From its opening episode in 1990 “The
Simpsons” animated series has implanted mathematical nuggets into episodes,
sometimes as part of the story but more often slyly into a background graphic
or throwaway line. Mainly unnoticed by the viewer these are the private jokes
of the some of the scriptwriters (who include a preponderance of maths
graduates), shared with some fans who use freeze frames to capture the figures
and decipher the message. In this book Simon Singh combines his love of maths
and The Simpsons to bring those mathematical titbits out of the background and
in entertaining fashion explain their history and significance.
Thus we are treated to mini-treatises on
universal constants such as pi and e; theorems such as those of Pythagoras and
Fermat (his last one that provided enough material for an earlier book from
Singh); and the maths behind ideas such as six degrees of separation. He also
covers some social issues such as the under-representation of women in maths
(taking his cue from the “Girls Just Want to Have Sums” episode).
To give an example of how it works, one
episode briefly displays three answers to a multiple choice question to fans at
a baseball game, inviting them to guess the attendance. The options are 8191,
8128, 8208 and in the context of the show are meaningless. But to
mathematicians they are highly distinctive: 8191 is not only a prime number but
a ‘Mersenne’ prime formed by raising 2 to the power of a prime number (13 in
this case) and deducting 1; 8128 is a ‘perfect number’ (the fourth) as its divisors
(other than itself) also add up to the number (easier to check the second one,
28 = 1+2+4+7+14); 8208 is even more arcane as a ‘narcissistic number’ equal to
the sum of its digits each raised to the power of the number of digits (again
easier to see it in the smaller 153 = 1 cubed + 5 cubed + 3 cubed).
Game theory also gets an airing, explaining
the strategies for winning rock-paper-scissors, as well as the superior (less
prone to ties) version of rock-paper-scissors-lizard-Spock. Fun is had with
infinity (apparently there is more than one) and multi dimensions; and classic example
of the pitfalls of statistics are recounted.
It is light hearted but not dumbed down, and
the periodic inclusion of joke maths test papers provide such gems as: Why did
5 eat 6 (because 789); what is the volume of a pizza of radius z and thickness
a (pi.z.z.a); and what are the 10 kinds of people in the world (those who
understand binary numbers and those who don’t).
For anyone with an interest in maths it is a
very good read, explaining the sometimes complex concepts clearly and
concisely. A liking for the Simpsons (and Futurama which is also covered) is
less essential but aficionados probably won’t be that surprised by the care and
attention lavished on the details, inconsequential to the plotlines, included
in the programmes.
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