The Simpsons and Their Math Secrets is the funniest book about the hardest mathematics

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Thanks to this book, you find yourself in a wonderful world where mathematicians are people with the coolest sense of humor, and the funniest joke is based on Fermat's theorem.

The book is a tale of interesting references to mathematical theories found in the most popular animated series in history.

We've always known that making The Simpsons is a tricky process that takes time, money, and the work of the most brilliant minds. After reading the book, you will find out that these minds really are the best: the list of writers for The Simpsons includes gifted and brilliant mathematicians who prefer writing to science.

Each section of the book reveals the secret of several jokes at once, along the way acquainting us with their creators. The acquaintance, I must say, is very pleasant. David Cohen, Al Jean, Jeff Westbrook and Stuart Burns are extraordinary people with advanced degrees and an amazing sense of humor. Each of them once had to make a choice: to devote their lives to science or still write, joke and amuse.

Between the stories from the writers' lives - detailed explanations of jokes from the series itself, with many illustrations. Detailed doesn't mean boring.

The most complex theorems and laws of statistics with a light stroke of the pen turned first into a bright joke from The Simpsons, and then into a part of this book.

There are also "exams" in the book that help you check how well you understand math jokes. Several sections are devoted to jokes from Futurama, the second brainchild of the creators of The Simpsons.

It seems that it is impossible to explain how a joke becomes funny: the magic disappears. But not in this case. Simon Singh succeeds in the incredible: as if taking the reader by the hand, he leads him into a world where algebra, geometry, logic and statistics are just tools that help to make a great joke.

A separate pleasure is the description of funny episodes related to the creation and implementation of scientific jokes. For example, talking about how the episode with Stephen Hawking was made, screenwriter Matt Selman recalls: there was a problem at the recording stage. As you know, Hawking cannot speak on his own; a special synthesizer does it for him. The scientist coped well with the voice recording by typing text on the keyboard. However, one of the lines contained the non-existent word "fruittopia". Hawking's voice synthesizer did not know him, so they had to find a way to record the word from the sounds.

It should be noted that we invited the most brilliant person in the world and used his time to write the word "fruittopia" in separate syllables.

Matt Selman screenwriter

The book also has a drawback. Only one, but quite large. The problem is that a lot of jokes, both in the animated series and in the book, are built not only on mathematical concepts, but also on wordplay. And since such puns are almost impossible to translate, explanations for some of the jokes are given in parentheses in English.

Therefore, the book will remain partially closed for those who do not know English at all. It's also a shame that the excitement while reading is a little hindered by the constant internal switching of languages.

The rest of the book is excellent. The only reason not to read it is the complete lack of interest in humor and the exact sciences. Because you may not like The Simpsons, but everyone will appreciate a good joke.