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Math with Cohen and Groening
An anonymous reader writes "While
math on The Simpsons and
math on Futurama has been covered by Slashdot before, new background on some of the scientific references is covered in a long transcription of A Futurama Math Conversation with David X Cohen and a short summary of a math club talk to Matt Groening and a number of writers from both shows. Some amusing tidbits are on these pages - for example, when the Simpsons writers contacted NASA for the 40,000th digit of pi, NASA actually sent them a printout of all 40,000 digits."
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Really been scraping the bottom of the barrel... Pi is now funny?
i love the simpsons! where else could a fat slob like homer get some bomb-ass pussy like marge?
I don't know why they needed NASA for that. Pifast will spit out the first 40,000th digits in a very short time on modern computers. A million is a reasonable benchmarking number for that program. Finding the 40,000th digit in the text file takes longer than calculating it.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
for example, when the Simpsons writers contacted NASA for the 40,000th digit of pi, NASA actually sent them a printout of all 40,000 digits.
They do know such information is available online, don't they?
-William Brendel
They could have quickly called Daniel Tammet http://www.spring.org.uk/2005/05/daniel-tammet-boy -with-incredible.htm
:-)
Daniel Tammet is an autistic savant. He can perform mind-boggling mathematical calculations at breakneck speeds.
He can figure out cube roots quicker than a calculator and recall pi to 22,514 decimal places.
Pi is now funny?
Of course pi(e) is funny. Haven't you watched Wobbl and Bob ? Of course The Simpsons would pick it up to display a contrast between the world views of Lisa Simpson and her father.
http://www.andrews.edu/~calkins/math/pi40000.htm/
it's 7, the answer is always 7.
At least when they want to do their comedy, they do it right, damnit. Looks like nerds have friends on TV. :-)
Yay, I have a sig.
You can calculate the nth digit in base 16 in O(n) time with the following algorithm:
Algorithm
If you want decimal digits, it's a bit more complicated.
42
Sorry, this sig is beneath your current threshold
NO FAIR! You changed the outcome by measuring it!
that's why NASA's annual paper budget is $17.3 million.
$17.3 million? That's stretching it, even for a joke. With about 80 digits per line, 50 lines per page, and 40,000 digits per document, how many trees do ten pages kill?
It just took about 20 seconds to evaluate
evalf(Pi,40000).
In case anyone cares:
The 40000th digit is a 5.
The 40000th digit after the decimal is a 1.
Anyone got a working link to the original LA Times story on math in the Simpsons? The link in the old Slashdot article is dead, and I can't find it in the archives.
An article about the Simpsons, and 19 of the first 20 replies are about pi and the other one's about how hot a blue-haired, yellow-skinned cartoon character is.
The original short article from which this was taken (well, the title is exactly the same) is online here, at gotfutrama.com - (shameless plug here) the best (and possibly only?) Futurama news site.
Most of my extended family are hard line Catholic republicans, they not only voted for Bush, but did so with joy in their hearts. They don't listen to much of anything anyone tried to tell them about either alternate viewpoints or even their own beliefs.
However, many of my younger cousins watch South Park and/or the Simpsons and are exposed to ideas which contradict their own, they may not immediately see it, but they are exposed to them without automatically tuning out. This is why these shows are great, because the gags allow a message to get across to people who don't listen to other sources.
News for nerds....and a story about math on Futurama goes without posts....now that's sad.
Professor Frink: Gentleman please.... can I just.... your attention please.... ahem. PI IS EQUAL TO 3!
Audience: *Gasp*
In ninth grade algebra, I walk into class and the teacher had put an infinity symbol on the whiteboard. I, being the smart ass I am says,
"Mr. Dewey, who killed eight?"
Mr. Dewey says without missing a beat,
"Pi, It's an irrational number."
(Feel free to throw tomatoes at my post. But I did warn you that it was corny, plus this is as humorous as I get at 2am EDT.)
"Plans are for fools! Oglethorpe, the plutonian (Aqua Teen Hunger Force)
I'm afraid there are a bit more than that.
#include ".signature"
You would be surprised at how many male geeks fantasize about sex with a "yellow" (i.e. Asian) woman with blue hair that they saw in some anime.
