So I can tell you 24 - there's like, a, you know, proposition 24 they vote on ending. So you have the twin reference to a 1980s classic horror film and a binary reference to the number of The Beast. And if you've ever seen the show, you know how Homer Simpson is no math genius. COHEN: But you have to say it in a way that's funny. And that's what appears in this episode. You know, and - see? Which is an astonishing... SINGH: ...levels of love of mathematics required. And David, anything on the future for you, what you'd like to do? That, of course, is the theme of the longest running sitcom in American history. FLATOW: This is SCIENCE FRIDAY. If it is, put it in. Some of what Singh covers are the appearance of π, a curious version of … It takes at least this many flips, at most that many flips. COHEN: '96. SINGH: And the prediction is somewhat high. Many of The Simpsons' writers have mathematical backgrounds, perhaps explaining the show's penchant for the topic. He may not be well known in America but he has a degree in math and physics from Dublin and he's, you know, one of the top rated standup comics over here. And you might say how many mutations or how many generations it might've taken to get from one point to another. The simpsons and their mathematical secrets by author simon singh october 2014 isbn kostenloser versand fur alle bucher mit versand und verkauf duch amazon. So I don't actually - I don't know the 37. Stay with us after this break. "The Simpsons" kicked off its 25th season this year. What is there - is there something, you know, we hear a connection between mathematicians and music a lot. He had very little schooling but he just would invent theorems that were beautiful and elegant and rich and original. Some have seen philosophy embedded in episodes of The Simpsons; others have detected elements of psychology and religion.Simon Singh, bestselling author of Fermat's Last Theorem, The Code Book and The Big Bang, instead makes the compelling case that what The Simpsons' writers are most passionate about is mathematics. The simpsons and their mathematical secrets by simon singh 2014 09 25 simon singh isbn 0783324828214 kostenloser versand fur alle bucher mit versand und verkauf duch amazon. 1-800-989 - well, are there things in the hopper that you haven't finished that you'd like to get in, you know, while you still can? And so he was ill in hospital and G.H. about how the two mathematicians were implicitly responsible for adding mathematical content to an episode of The Simpsons. I mean, they can't believe at the beginning it's for the money. I say that because I used to be a member of it a long time ago. SINGH: Well, so the episode involves the - Professor Farnsworth has a mind switching machine and characters have fun switching minds occupying other people's bodies and there's kind of an orgy of mind switching. You're not sure how you're going to get there. This is SCIENCE FRIDAY from NPR. But there is this physics element to it. COHEN: Simon, it's almost "Twilight Zone" there. Singh reports that one of the mathematicians on the Simpsons writing team, J. Stewart Burns, draws a parallel between puzzles, which represent the … Sometimes there are obscure references to history for example or whatever the particular writer's interested in. The simpsons and their mathematical secrets is a 2013 book by simon singh which is based on the premise that many of the writers of the simpsons are deeply in love with numbers and their ultimate desire is to drip feed morsels of mathematics into the subconscious minds of viewers the book compiles all the mathematical references used throughout the shows run and analyzes them in detail. Well, you know, you have a character named Fry and we're always very - we're always happy to a guy named Fry because we're SciFri. It's not very interesting. The question is if you have a stack of N pancakes and you are a very smart flipper, what is the fastest - what is the number of flips that it takes to sort this stack of pancakes out into the proper arrangement. But ultimately I have settled on one answer. It's not that the shows are a hundred percent open to math only but that they are open to any kind of smart and interesting ideas. In the case of the mathematical theorem it's a statement that you think is true but you need to prove it from a starting point. I'm Ira Flatow. So sometimes even in the (unintelligible) there is mathematics. 1-800-989-8255. That's the question. It really hit me straight between the eyes because that was the first - you know, the first book I'd ever written was all about Fermat's Last Theorem. I'm a big fan of "The Simpsons" and I've noticed the number of 37 pops up a lot more than an accident. This one, the very plot of the episode was mathematical in terms of Homer entering a higher dimension. How often do people send in jokes? Which is what happens to that universe in that episode. Happy to be here. We see an episode where - a scene where Amy and Fry are in a stationary cupboard. We left off at a very dramatic moment when I was about to reveal the answer to this problem. So he got on a ship and he came to Cambridge and he flourished. I know one area where it may relate is in terms of looking at DNA, where you look at bits of DNA that have broken off and reverse themselves from generation to generation. So