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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.

7 of 304 comments (clear)

  1. Chemistry too by loydcc · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Chemistry too by loydcc · · Score: 2, Insightful

      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.

  2. Most likely limited to early seasons by Masem · · Score: 3, Insightful
    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.

    --
    "Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
    "I can see my house from here!" - ST:
  3. Re:That's not the point by rnd() · · Score: 3, Insightful
    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.

    --

    Amazing magic tricks

  4. Biblical Pi by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Biblical Pi by MindStalker · · Score: 2, Insightful

      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.

  5. Re:Pi Never Gets Boring? by Paradise+Pete · · Score: 2, Insightful
    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.