples of integers (x,y,z) such that both x*y*z is non-zero and x^n + y^n = z^n.

Re:Fermats last theorem

[Anonymous Coward]

You can not brute force check the validity of Fermat's last theorem using a computer. There are infinitely many cases.

"It's been done before"

[babbage]

First the Britney Spears Guide to Semiconductor Physics, then we got Kate Moss' guide to Linux disc partitioning and Courtney Love's explanation of dual booting Win2k and Linux, and now this? Wow.

I tell ya, these celbrities are smarter than any of us previously thought!

"You see Lisa, the system works"

[Codex The Sloth]

Try reading kuro5hin then and let the masses have their cheeseburgers and 500 channel "TV"...

Mmmm....

[nordaim]

Donuts. Hidden binary communications.

Plus the Octal world that they live in (only 4 fingers).

Lisa: "This book says that in the future people will have *five* fingers!"

f_ck yo_, b_ddy (i'll take a vowel)

[Anonymous Coward]

yes, okay. and i should move to russia if ever i feel that the united states government could do with some change, right? and if i happen not to like the catholic church's policy regarding pedophilic priests, i should switch to islam rather than dare question the current modus operandi, huh? and if i don't like garish public billboards i should walk down different streets instead of petitioning city council, yes?

cmon

[Anonymous Coward]

like all great absurdist humor, if the writing is brilliant enough, it will play with all aspects of humanity (simpsons, south park are two of my favorites)

The Metric System and Grandpa's Car

[rjthomas61]

>Marge: Now I know you haven't liked some of my past suggestions, like switching to the metric system.
>Grampa: The metric system is the tool of the devil! My car gets 40 rods to the hogshead, and that's the way I likes it!

Let's see....
40 rods/Hogshead x
1 mile/320 rods x
1 Hogshead/63 gallons =
0.00198 miles/gallon or
504 gallons/mile

Perhaps Grampa drives an SUV?

Re:The Metric System and Grandpa's Car

[SEE]

Obviously a Canyonero.

I am so smart!

[Anonymous Coward]

I am so smart! S - M - R - T ! I am so - DOH!

different levels

[TechnoLust]

Actually, I think the two are very similar. As the article stated (and I paraphrase) the Simpson's works on many levels, adults pick up on nuances that pass right by the children.
I remember the same Animaniacs episode I reffered to earlier, where the teacher asks, "Yakko, can you conjugate?" And Wakko replies, "I never even KISSED a girl!" Like he thought she said copulate. Most kids just think he is being silly, they don't get the subtle joke. I have seen this subtlety on the Simpson's, also.

Re:different levels

[Anonymous Coward]

> "Yakko, can you conjugate?" And Wakko
> replies, "I never even KISSED a girl!"
> Like he thought she said copulate.

Um, no. Like he thought she said conjugate. As in "Conjugal duties." It's a bit retro, but completely true. Consider (and this is c/o the OED)

Darwin, quote in "the Origin of Species"
...organic beings extremely low in the scale, which do not propagate sexually, nor conjugate...

Re:different levels

[Attila]

Homer:

President Clinton? I'm glad I got a hold of you, 'cause I figure you'd know where to get some Tang.

Mod this crap down.

[Anonymous Coward]

Misrepresenting mathematics pisses me off. Also mod down the jackass who replied with similar bogus "information".

My Favorite:

[mlknowle]

As he is being sucked into a black hole, homer says:

"Doh! I should have read that book by that wheel-chair guy!"

Funny?

[calumr]

Did anyone else find these jokes NOT funny? The lecturers funniest math moment in the Simpsons was 2 children reciting pi - how is that funny? OK, it goes on infinitely, but this guy needs help.

Yes, there are references to math in the Simpsons, but they aren't all jokes.

Different interpretation of 3.14159265... joke

[pomakis]

I think the writer of that article interpreted this joke differently than I did:

In Greenwald's favorite "Simpsons" math moment, Homer and Marge Simpson are considering sending their daughter Lisa to a school for the gifted.

As the camera pans, two young girls playing the game of patty-cake recite the following playground chant: "Cross my heart and hope to die / Here's the digits that make pi / 3.1415926535897932384..." and the camera pans away.

