0
Cancel

    The Simpsons and Their Mathematical Secrets

    4.8 12

    by Simon Singh

    View All Available Formats & Editions >

    Paperback

    $17.00
    $17.00

    Temporarily Out of Stock Online

    Customer Reviews

    • ISBN-13: 9781620402788
    • Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
    • Publication date: 10/14/2014
    • Pages: 272
    • Sales rank: 152,487
    • Product dimensions: 8.20(w) x 5.50(h) x 0.80(d)

    Simon Singh received his Ph.D. in particle physics from the University of Cambridge. A former BBC producer, he directed the BAFTA Award–winning documentary Fermat's Last Theorem and wrote Fermat's Enigma, the bestselling book on the same subject. His bestseller The Code Book was the basis for the Channel 4 series The Science of Secrecy. His third book, Big Bang, was also a bestseller, and Trick or Treatment: The Undeniable Facts About Alternative Medicine, written with Edzard Ernst, gained widespread attention. Singh lives in London.

    Eligible for FREE SHIPPING details

    .

    You may have watched hundreds of episodes of The Simpsons (and its sister show Futurama) without ever realizing that cleverly embedded in many plots are subtle references to mathematics, ranging from well-known equations to cutting-edge theorems and conjectures. That they exist, Simon Singh reveals, underscores the brilliance of the shows’ writers, many of whom have advanced degrees in mathematics in addition to their unparalleled sense of humor.
    While recounting memorable episodes such as “Bart the Genius” and “Homer3,” Singh weaves in mathematical stories that explore everything from p to Mersenne primes, Euler’s equation to the unsolved riddle of P v. NP; from perfect numbers to narcissistic numbers, infinity to even bigger infinities, and much more. Along the way, Singh meets members of The Simpsons’ brilliant writing team—among them David X. Cohen, Al Jean, Jeff Westbrook, and Mike Reiss—whose love of arcane mathematics becomes clear as they reveal the stories behind the episodes.
    With wit and clarity, displaying a true fan’s zeal, and replete with images from the shows, photographs of the writers, and diagrams and proofs, The Simpsons and Their Mathematical Secrets offers an entirely new insight into the most successful show in television history.

    Read More

    Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

    Recently Viewed 

    Related Subjects

    Science & Technology
    Mathematics
    Mathematics - General & Miscellaneous
    Science & Technology
    Mathematics
    Mathematics - General & Miscellaneous
    While some watch The Simpsons for jokes about sloppiness and sloth, Dr. Simon Singh (Fermat's Enigma; The Code Book) has been viewing it attentively as a source of mathematical fun. As we learn in this engaging book, he wasn't just imagining things. With a notably nerdy staff (five scriptwriters have a total of no fewer than nine Ivy League math and science degrees), the longest running sitcom in TV history has been literally toying with math since day one: In fact, the very first scene of the first scene began with Lisa placing with alphabet blocks that spell out "EMCSQU," a toddler's tribute to Einstein's theory. Singh mixes show jokes about pies and pi with lively descriptions of the mathematical theories looming behind the puns and chalk jottings. Even serious math-phobes and Bart Simpson wannabes will enjoy this book.
    From the Publisher

    "Highly entertaining." –Amir Alexendar, New York Times

    “Mathematical concepts both useful and obscure explained via the antics of America’s favorite yellow family!” –Mental Floss
     
    "The clarity of his explanations is impressive, and there are some illuminating interviews with Simpsons　writers…this is a valuable, entertaining book that, above all, celebrates a supremely funny, sophisticated show." –Financial Times
    "What have Homer and Bart got to do with Euler’s equation, the googolplex or the topology of doughnuts? The writers of The Simpsons have slipped a multitude of mathematical references into the show. Simon Singh has fun weaving great mathematics stories around our favourite TV characters." –New Scientist

    Kirkus Reviews
    2013-10-01
    Higher math for dummies, courtesy of The Simpsons. Perhaps Simpsons nerds have known this all along, but for the rest of us who think of the TV show as primarily a sharp piece of comic writing, it may come as a surprise to learn that it is riddled with sophisticated mathematics, including rubber sheet geometry, the puzzle of Rubik's Cube, Fermat's last theorem ("embedded within a narrative that explores the complexities of higher-dimensional geometry"), Mersenne prime numbers and plenty of other obscure material. Often in the show, this will fly by as sight gags, but just as often it is faced head-on, as when Lisa tackles statistics or Homer ponders three dimensions. Singh (Big Bang: The Origin of the Universe, 2005, etc.) is a lively writer with an easy, unthreatening manner who takes readers smoothly through some fairly thorny mathematics. He also dives into the curious relationship between mathematics and comedy writers: It appears that most Simpsons writers graduated from Harvard with a degree in mathematics, and nearly all were on the staff of the Lampoon. Singh finds them possessed of a desire "to drip-feed morsels of mathematics into the subconscious minds of viewers." One of the show's writers put it simply: "The process of proving something has some similarity with the process of comedy writing, inasmuch as there's no guarantee you're going to get to your ending." The author includes plenty of solid, vest-pocket profiles of both the show's writers and great mathematicians of the past--e.g., Zu Chongzhi, Sophie Germain, Leonhard Euler--as well as a look at Matt Groening's Simpsons spawn, Futurama, a show about a futuristic delivery service with enough nerdy references to sink a spaceship. A fun trip with the "ultimate TV vehicle for pop culture mathematics."

    Read More

    Sign In Create an Account
    Search Engine Error - Endeca File Not Found