what Jeff Westbrook is saying is, no, no, the hard ones will always be in a separate folder and the easy problems will always be in a separate folder. So the head writers, Al Jean and Mike Reiss early on that Simon mentioned, and later Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein, among others, were very encouraging of people to just put in obscure references to whatever they were interested in. "The Simpsons and their Mathematical Secrets." This was, again, credit to Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein. We see the line p equals np. And ideally you would like to have them in that nice, neat arrangement where the biggest one is on the bottom, then they're in order up to the smallest one on top. And we were saying, oh, this isn't so hard. So what I decided to do, as a former computer science guy, was to write a computer program that would look for very, very near misses to this equation, so close that if you tried them out on a calculator, it would appear correct to the number of digits that most people had available on their calculators, at least at that time. Some episodes, such as Treehouse of Horror episodes are divided into three smaller stories which have then been given a title. COHEN: Did you buy it enough to offer me some grant money? Anyway, despite the above litany of complaints, I did actually enjoy the book. FLATOW: So the inmates are running the asylum over there, yeah. So the timing just happened to work out to make these things possible. A fascinating look behind "The Simpsons" and, you know, I've been watching it for years, these math things pop in and out. This interesting and quirky little book works through two decades of prime material to shine light on the nerdy little secrets of The Simpsons.Surprisingly a large number of The Simpsons writers are prestigious mathematicians … It's nice to hear that you guys were. He joins us from Los Angeles. The Simpsons And Their Mathematical Secrets Author Simon Singh Published On October 2014 PDF, ePub eBook, Simon singh ist mit the simpsons and their mathematical secrets ein sehr kurzweiliges buch zu den mathematik anspielungen in der fernsehserie die simpsons gelungen zu diesem thema gibt es chon mehrere internetseiten und blogs die alle folgen der kultserie genauestens unter die lupe nehmen und anspielungen auf mathematische themen suchen . Simpsons writer Al Jean, third from left in the back row, in the mathematics team from 1977 Roeper School yearbook. And very, very briefly the story is that Ramanujan was this incredibly, brilliantly naturally gifted mathematician in India. We're talking with Simon Singh, author of the book "The Simpsons and their Mathematical Secrets" and David X. Cohen, a former "Simpson" writer, executive producer of "Futurama," the "Simpsons" sister series. I had a question for David. Do you have a favorite one? I want to play a clip of the episode called "Homer Cubed." And the answer is nobody is quite sure even to this day but the best we can do is sort of put bounds on it. FLATOW: Yeah. But I kind of left "The Simpsons" behind when I went to "Futurama" so I've been gone from there for a while. Although I visit once in a while. And Al Jean who was a really, really bright young teenager. We could just have Bart writing pi and never finishing and that could fill up whatever time we needed to fill up. I mean, again, I kind of defer to David on this one. Welcome to SCIENCE FRIDAY, Dr. Singh. Welcome, David. And there's always been great freedom for the writing staff there, thanks to Jim Brooks and Matt Groening demanding that when the show first came on the air. I think there's an Escher gag around the sofas where the family arrive into a kind of a universe where gravity is pulling in three perpendicular directions. And I think it's the only paper that he's known to have published, though. I just, you know, it's like a former president or something? You know, there may not be a really funny way to deliver the information and there may not be a proof to get to your statement, even if it is true. Often my friend David Schiminovich, for example, who's an astrophysicist at Columbia. Do they send in math, say, hey, put this on or do that kind of stuff there? You're slightly an outsider. Now, I mean, that's quite a confusing explanation. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. So we have an episode of "The Simpsons" postulating an answer to an unsolved riddle in mathematics. COHEN: So I took his number. Talking with Simon Singh, author of the book "The Simpsons and their Mathematical Secrets" and David X. Cohen, former "Simpsons" writer and executive producer of "Futurama." Although we do know some very funny scientists. Well, it relates to an Indian mathematician called Ramanujan. Ken's very modest about it; he says it's no big deal but it's a nice little theorem. In The Simpsons and Their Mathematical Secrets, Simon Singh explains how the brilliant writers, some of the mathematicians, have smuggled in mathematical jokes throughout the cartoon's twenty-five year history, exploring everything from to Mersenne primes, from Euler's equation to the unsolved riddle of P vs. NP, from perfect numbers to narcissistic numbers, and much more. COHEN: "Futurama" just finished up, so that was my main vehicle for sneaking these things in. Yeah. So when they went to Harvard