The joke, of course, is that the digits that make pi -- a circle's circumference divided by its diameter -- continue infinitely. The writers are clearly aware that pi is what's called an irrational number -- one that cannot be expressed in terms of the quotient of two integers in lowest terms. And to "get it," the viewers have to understand that it means you can never say what pi is exactly, in the same way you can say what 5 is.

I don't think the joke is "Ha ha! They're going to go on forever!". I think it's merely "Ha ha! They're so geeky that they memorized the first umpteen digits of pi for fun!".

Re:Different interpretation of 3.14159265... joke

[Indras]

I think it's merely "Ha ha! They're so geeky that they memorized the first umpteen digits of pi for fun!"

Nobody 3.14159 really 2653589 does 7932384 that, 62643383 do 27950288 they?

Re:Different interpretation of 3.14159265... joke

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. They do. Benjamin happens to do it with nmemonic tricks, I believe.

(just for reference, this is also the same mudd professor who can multiply 5 digit numbers in his head, tell you which day of the week any date falls on, and a few other mind numbing math tricks)

Re:Different interpretation of 3.14159265... joke

[Van Halen]

The calendar trick is pretty cool, called the Doomsday method (actually I don't know if this is what Benjamin uses - never had him for any of my math classes there). It was reported here last year.

Fermat's Last Theorem

[Yoda2]

If you're interested in Fermat's Last Theorem, Fermat's Enigma is a fairly interesting and easy read. It covers both history on Fermat and Andrew Wiles who finally proved the theorem in 1993/1994.

Get off your high horse

[Codex The Sloth]

Before you start comparing yourself to Thomas Paine, back it up. I merely suggested that Kuro5hin is a better forum for substantive conversations like the rejected ones (and that those stories had been featured on K5). Slashdot does tend to go with articles which have a mass appeal. Look at the number of comments on the stories some time and see what the trend is. So you can either do something about it (i.e. vote with your feet and read something else like K5) or be just like everyone else: complain and then read it anyway. Nice analogies BTW! Why not compare me to hitler and call it a day?

Get off your Nazi podium first, HITLER.

[Anonymous Coward]

quit directing me towards the kurotration camp. tell me what the mass appeal of the ask slashdot equivalent of a "do my homework for me" post is compared to something like flexible ceramics being developed, a story that has both wow-cool appeal and the intelligent content that slashdot seems to be moving away from? how does a videogame movie starring a model appeal to anyone? (obviously it doesn't, seeing as how it still has to make $40M at the box office to break even)

i guess i'll be just like everyone else and complain. but maybe the great slashgods could take a clue that something's wrong if everyone else is complaining along with me, huh?

Re:Get off your Nazi podium first, HITLER.

[Anonymous Coward]

you hundredth monkey you...

Deep Space Homer

[birder]

One of my favs:

Tom: Now let's look at the crew a little.

Man 2: They're a colorful bunch. They've been dubbed "the Three Musketeers". Heh heh heh --

Tom: And we laugh legitimately. There's a mathematician, a different _kind_ of mathematician, and a statistician.

Didn't see my favorite stupid math joke...

[Anonymous Coward]

What's the integral of one over cabin?

Log cabin.

Re:Didn't see my favorite stupid math joke...

[Anonymous Coward]

Nnnngh! Teeth-grindingly bad.

Pi Never Gets Boring?

[donutz]

Ok, I have to take issue with the point that Sarah J. Greenwald makes here:

Two girls at a gifted school play patty-cake while chanting the digits of pi:
Cross my heart and hope to die
Here's the digits that make pi
3.1415926535897932384...

....

This was a good starting point to discuss the irrationality of Pi and the fact that this meant that not only would the patty-cake game never end, but it would also never get boring since the decimal expansion would never repeat.

Ok, well i concede that you'll get a non-repeating string of numbers, but I take issue with the idea that it will never get boring. It will get very boring, I think, at least in base 10...you've only got 10 digits to work with! Even in hexadecimal with it's few extra digits it's gonna wear out pretty quick for kids today, what with their short attention spans. We need something that'll really captivate them. Now I know this isn't a permanent solution, but I suggest we read Pi in something like base 42....or base 500....something to keep that repetition of digits down.

