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???

[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???

[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.

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

[NMerriam]

translation for the mathematically impaired?

Re:Euler's Equation

[Remik]

Math Prof's are #1.

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]

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

[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

[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

[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.

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.

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

[isorox]

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

Perhaps you should investigate Speed Reading?

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...

[Oink.NET]

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

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!

... and physics too ...

[spoonist]

In this house we obey the laws of thermodynamics!

- Homer Jay Simpson

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.

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.

[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.

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

[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: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. "

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

[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.

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

[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

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

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

[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

[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

[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.

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...

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

[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.

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

[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

[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

[Nightpaw]

But its "j" damn it! jaaaayyyy!

What, for "jimaginary"?

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

[Daniel]

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

I thought it was $\pi$.

Daniel

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: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:No jokes about maths?

[the_consumer]

Why didn't the statistician have a significant other?

He was satisfied with 5 significant digits.

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

[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

[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

[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...

"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!

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.

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.

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!"

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

[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.

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.

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.

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?

[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?

[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....

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

[Inataysia]

pi is exactly three!!!

m'hey...

`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.

/.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.

Genuses

[Lionel Hutts]

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

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

[SmittyTheBold]

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

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

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.

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

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!

Damn you, geeks!

[ruin]

Stop remembering TV and get back to work!

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: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

[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: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).

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).