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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.
The Simpsons and Their Mathematical Secrets
by Simon Singh
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ISBN-13:
9781620402795
- Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
- Publication date: 10/29/2013
- Sold by: Barnes & Noble
- Format: eBook
- Pages: 288
- File size: 20 MB
- Note: This product may take a few minutes to download.
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You may have watched hundreds of episodes of The Simpsons (and its sister show Futurama) without ever realising that they contain enough maths to form an entire university course. 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.
With wit, clarity and a true fan's zeal, Singh analyses such memorable episodes as 'Bart the Genius' and 'Homer³' to offer an entirely new insight into the most successful show in television history.
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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 Simpsonswriters…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
2013-10-01Higher 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."