Re:Pi Never Gets Boring?

[chfleming]

bah, I prefer to count in base pi.

then it is just "1"

but now I only have approximately "pi0.0pi0" fingers

Re:Pi Never Gets Boring?

[biobogonics]

but I suggest we read Pi in something like base 42....or base 500....something to keep that repetition of digits down.

Why don't we just crank out the digits base 26, read them off, and save people the tedium of posting and reading Slashdot. Perhaps we can can find the collected works of Shakespeare or the Bible Code in there as well.

Re:Pi Never Gets Boring?

[Paradise Pete]

bah, I prefer to count in base pi. then it is just "1"

And I suppose you write ten as 1 in base ten, too.

Re:Pi Never Gets Boring?

[chfleming]

Agh, you're right

I have approximately "pi00pi.0" fingers

Re:Pi Never Gets Boring?

[donutz]

Why don't we just crank out the digits base 26, read them off, and save people the tedium of posting and reading Slashdot. Perhaps we can can find the collected works of Shakespeare or the Bible Code in there as well.

Hmm....are you sure you mean base 26? Maybe you mean base 36. Cuz if you do 26, then you've got these digits: 0123456789abcdefghijklmnopq, which probably won't get you through Shakespeare or the Bible, at least not in English. Or I suppose you could do base 26 and start with 'a', going against the conventions people normally use.

And even in this case, we're not going to have any punctuation. We may have to go with a higher base, to get all the 7 bit ASCII characters, just to be sure....

Futurama

[coreyb]

Futurama (also a Matt Groening show) also has quite a few math references. The main characters go to Loew's Aleph-null plex to see a movie. I doubt too many people knew the symbol, so that one's a bit less overt than many of the Simpsons math references in the article.

Re:Futurama

[Anonymous Coward]

I just mentioned this in response to another post! It's nice to know someone else thought so highly of the reference.

Re:Futurama

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm guessing most of these math jokes and references come from the mind and pen of David S. (now X.) Cohen. He does come from a theoretical computer science background at Berkeley, where he used to be a roommate of my ex-PhD advisor (who decided to leave the exciting world of crypto to become a medical doctor...)

My fave reference? In the Simpsons ep where a new waterfront district is built and Lisa gets to babysit Bart, Marge and Homer are walking down the strip, commenting on all the new shops, they pass one called "The Crypto Barn - A Place For Codes". Sigh...if there were only such a store in real life.

Fermat's last theorem revisited

[Anonymous Coward]

The article missed the real joke with Fermat's last theorem -- try verifying the equation given on a calculator. You'll notice that (1,782 ^ 12 + 1844 ^ 12) = 2.571118456100777845626276598184e+39, as does (1922 ^ 12). If this really held, it would disprove the theorem (no x, y, and z exist that hold for powers over 3)!

However, it only holds to 30 or so significant digits. So the real joke here is that the equation

• appears

to disprove the theorem :)

Full disclosure -- I probably wouldn't have noticed this, but one of my professors pointed this out in class (she had a friend who had actually written the joke!)

Biblical Pi

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, according to the bible, the value of pi is 3 exactly. Check out 1 Kings 7:23, where they describe a round pool in the temple with a diameter of 10 cubits and a circumference of 30 cubits.

Re:Biblical Pi

[belloc]

Actually, according to the bible, the value of pi is 3 exactly. Check out 1 Kings 7:23...

What 1 Kings 7:23 says:

"Then he made the molten sea; it was round, ten cubits from brim to brim, and five cubits high, and a line of thirty cubits measured its circumference."

What it doesn't say:

"...a mathematical circle whose diameter is ten point zero zero cubits will have a circumference of thirty point zero zero cubits, thus saith the LORD, and those who tried to think otherwise were smited down by the tyrannical God of the Old Testament...."

1. The passage is describing the construction of a molten freaking sea, it's not a mathematical treatise on the nature of the circle.