Sorry, I just pulled that number out of my ass
Too bad the Prime Number Shitting Goatse.cx Man had to go 404 and kill my retort.
You probably kill clowns in your spare time too, don't you?
Yeah. What's your high score for Clown Killer?
I just listened to this podcast the other day from http://www.sciencefriday.com/pages/2005/Apr/hour2_ 042905.html
The entire show was dedicated to this.
I am impressed that David X Cohen made a little C program to generate the supposed Fermat theorem counterexamples!
Hands up if you enjoy blasting big, loud, stinky ones. Extra points if they're wet.
All I want to know is, who's the poor bastard who had to count the digits till they found the 40,000th.
I guess that's why NASA sent it to em.
"They can kiss our collective asses if they think we're going through that stack in the corner to find one digit. Let them do it."
Why'd they have to contact NASA? And don't give me any crap about it being 1993; Project Gutenberg's pi to a million digits was released before 1993.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
I'm a freethinker. I let cartoons tell me how to vote.
Don't limit it to Republicans or Catholics. Try espousing Libertarian views in San Francisco. Try suggesting that some of the political or economic problems the city faces are of their own making and you will be tuned out as a Republican apologist.
I agree with you about the Simpsons or South Park because both shows are willing to skewer all sides.
What devilry could have caused them to commit such a deed? What vile, underhanded trick could have persuaded them to take such a course? Not only did they vote for Satan Himself and His Terrifying Cadre of Evil Minions, but they were giddy with glee as they put him back in power!
Maybe it was that horrid conservative media who filled their minds with images of purple-fingered Iraqis. Or it was those vile priests who told them abortion is wrong AND bad public policy. Or maybe it was that filthy lucre that corrupted their souls and caused them to vote for tax breaks.
The shame you must feel!
But hark! In yonder silver screen is a beacon of hope! Clothed in utter humility itself - a sweatshop-animated, 22-minute television sitcom - is God's own shining truth, come to brighten our homes with its glory! It WILL prevail!
Ahem.
You know you're on Slashdot when this kind of trash is valued.
Or maybe you're on democraticunderground.com. Whatever. I'm nearly sick of this place, just from snarky, flamebait comments like that.
I got my Linux laptop at System76.
http://www.joyofpi.com/pifacts.html
I think the real genius of South Park is that it cracks jokes at everyone. Basically, it can make anyone laugh at themself. It more or less suggests that a hardcore anyone is probably way out of whack. Alot of SP episodes end up being Daedalus and Icarus stories. They just add a generous dose of humor in the extremes.
A little laughter can be worth a shitload of perspective.
Sorry, coulnt resist.
Gary G
I never knew that the simpsons also asked NASA for the the 40,000th digit of Pi. But I've known for a while that they asked David Bailey for it as well (Bailey is one of the B's from BBP numbers... which is the formula to calculate an arbitrary digit of Pi in Hex). You can actually see a picture of the fax that the simpsons sent him on the 4th page of this pdf http://www.cecm.sfu.ca/personal/jborwein/pi-slides .pdf
I always thought that it was pretty cool that they took the trouble to just find out what the right digit was but now I know they actually decided to confirm it as well. That's pride in ones craft right there.
I was going to say that everything I ever needed to know about government came from Bugs Bunny, but you said it better.
The latest Slashdot meme.
He actually asked NASA for the figures for their annual paper budget, and they sent him a 17.3 million page printout....
David X Cohen and Matt Groening were like "oooohh? They have the internet on computers now?"
Not until your kind [naive, hate-filled, intolerant cowards] leave first.
I agree with you about the Simpsons or South Park because both shows are willing to skewer all sides.
I agree about South Park but to say that the Simpsons "skewer all sides" is asinine*. For the past 5+ years the Simpsons has been the democratic party's poster boy and I say that as someone who considers the show (well the first 8 or so seasons anyway) to be the best TV series of all time.
*No, I don't think some random Bill Clinton joke makes the show skewer both sides evenly.
Dutch ovens and hotboxes rule!
[Pi has] 40,000 digits?
