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Simpsons Guide to Math

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the i-will-not-do-math-in-class dept.

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.

5 of 304 comments (clear)

  1. No jokes about maths? by sstrick · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    How about this one?

    What does a mathematician use as a contraception?

    Their Personality.

    --

    "Do you think we could wipe out world hunger forever if scientists figured out how to make AOL's Free CD's edible?"-
  2. Wha.. Wha... What? by nherc · · Score: -1, Flamebait
    I'm sorry I love the Simson's as much as the next /.er, but what is up with all of the "Doctors", Profs. and others, including the Time's and /. for wasting time on this? Clearly, there was no true "math" behind anything in the Simpons other than what it takes to make a math related joke funny to the target audience. And, most of the paper is merely pointing out references to said jokes and stating the utterly obvious:
    "The Simpsons" uses fractions, statistics, geometry and the metric system to show that many of the characters have an apparent lack of math knowledge.
    Quite profound. Move on.
    --
    'He was a dreamer, a thinker, a speculative philosopher... or, as his wife would have it, an idiot.' - Douglas Adams
  3. Re:That would be quality by The_Fire_Horse · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    you're not kidding - it would really make slashdot a fun place. Ooh - how about allowing html popups - that would REALLY get the place jumping!

  4. Re:Chemistry too by DavidBrown · · Score: 2, Flamebait

    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

    --
    144l. ph34r my 133t l3g4l 5k1lz!
  5. Re:Biblical Pi by MindStalker · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    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.