2. Not only is this not a mathematical treatise, it's not even an engineering plan or construction document. It's just a loose description. "Thirty cubits" isn't a bad ballpark estimation of 31.4159... cubits when you're just describing the thing in layman's terms, especially when you don't know whether the "ten cubits from brim to brim" is an inside diameter, outside diameter, or center-wall to center-wall diameter.

3. Even if this passage were an engineering plan, no constructed, material "circle" is ever going to have a circumference of exactly pi times its diameter. There will always be a discrepancy by which it will be off, plus or minus, depending on the matter and its application, and the technological ability to fabricate it. The dimensions of a molten sea, for example, can be expected be off by more than, say, dimensinons of optical mirror components.

4. Sheesh. People will say anything.

Belloc

Re:Biblical Pi

[MindStalker]

Dumbshit dumbshit dumbshit, geez I HATE correcting people on this, the language of hebrew was math based, and the word they used for line was different from the word they normally used, and if you (divided the new by the original word) * 3 you got 3.141 something or other (not exactly right but a close enough for making a round pool. I think I'll look it up for you, but I don't care right now dumbshit. Search google for pi in the bible.

Re:Biblical Pi

[MindStalker]

sorry about the yelling earlier, was having a bad day. (I'm flamebait and he's insightful? :)
Anyways, http://www.yfiles.com/pi.html
any try to ignore the religious references.

Re:Biblical Pi

[Trogre]

You're assuming it was to be a perfect circle, and not oval.

You're also assuming that, with the quality of materials and tools in that era, a 4.5% error was outside acceptable bounds.

Re:Biblical Pi

[RoninM]

That site is perhaps the worst bit of religious claptrap I've read in a long time. Not only is it completely inane and arbitrary (on the order of those ridiculous Bible/Torah codes), but it ignores historical fact in purporting that modern editions of the Bible have not been altered by years upon years of scribeswork. Here's a thunderstorm for this kook's parade: spelling systems have significantly altered over time, so as the books have been scribed, they have often underwent correction (or, to use a lighter term, translation) for modern usage/dialect. All this without even getting into the likely errors of an age short on the infrastructure to ensure common spellings. Then we have the footnote that not only have spellings often changed, but some of the text has suffered greater edits.

What is worth more than mathematical ad-hockery is to note that the Bible is simply incorrect, here, for whatever reason (whether it's because the passage was only intended as a casual, imprecise description, was transcribed wrong, etc. doesn't matter). One is also free to point out that most arguments that use this fact to jump to some sweeping, grand conclusion are quite invalid.

Re:Biblical Pi

[SEE]

And during the Middle Ages, the rabbis talked about it, and there were two viewpoints on the subject:

1) 10 and 30 cubits are approximations of values that were truly fractional, and the problem was that there was no way to express exact fractions in the language used. It was "really" something like 9.6 cubits across and 30.159... cubits in compass, or somesuch.

2) The temple, sacred ground wherein God dwelt, had non-Euclidean geometry, and the numbers are exactly right. (Hey, if God can create black holes, why can't he distort geometry to the same degree that a large gravitational field can?)

Given that between GR and the quantum nature of matter it is literally impossible for any circle with a diameter of exactly pi*diameter to actually exist on Earth, pushing on the matter generally points out the ignorance of the "Bible debunkers" fairly effectively to those who are actually educated.

Re:Biblical Pi

[MindStalker]

The dead sea scrolls also had the old testament text in it, word for word. Proving in hebrew it hasn't been changed. Obviously translations have been changed horribly. Anyways, the fact that the hebrew language is based on math is real. Basically what is happening with the the two words is you are having one word which basically means line, and this new word which was translated to mean line, but probably means "circle line" or something, which creates a ratio of the difference between the told distance and the real distance. Not too difficult to imagine something like that existing really. BTW I'm not saying this whole weird bible code is correct or even that the bible is gods word, but simply that the hebrew language has a word that mathematically stood for this.