Yes it does. Here's all 40,000 of them (in base 10):
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
0
What makes South Park better at political commentary than The Simpsons is that, ultimately, South Park approaches a view based on common sense, that doesn't kowtow to the left or the right, but sits somewhere in between where most non-ideologues are.
I mean.... Voting between a Giant Douche and a Turd Sandwich? Classic!
On the other hand, The Simpsons and Futurama (I think Futurama, especially) are still not bad at political commentary because they take a situation or issue (like global warming, for instance) and, while bringing it to light in an episode, also turn the issue on its head (like when burning robot exhaust gases are used to shift the Earth into a wider orbit, thus cooling the planet). There's still a political bias there, but it isn't used to beat you over the head with like most dramas do these days, and so even if you disagree with the political views, you're still entertained and not offended.
It is pretty ironic how the supposedly tolerant liberals turn out to be just as exclusionary, prejudiced, and judgmental as the conservatives they ridicule (as opposed to entering an intelligent discourse with) on a daily basis.
I decided to memorize the first 100 digits of pi after reading this article ... thank you slashdot for wasting an extra couple hours of my time ...
3 75 10582097494459230781640620620899862803482534211706 79
3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399
-tom
it is pretty ironic how the supposedly tolerant liberals turn out to be just as exclusionary, prejudiced, and judgmental as the conservatives they ridicule (as opposed to entering an intelligent discourse with) on a daily basis.
I listen to Rush Limbaugh every day. And every day he goes on and on about just that point. But the difference between him and you is that he is the one telling the Big Lie, and you are the one believing it.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Apu: In fact, I can recite pi to 40,000 places. The last digit is one!
Homer: Mmmm, pi.
It's from the episode titled "Marge in Chains"
I recall a joke by comedian Steven Wright (I think):
I went to a math conference recently, and the hotel at the conference labelled all the rooms with math symbols.
Mine was Pi. Easy enough to find, but it took FOREVER to dial on the hotel phone system.
I was a teaching assistant one academic quarter each year when I was in grad school. I was the TA for "Astro 1" twice.
Even though "Astro 1" was for people with limited math and science backgrounds, there was a lot of really good content in it, at least as taught by the prof who taught it the two times I was the TA for it.
One thing that had to be covered in the basics was the concept of orders of magnitude. When we talked about orders of magnitude, I had to explain to the students what the columns mean in a decimal number. OK, they had a basic understanding, and they "should" have understood it more deeply by the time they reached college, and yes, it would have been nice if they'd seen and paid attention to "My Hero Zero" on Schoolhouse Rock, but I discovered that a sizeable percentage didn't understand these things.
After a brief talk about powers of 10, I decided to take the risk of introducing a more complex concept in order to make sure they understood the basic concept. I brought in base 8 by telling them that since the people on The Simpsons have 8 fingers, they would count differently. I showed them why and how, without spending too much time (I didn't want them to think base 8 was what they were supposed to learn). When we were done, they really did seem to understand powers of ten and orders of magnitude much better. They participated more actively and their answers (and even questions) showed they understood powers of ten and orders of magnitude better, which I believe enhanced their appreciation of some of the really cool stuff in the content of the course.
In the anonymous TA evaluations, there were several positive comments about how I was able to find unusual and interesting examples to help the students understand things.
"It is nice to know that the computer understands the problem. But I would like to understand it too." --Eugene Wigner
One of the things that fascintated me in the article was his discussion of his high school experience and the lack of ridicule for brains/interests in education. I would have killed for that. . . most of high school felt like a quest to hide interest in knowledge (or face ridicule, which was inevitable anyway - had I known THAT little tidbit I may have cared less).
Whereas David speaks of a high school utopia where no matter what your interests were (math and DnD both mentioned in the same sentence) it was all chill.
I wonder two things - is he simply romanticizing his high school past and it really was as bad as, say, my high school (and from anecdotal evidence seemingly every other high school out there)?
And if he wasn't, how could I find these high schools to ensure that when(if) I have children I can ensure that I'm getting them into these schools as well?
I don't think I became OK with my brains until I was out of college.
You better watch out, there may be dogs about . .
