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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."
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
Because scripts get written WAY before they air (they have to go through animators, recording dialogue, patching it all together, making sure voices match lips, etc.) It wouldn't surprise me at all if they sent to NASA in 1991 or 1992.
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.
Actually, sequence '42' is at position 92 counting from the first digit after the decimal point.
For finding your birthday in pi checkout
http://www.angio.net/pi/piquery
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The woman doing the article has her students figure out why it doesn't work using the odd/even mismatch. However, he used the program again later (perhaps modified, I believe) to find a more close near-miss and one that isn't as easily disproved with the odd/even mismatch.