Re:Biblical Pi

[RoninM]

No one will probably ever read this, but I should point out, anyway, that this is false. The Dead Sea scrolls do not have the Old Testament text in them, word for word. The text in the Dead Sea scrolls is not the same as the text in the Old Testament. Although we are not able to read much of the Dead Sea scrolls because they have weathered long years, what we can see is that when there is overlap between the Bible and the Dead Sea scrolls, the gist of the story remains the same. However, the Dead Sea scrolls contain significantly more Biblical text than the Bible. It's also incorrect to assert that the Dead Sea scrolls are all written in Hebrew. Many are written in Aramaic and some, even, in Greek. We also, again, run into the fact that while there is overlap between the content, the spelling and precise phrasing has changed.

This gets me back around to the major factual error in your comment: this new word ... probably means "circle line". There are a great many problems with this. First, there's the simple fact that being able to perform fairly arbitrary mathematical operations on a given word to find a value does not mean that the value and the word are intentionally related. It certainly doesn't mean that they are probably so. One can perform such neat maths tricks with anything and get equally astounding (read: meaningless) results.

If you must get technical, however, I can simply point out that the original word form (kuf vav) has not been translated as "line" but as "line around", which is what it means (kuf = to surround; vav = hook). To assert that they had another word (kuf vav hey) that means "line around, no really, this time!" is as absurd as I'm making it sound.

In short, one's time would be better spent acknowledging that the Bible, like any other text written by men, has errors, but this does not invalidate the whole of it. If you're religious, you can excuse the error as being either an intentional approximation in the original or an error introduced with time. What cannot happen is for those of us who are secular to use such a trivial error as a means of invalidating the entire Bible. That's not a valid argument form and is a clear demonstration of belief affecting rationality -- the same thing we often shun religion for (calling its practioners zealots).

not as revolutionary as...

[Anonymous Coward]

the self-heating can!

Re:not as revolutionary as...

[Anonymous Coward]

heheahahahehe :)

what can I say, so true

people.... **people**...

[Inataysia]

pi is exactly three!!!

m'hey...

Re:people.... **people**...

[LastToKnow]

*gasp!*

Pet hate #32

[GallopingGreen]

"Based off of..."
What's that? base-jumped off?

Is it that difficult to say "based on..."?

The Doh of Homer

[Meech]

The Doh of Homer is a philosophy book about the Simpsons. I haven't read it yet, but I might when I get a chance.

Re:The Doh of Homer

[dinivin]

Get it... It's a great read (but only if you like The Simpsons & philosophy).

Dinivin

Math is probably the influence of Al Jean

[Anonymous Coward]

Back in the 80's during college, I knew a guy named Don Jean. He told me about his older brother Al who had a B.S. and a Ph.D. in Math, but then went off to write comedy. At that time he was writing for 'Too close for comfort', and had also written some material for Airplane 2. (Don claimed that the scene where Captain Kirk is on the telescreen and then comes thru the door was his idea). Anyway, this is the same Al Jean who is now, and always has been, a big part of the Simpsons. Incidentally, I believe he also might be the reason that so much of the humor appeals to those who have had a Liberal Arts education.

`The Simpsons Rule'

[frantzdb]

One more pun that people have missed: The title of the talk was ``The Simpsons Rule''. See MathWorld for information on Simpson's Rule.

Also, here's the email announcing the talk:

DOH! Yes, you heard right....

HMC MATHEMATICS DEPARTMENT PROUDLY PRESENTS

The Simpsons Rule: Mathematical Morsels from "The Simpsons"

next THURSDAY, March 14

6:30 PM, Galileo McAlister (HMC)

by Dr. Sarah J. Greenwald, Appalachian State University and Dr. Andrew Nestler, Santa Monica College

Now in its 13th season, "The Simpsons" is an award-winning global pop culture phenomenon. But did you know that "The Simpsons" also contains over one hundred mathematical moments, with material ranging from arithmetic to calculus to Riemannian geometry? There's even a resident mathematician/inventor, Professor Frink. Join us as we present some of our favorite mathematical excerpts from "The Simpsons," and explore the related mathematical content, accuracy and
pedagogical value.

Aftermath: Doughnuts (MMMM...Doughnuts) will be served at the end of the talk.

Re:`The Simpsons Rule'

[Dominic_Mazzoni]

Professor Moody really enjoys his puns and other wordplay - when I was at Harvey Mudd, some other fun math talks included:

A lecture on "Pi" - followed by pie.

