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The Mathematics of Futurama

mclearn writes "Did you know that the writers of Futurama have a collective set of degrees that would rival most think tanks? Here is a hilarious site on the mathematics of Futurama -- specifically this article (pdf). The same authors have also researched the mathematics of the Simpsons, mentioned on Slashdot long ago."

4 of 481 comments (clear)

  1. Re:SLURM by aslate · · Score: 5, Informative

    How about going to the Google Cache whilst you enjoy your alien-worm excrement!

  2. Re:Mathematical significance of 1729 by SamSim · · Score: 5, Informative

    Erm, neither 13, 123, 93 or 103 are cubes. What you mean is 1729 = 1000 + 729 = 1728 + 1, or 1729 = 10^3 + 9^3 = 12^3 + 1^3.

  3. Re:10 SIN by FuzzyBad-Mofo · · Score: 5, Informative

    On a similar note, but a bit more subtle is Bender's apartment number: 00100100

    (that's a '$', for the non-ASCII literate)

  4. Re:/.'ed already. by jcoleman · · Score: 5, Informative

    The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle says that you can know either the position or velocity of a subatomic particle, but not both. Further refined, the better you estimate velocity, the worse your estimate of position and vice versa.

    Schroedinger's Cat, however, illustrates the wavefunction of a quantum particle...the cat is either alive or dead, but you can't know which until you check. Whether you look or not doesn't influence the cat's mortality rate. You can say that it's the measurement (opening the box) that causes the cat to live or die, but the cat already was in that state when you checked. That is the essential problem raised by this thought experiment.

    Check this page:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%F6dinger%27s_c at

    and note that the word "uncertainty" does not appear. Of course, it might appear on the page, and it might not...you won't know until you click on it. ;)

    So your analogy holds between the webserver and the cat, but the uncertainty principle is not involved. That is what I'm trying to clarify.

    (BTW, this is a stupid argument. Clearly we are both bored at work.)