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If you consider evalf(Pi, 3) you get 3.14 which is jus the second decimal. You want evalf(Pi, 40001); which gives a 1. /Esben
"Nobody really checks their email any more. They just delete their spam"
It's just that the conservatives are a _much_ bigger target, in terms of hipocrisy particularly.
I mean, Clinton lied about a few blow jobs, whereas Bush lied about the reasons he went to war.
What a long, strange trip it's been.
"That's like asking the square root of a million. No one will ever know." -- Nelson
Gutenberg was ahead of its listed release dates for some time. Note that before they reached 10,000, some texts had release dates long after their completion dates. (That one was actually released in 2003, for instance.)
Gutenberg release dates are only accurate after 10,000; before that, they're overly pessimistic. The project had planned to release etexts at a certain rate, but when they'd completed their planned quota through 2006 by 2003, they gave up on that idea.
Common mistake, though.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Both cases were/are diversions from the real "News".
http://sources.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pi_to_1,000,000_ places
I tried "1 page in trees" on google (the converter function is fun" but it did not know that one. Time to create a new standard!
1 tree = how many pages?
I know trees come in different sizes and different kinds of wood would yeild different number of pages.. think averages.
Asking Jeeves did not help.
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
Believe it or not, I don't listen to Rush Limbaugh, because I got tired of hearing the same unsubstantiated rumors and ad hominem attacks over and over again. He's every bit as bad as Al Franken (though when it comes to misinformation, I think Michael Moore has him beat).
NASA actually sent them a printout of all 40,000 digits
I'm shocked that the Simpsons writers not only knew that there *was* a last digit, but also knew that the last one was the 40,000th. Even *I* didn't know that! They must've had some help. They must have some Ph.D. mathematicians working on the writing staff. Or maybe one of them is related to a math professor.
Or maybe I'm just rationalizing.
The only thing I dispise is dishonesty.
If you call it judgemental to recognize a mean-spirited liar and a hypocrite, then I guess I am judgemental. If you call it prejudiced because I dispise mean-spirited liars and a hypocrites, - guilty again. If you think it is exclusionary to include everyone but liars and hypocrites, well you've got me pegged. So I guess you're right, but I couldn't be any other way.
ymmv
1782^12 + 1841^12 =1922^12
This one's too easy to disprove. Whatever digit 1782^12 ends in, it ends in the same digit that 1922^12 ends in, since each base ends in a "2". That means the difference between the two must be a number ending in "0". But 1841^12 clearly ends in a "1".
Didn't he know it's just "74" on the speeddial?
(Look at a phone keypad)
Pies have 40,000 digits?
.
Only at
Pies have 40,000 digits?
Only at Wendy's.
The definition of a lie is telling something you know to be wrong. Care to show us evidence that bush KNEW his evidence was incorrect? Thanks, you lose.
Screwed the joke by not previewing....
They should have just asked this guy. He memorized Pi to 22,514 digits. I'm sure with incentive he could take it out to 40,000.
Paul Gillingwater
MBA, CISSP, CISM
With about 80 digits per line, 50 lines per page, and 40,000 digits per document, how many trees do ten pages kill?
You forgot the decimal point, which unfortunately causes the printout to overflow to an 11th page.
I guess the authors could have just thrown away the first 10 pages and kept the last one, which (conveniently enough) would contain all the information they wanted.
-"One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man." -EH
http://www.downingstreetmemo.com/memo.html
Have they finally decided to make a Simpsons episode about Pi? Awesome!
Har...
I have pi to 32 million places sitting right here on my desktop :-P.
Simpsons. Pi. Joe Hill. Phil Ochs. It all comes together so nicely.
wonder if slashdot-crew couldn't make an anual award for jewels like these =)
of course, *these commits ought to live up to some quantitative Geekness
I don't claim I know more than I know, and if you know you know more than I know, then by all means, let me know.
Thank you.
What a long, strange trip it's been.
I think the fact that Bush committed troops to Iraq speaks for itself. If he had genuinely believed that Iraq had WMD, he would have been much more circumspect, because, given Saddam Hussein's record, there was every reason to expect he would have deployed them against invaders.
What a long, strange trip it's been.