A lecture on the mathematics of juggling by Ron Graham - followed by graham crackers.

A lecture on math (I can't remember what the topic was) by Ed Burger - followed by Baskin Robbins Chilly Brrrgers.

Re:`The Simpsons Rule'

[thirty-seven]

At the University of Waterloo, Mathsoc (the undergrad student's society in the Faculty of Mathematics) celebrates "Pi Day" on March 14th by giving free pie out to students starting at 1:59pm. That is, at 3.14 1:59.

/.ted -- Google Cache

[javaaddikt]

click here

technicality

[Siva]

actually, its

I am so smart!
I am so smart!
S-M-R-T--I mean S-M-A-R-T...

Simpsons explained Black holes to me...

[NanoGator]

There was a show on Black Holes on the Discovery Channel one day. They used the 3D episode of the Simpsons to illustrate how a black hole works.

I haveta admit, I carried away a lot more about black holes because of that episode. For example, I had always heard that 'time and space are curved', but could never really picture it until they explained it using footage from that show.

Us right brained people don't like books a whole lot. Math equations put us into screensaver mode. So when we get a visual like that, it suddenly clicks into place.

Kudos to Discovery Channel and the Simpsons for giving me the foundation ability to understand the more sophisticated theories about time and space.

Re:Simpsons explained Black holes to me...

[Anonymous Coward]

Credit for this visual metaphor for a gravity hole should go to Carl Sagan, who rolled balls across a black sheet with a white grid on it in his "Cosmos" series.

Motivation

[samweber]

The claim of these professors is that the use of Simpsons in the University classroom motives students, and "encourages deep understanding." Personally, I find this rather doubtful.

I'll go out on a limb, and question the entire point of motivating students at the university level. In high school, students are forced to be introduced to a wide variety of subjects, and part of the rationale behind this is that a student might have talent in an area and never know it without an introduction to it. So, teachers at this level should be encouraging students to give every subject a fair try.

However, does this apply to college courses?

College students are ADULTS, not children, and shouldn't be treated as children. As an adult, I should be able to find any necessary motivation myself, thank you very much. A professor's job should be to present the material clearly. I've endured many attempts at motivation, and have usually come away insulted, as almost all such attempts have been manipulative. This use of the Simpson's certainly falls into this category.

So, a university professor makes a big deal of a few formulas appearing in the Simpsons. Apparently we are supposed to think "Gee, the Simpson's are cool, and the Simpson's mention math, so math must be cool!" Juice companies put cartoon figures on their cartoons to impress five-year olds by this same argument. However, I'm not five any more, and I can't help but be insulted by the assumption that I can be persuaded by this argument.

Furthermore, does anyone really think that the fact that the Simpson's mentions the Pythagorean theorem will cause a college student to say "Oh, wow, mathematics is so much fun that I want to learn all about Abstract Algebra, Galois Theory and Cartesian Manifolds!"? Yes, I'm sure that lots of students like the class, but I'd bet that the real reason that they do is that they've managed to con the teacher into showing them some cartoons, and spend lots of time on something easy.

Re:Motivation

[Chaset]

I think the motivation angle is just what the LA Times writer spun onto the event. As stated, the talks were being given to science/engineering students. As I recall, these talks were given for the benefit of interested students outside of class, and attended only by people who wanted to go. So the point was obviously not to increase student interest in the topic with "cool" or "wow" factor. Don't take issue with the researchers or the topic/presentation; take issue with the Times writer who spun it in a wierd way.

This one sounded interesting. I wish I'd taken advantage of more of them while I was there.

I'm glad Mudd got mentioned on slashdot, too.

You know you're a nerd when...

[Spunk]

From the article: Mathematics doesn't exactly have a great reputation for being a source of brilliant humor. When was the last time you heard a math joke? And, more importantly, did you laugh?

Yesterday, and yes.

Genuses

[Lionel Hutts]

The correct plural of "over-educated genus" is "over-educated genera."

Re:Genuses

[babbage]

What then is the correct Latinized plural for "typo", eh? "typis" maybe?

