Simon Singh book on Math Secrets on 'The Simpson'

I was listening to an interview on the radio with Simon Singh pushing his new book. Apparently the Simpsons has enough obscure and not so obscure math references in it to write this new book. He said many of writers have advanced degrees in math and this is how they keep a finger in their first love.

I don't watch the Simpsons regularly and probably would never get many of the references even if I did, but have any of the mathmaticians on this board ever noticed and watched for these references?

Quote: kenarman

I was listening to an interview on the radio with Simon Singh pushing his new book. Apparently the Simpsons has enough obscure and not so obscure math references in it to write this new book. He said many of writers have advanced degrees in math and this is how they keep a finger in their first love.

I don't watch the Simpsons regularly and probably would never get many of the references even if I did, but have any of the mathmaticians on this board ever noticed and watched for these references?

Surprised this didn't get any replies! As a hardcore fan of 90s Simpsons and someone who took at least a little bit of advanced math, I found this interesting. My local library has the book so I put a hold request on it.

Give us a review after you read it A's&8's

Or have someone read it to you. Doubt it has many pictures.

Quote: Buzzard

Or have someone read it to you. Doubt it has many pictures.

Whoa whoa whoa...what are you implying, Buzz?

Why nothing at all. Still no answer on another thread. Perhaps you know what population in the USA has the highest illiteracy rate ? It is over 60% !

Quote: kenarman

I was listening to an interview on the radio with Simon Singh pushing his new book. Apparently the Simpsons has enough obscure and not so obscure math references in it to write this new book. He said many of writers have advanced degrees in math and this is how they keep a finger in their first love.

I don't watch the Simpsons regularly and probably would never get many of the references even if I did, but have any of the mathmaticians on this board ever noticed and watched for these references?

I have this book on order through QPB, but they're taking their time getting it to me (two weeks after I ordered it, it is still "processing").

IIRC, a couple of the show's writers got bachelor's degrees from Harvard, then got MAs in Computer Science from California-Berkeley. (Yes, that's MA, not MS (I have a BA in Computer Science from there). There are two "flavors" of Computer Science degrees; "normal" CS, which is an Arts degree (I think it's because CS is usually lumped with Math and Statistics), and EECS (Electrical Engineering & Computer Science), which is a Sciences degree, but you have to get into the university's School of Engineering to qualify.)

The Simpsons is not as "notorious" for its math references as Futurama is - in fact, after an episode where they made a reference to numbers that are the sum of two cubes, I designed an iPhone app that tells you if a particular number is the sum of two cubes (and if it's not, it tells you the nearest numbers that are). The one math reference from The Simpsons that I can think of off the top of my head is an "equation" that appeared in one of the Halloween Specials that was done in CGI that supposedly disproved Fermat's Last Theorem, until some basic arithmetic disproved it (1782¹² + 1841¹² = 1922¹², which reduces to "even number + odd number = even number", which is impossible).

This website has been around for a few years, and covers mathematics on the show.

Quote: ThatDonGuy

There are two "flavors" of Computer Science degrees; "normal" CS, which is an Arts degree (I think it's because CS is usually lumped with Math and Statistics), and EECS (Electrical Engineering & Computer Science), which is a Sciences degree, but you have to get into the university's School of Engineering to qualify.)

I would disagree with the characterization of the BA in CS as "normal." I work in the software field and the vast, vast majority of my colleagues that have a CS degree, have a BS is CS, not a BA. Off the top of my head, I can think of one guy who ended up with a BA, only because he changed majors midstream and had a bunch of humanities credits from when he was going to be an English major.

This has probably changed over the past 20 years as programming has become an explosive career field (in terms of number of jobs). Back in the day CS was an afterthought that was lumped in with the math department. Nowadays most colleges have a separate CS department that is not lumped in with Math or EE.

Now my degree is a BS in Software Engineering, which is a pretty "new" thing. The curriculum was 90% the same as the CS degree at my school, but the idea was to have a program with teaches all of the programming and CS fundamentals, but also throws in some skills revolving around working in the real world (i.e. requirements, project management, architecture, maintenance, QA, etc.). The SE-specific classes weren't great when I went through the program, but they've been improving.

I think this thread could use some examples from The Simpsons to give us something specific to talk about.

Not necessarily math, but one of my favorite quotes ever was Homer talking to Lisa after she created a perpetual motion machine:

"Young lady, we obey the laws of thermodynamics in this house."

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Quote: Wizard

I think this thread could use some examples from The Simpsons to give us something specific to talk about.

Here is a link to The Guardian review of the book which has a few examples REVIEW I had a better review and examples which seems to no longer be available. If I can find the podcast of the interview I will post a link.

I found the interview here is the LINK

Quote: AcesAndEights

I would disagree with the characterization of the BA in CS as "normal." I work in the software field and the vast, vast majority of my colleagues that have a CS degree, have a BS is CS, not a BA. Off the top of my head, I can think of one guy who ended up with a BA, only because he changed majors midstream and had a bunch of humanities credits from when he was going to be an English major.

You misunderstood what I meant by "normal".

By "normal", I mean the degree in "Computer Science", as opposed to the degree in "Electrical Engineering & Computer Science".

It's not a statewide thing, either; UCLA's subdoctorate degrees in Computer Science are BS and MS.