they took part in Harvard Lampoon and they wrote for the Harvard Lampoon. I think observationally there's definitely something there because you have a, you know, huge gang of mathematicians on "The Simpsons" and "Futurama" and then people like Tom Lehrer. But then Bender sees the number reflected in a mirror. FLATOW: This is SCIENCE FRIDAY. This seems to be a counter example to the theorem, which I think had just been proven at that time. As of January 3, 2021, 145 people have been credited with writing or co-writing at least one episode of The Simpsons. In The Simpsons and Their Mathematical Secrets, Simon Singh explains how the brilliant writers, some of the mathematicians, have smuggled in mathematical jokes throughout the cartoon's twenty-five year history, exploring everything from to Mersenne primes, from Euler's equation to the unsolved riddle of P vs. NP, from perfect numbers to narcissistic numbers, and … The mathematicians on … One is marked p and one is marked np. In this case we had a blackboard. SINGH: You know, the greatest musical satirist of the 20th century, a math professor at Harvard. There's also an equation which says p equals np which is an answer to a question which is worth a million dollars if you can solve it. This was back in 1995, is that right, Simon? Simpsons writer Al Jean,third from left in the back row,in the mathematics team from 1977 Roeper School yearbook.Photograph:CourtesyofAl Jean newsgroup that allowed fans to share, among other things, their freeze-frame discoveries. And the one common theme that people seem to suggest was the idea that mathematics is about logic and so these people enjoy playing with logic, they enjoy stretching it, bending logic. FLATOW: And that's why sometimes you have freeze frames or you can freeze your VCR in the old days and then try out the number and see if it's working. This is a theoretical problem where you have to imagine you have a stack of pancakes on your plate for breakfast and they're all different sizes. In the case of a joke for a script, the way we write it, you need to get some information across, like, you know, there's going to be a talent show at the school. The writers relished the notion of the freeze-frame gag, because it enabled them to increase the comedic density. FLATOW: Hmm. For 25 seasons, The Simpsons writers have been smuggling math onto Americans' TV screens. So we couldn't really afford to do it but they fished around a little bit and this company Pacific Data Images ended up volunteering their time to do this very expensive animation for us. David, being in scifi there are a lot of science jokes in "Futurama." COHEN: Wasn't there one episode of "The Golden Girls" that had that also? SINGH: Well, yeah. He is a former Simpson writer and an executive producer of "The Simpsons" sister series "Futurama." or "Benny Hill" when I'm talking in the U.K. but it's the same point. So when it appears in "The Simpsons," that's something I'm not going to miss. SIMON SINGH: My pleasure. It's a little easier. And, you know, it shows the extent of what's going on in "Futurama" and "The Simpsons.". Al and Mike still work on "The Simpsons" and bit by bit they brought other people onboard. Nobody sends in any - well, I was about to say nobody sends in anything. FLATOW: Well, we have tried to do programs over the 22 years we've been on, on are scientists funny? I'm Ira Flatow. His comments about his career as a mathematician can be found below and in A Futurama Math Interview with Dr. Ken Keeler . This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. COHEN: One thing all comedy writers hate is trying to figure out why something is funny, I think. FLATOW: Very close to our heart. There is a reference to the Utah teapot which is a way of modeling three dimensional objects which kind of test how good your mathematical modeling is. Author Simon Singh's new book teases out the mathematical references hidden in The Simpsons. As an example, David X Cohen, one of the writers, graduated from Harvard University with B.A. We'll be right back. FLATOW: No, they just listen on the radio. And he went away and came up with a proof which is generally known as the Futurama Theorem. That's one thing that scientists just hate talking about, the philosophy of science. Hi, Matthew. So there was actually an explanation from some of these jokes, the math jokes that Simon's talking about that relates to this, in terms of us saying P equals NP in that episode. So only later when we saw people discussing it energetically on the Internet did we realize people were actually getting these jokes that were done really pretty much for our own amusement. Let me play it first. And it's not clear that people can therefore get back to their own bodies by maybe alternative routes. FLATOW: Simon Singh, thank you very much for taking time to be with us today and good luck on the book. He was so bright that he went to Harvard to study math when he was only 16 years old. So in this case it's apparently a counter example to Fermat's Last Theorem, which says that for the equation a to the n plus b to the n equals c to the n, there are no solutions of n is greater than 2. Intrigued that mathematicians were using material from the show in their classrooms, they invited Greenwald and The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.