Wiseass :)

Re:Genuses

[ArsSineArtificio]

What then is the correct Latinized plural for "typo", eh? "typis" maybe?

Typoes, if you think of it as a theoretical third-declension noun, as English generally does.

Not that "typo" is actually a word, being merely an abbreviation for "typographical error".

Incidentally, the "genera" poster was making fun of you for confusing "genus" and "genius" in your original post.

Re:Genuses

[babbage]

Typoes, if you think of it as a theoretical third-declension noun, as English generally does.

Ok, I was just skimming over my old Latin I book and thought -o <--> -is looked like it might work, but then it's not like I speak the language fluently or anything. Far from it :)

Incidentally, the "genera" poster was making fun of you for confusing "genus" and "genius" in your original post.

Notice that too, didja? Thanks, it wasn't obvious or anything... :)

Re:Genuses

[SmittyTheBold]

Well, fungus -> fungi, so genus -> geni. =)

What's even more fun is genius -> genii. The extra "i" is fun to pronounce ;)

Re:Genuses

[cpeterso]

The correct plural of "over-educated genus" is "over-educated genera."

Actually:

box --> boxen
over-educated genius --> over-educated geniusen

The difference between today and tomorrow.

[NanoGator]

Okay... so something interesting to YOU didn't make it. I'll give you the Nasa one, but I have to side with Slashdot's decision on the rest of them.

Simpsons: Fun, interesting to talk about with my friends. Flexible ceramics? ZZzzz. How many years before we see something result from that?

Resident Evil movie: tempted to see that, Slashdot saved me money today. 1mm Microscope: Woopie. We'll see results from that in what, 5-10 years?

Self heating can: lots of us bachelors don't like to cook. This could also be quite useful in survival gear. It's going to be out SOON. (According to their marketing brocure...). The Google one you mentioned made it.

Please help my project? Due date NOW.

See the pattern? I'm not in any way saying that ultimately the news you suggested is less important, but the big difference is time. If something is going to happen years from now, then it has lower prescedence on what's happening today.

Heh

[mlylecarlin]

The number of people taking those stupid little references seriously just shows how few slashdotters know any real math.

References to Reimannian Geometry my ass.

mlylecarlin

Should Simpsons Math be in Base 8?

[Aqua OS X]

They only have 4 fingers per hand ;)

wait...

[Anonymous Coward]

you needed jonkatz to tell you that a movie based on a video game starring a model would be terrible?

rule of 70

[epine]

Close enough that estimating the magnitude mentally doesn't help. Using the rule of 70 you can estimate x^12 = 2 * 1844^12 as 1844 * 1.06, giving an x in the range of 1950 which as an upper bound gives very little. The lower bound by this method is around 1885. The mean of these two bounds is 1917. I guess that comes out so close because the two inputs are of similar magnitude. If you know the rule of 70 that whole process takes about 5 seconds mentally.

Frink Rules in HEX - 3D episode easter egg

[gosand]

eeggs.com is a site that lists easter eggs in various things, among them TV shows. Of course, the Simpsons are full of them, and the 3D episode that was mentioned in this article has one of the coolest one I have heard (and it is math related)

"When homer stpes into the 3rd dimension (It's in a halloween episode, i think) there is a string of hexidecimal numbers that read: 46 72 69 6E 6B 20 72 75 6C 65 73 21 when converted to ASCII, this reads Frink rules!"

My Favorite

[gnovos]

Pi is exactly 4!

$\pi$

[Charles Dodgeson]

I thought it was $\pi$.

Surely it should be the final version number of TeX.

If you like the Simpson's guide to math...

[nick_burns]

You'll love the Britney Spear's Guide to Semiconductor Physics. Who would have thought that learning about P-N junctions could be so much fun?

Cached at Google

[IpalindromeI]

The original has been slashdotted, and I couldn't find a mirror, but you can read it from the Google cache.

Ahhh, Simpsons

[valdara]

I attended the Simpsons/Math lecture at Mudd, and it was really quite wonderful, although I felt unprepared that I hadn't brought my trusty TI weaponry. It was really quite informative, and, being the enormous Simpsons fan I am, enjoyable. Granted the research probably wasn't difficult, but it was time consuming, I'm sure (we all know what a difficulty it is to watch lots of Simpsons). I, for one, greatly appreciate the time they put into the research and that they also took the time to present it to a room full of college students. The doughnuts were greatly appreciated, as well.

Damn you, geeks!

[ruin]

Stop remembering TV and get back to work!

Hexadecimal Message

[Anonymous Coward]

While watching the 3D simpsons episode, I noticed a string on hexadecimal code fly by. I recorded it the next time I saw it, and if I remember correctly it translates to "FRINK RULES".

Calculus is borderline insanity.

[darkonc]

This reminds me of one of my (original) math jokes... It came from two semi-related incidents: Debunking a 2=1 math proof that our math teacher threw up for us in grade 10, and then learning about how calculus works.

The 2=1 proof depended on creating a non-obvious reference to 0/0=1, and then reducing down to 2=1.

Looking at it for a while, I relized that 0/0=x is the same as solving for 0=x*0 ... In other words, X can be anything (integer, real , complex...).

In first-year honors calculus, I realized that calculus is based on the same kind of construct, except for that you're solving for the limit of a/b=x as a and b approach zero -- in other words, dancing with the devil of 0/0.

The moral of my story:

Calculus is based on the fact that 0/0 can be anything you want, depending on how you approach it.

Any references to prior art (I first came up with that pun in 1980)?

Re:Calculus is borderline insanity.

[Anonymous Coward]

Looking at it for a while, I relized that 0/0=x is the same as solving for 0=x*0 ... In other words, X can be anything (integer, real , complex...).

Given a set S we say that a/b exists in S if there is a unique c in S so that a = cb. So 1/0 does not exist becaues 1 != c*0 no matter what c is. So 0/0 does not exist because 0 = 1*0 = 2*0 etc, so the c wouldn't be unique. The proper discussion for all of this is in a ring. Things can get weird. Modulo 6, 0 = 2 * 3. But I can't write 0/2 = 3 for example since 2 has no inverse modulo 6. And so on.

The moral of my story: Calculus is based on the fact that 0/0 can be anything you want, depending on how you approach it.

No it isn't. 0/0 has no meaning. Period. Calculus, is above all, based on the least upper bound property of the reals numbers and the concept of a limit.

Granted lim_{x ---> 0} x/x = 1, this does not mean that 0/0 = 1 or that you can take 0/0 to be 1. It means that the function f(x) = x/x defined for nonzero x gets as close to the value one as you like as x tends to 0.

Granted lim_{x ---> 0} (sin x)/2x = 1/2, this does not mean that 0/0 = 1/2 or that you can take 0/0 to be 1/2. It means that the function f(x) = (sin x)/2x defined for nonzero x gets as close to the value one as you like as x gets arbitraily close to zero.

It is not being precise that plagued mathematicians until the very early part of this century. Euler, Fourier and many others had some remarkable "proofs" of things that are absurdly false because they didn't properly define their notions.

Your pun, while off the mark, is however cute.

Goodbye slashdot :(

[robin999]

Point is taken.

Slashdot is no longer the tech forum it once was, and is now more a pop culture and reflection of an editorial elite.

All media evolve, and we, the users, must continually reassess the relevance of any media outlet to our needs.

Goodbye all, and thanks for the many ionteresting articles in the past. My requirements now take me elsewhere. I am cancelling my userid.

Re:Goodbye slashdot :(

[Anonymous Coward]

No!! Don't go!

Simpson makes you Smrt!

[mpark6288]

So now when people tell you that watching tv makes you lot more stupid (yes, I know), you can tell them they're wrong. The Simpsons teaches you how not to do math!

I'm surprised they didn't mention this one...

[duren686]

Lisa: But seven goes into twenty-eight four times.
Mathemagician: Uh, this is a -magic- seven!

Of course!

[Anonymous Coward]

This calls for some serious glaven.
The purpose of the show, m'hay, is of course, to - dear God, no!

Is it just me...

[samhart]

...or does this just sound like an excuse to get your thesis committee to allow you to watch hours and hours of The Simpsons and still get a degree?