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Education It's funny. Laugh. Media Television

The Mathematics of Futurama 481

Posted by michael from the numerology dept.
mclearn writes "Did you know that the writers of Futurama have a collective set of degrees that would rival most think tanks? Here is a hilarious site on the mathematics of Futurama -- specifically this article (pdf). The same authors have also researched the mathematics of the Simpsons, mentioned on Slashdot long ago."
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The Mathematics of Futurama More

The Mathematics of Futurama

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  • Smart? (Score:3, Funny)

    by SpanishInquisition ( 127269 ) on Thursday June 03, 2004 @11:10AM (#9325780) Homepage Journal
    Smart enough to NOT get cancelled?

    • Re:Smart? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 03, 2004 @12:17PM (#9326733)
      Sadly, it was more like "too smart to stay on the air." See, American television viewers don't like television shows that make them feel stupid. Instead of watching intelligent, well-written shows like Futurama, they instead watch unintelligent pablum like "American Idol."

      It's things like this that make me turn to the Internet, great liberator [suprnova.org] of properly smart programmes that were cancelled before their time.

      Sincerely,
      Seth Finklestein
      Doesn't Own Television

      • Re:Smart? (Score:5, Funny)

        by Cereal Box ( 4286 ) on Thursday June 03, 2004 @12:31PM (#9326896)
        Instead of watching intelligent, well-written shows like Futurama

        Is this the same Futurama where the lead character went back in time and had sex with his grandmother?

        • Re:Smart? (Score:5, Funny)

          by tdemark ( 512406 ) on Thursday June 03, 2004 @12:45PM (#9327059) Homepage
          I think you mean "did the nasty in the past-y".

          - Tony

    • Re:Smart? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by LighthouseJ ( 453757 ) on Thursday June 03, 2004 @01:31PM (#9327501)
      That's Fox's fault. Futurama kept on being pre-empted by sports, moved around and basically becoming a programming ragdoll for Fox. The same thing happened to Family Guy, they had less episodes made (50, compared to Futurama's 75) and they are coming back on the air. Some buzz is going around that Futurama could share in the same fate, it's possible because Fox doesn't own the rights to Futurama like they do with Family Guy. Groening and Co. just made episodes and Fox paid them to show them on Fox.

      I've watched extensive hours of The Simpsons, Futurama and Family Guy and I've come to this conclusion...

      The Simpsons is the series with the biggest environment. Have you seen the picture with about 200 people from The Simpsons on it? They mix humor with a wide spectrum of different characters and get a great show.

      Futurama has the best writing, hands down, no question about it. You listen to the commentary of why certain elements were in it, and you think to yourself "wow, that's pretty sneaky". Plus, the seamless blend of computer animation and hand-drawn animation by Rough Draft Korea makes it the best animated series.

      Family Guy has the best jokes IMO. Family Guy doesn't hold punches when they lay down jokes. The Simpsons has their funny jokes, Futurama has smart jokes, but Family Guy has gut-busting jokes that go to new heights. The only thing I'd change is put Lacey Chabert back as the voice of Meg, when I hear Mila Kunis' whiny voice, I think of Jackie, not Meg.

  • Degrees? (Score:4, Funny)

    by kneecarrot ( 646291 ) on Thursday June 03, 2004 @11:10AM (#9325787)
    Let me guess... masters degrees in folklore and mythology?

  • Set of degrees that would rival most think tanks? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 03, 2004 @11:11AM (#9325797)
    Translation: One of the writers has a bachelors in political science.

  • /.'ed already. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Stitch_626 ( 744380 ) on Thursday June 03, 2004 @11:11AM (#9325799)
    Bed they didn't calculate that!!!

    sorry....

    • Re:/.'ed already. (Score:5, Funny)

      by Patrik_AKA_RedX ( 624423 ) on Thursday June 03, 2004 @11:32AM (#9326127) Journal
      Another application of the uncertainty principle. How do you know if the site is /.ed if don't click the link. But when you click the link you chance the process, since your click might be the one that caused the /. effect.
      Now how do I get that damn cat hooked up?

      • Re:/.'ed already. (Score:3, Insightful)

        by jcoleman ( 139158 )
        Schroedinger's Cat is not an illustration of the uncertainty principle, nor is your example.

        • Re:/.'ed already. (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Patrik_AKA_RedX ( 624423 ) on Thursday June 03, 2004 @01:44PM (#9327638) Journal
          Schrödinger's Cat was a thought experiment to demonstrate that the uncertainty principle could have macroscopic effects.

          The uncertainty principle dictates that you can't measure something without influencing it (e.g. a thermometer's reservoir doesn't have the same temperature as the liquid you're measuring and therefore will change the temperature a little bit).
          My example means you can't (remotely) "measure" if a webserver is still operating, without sending a datapacket to it. If the server was already at the very edge of its capabilities, your ping could push it over the edge and /. it. Doesn't that qualify as influencing your "measurement"?

          • Re:/.'ed already. (Score:5, Informative)

            by jcoleman ( 139158 ) on Thursday June 03, 2004 @02:18PM (#9328041)
            The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle says that you can know either the position or velocity of a subatomic particle, but not both. Further refined, the better you estimate velocity, the worse your estimate of position and vice versa.

            Schroedinger's Cat, however, illustrates the wavefunction of a quantum particle...the cat is either alive or dead, but you can't know which until you check. Whether you look or not doesn't influence the cat's mortality rate. You can say that it's the measurement (opening the box) that causes the cat to live or die, but the cat already was in that state when you checked. That is the essential problem raised by this thought experiment.

            Check this page:

            http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%F6dinger%27s_c at

            and note that the word "uncertainty" does not appear. Of course, it might appear on the page, and it might not...you won't know until you click on it. ;)

            So your analogy holds between the webserver and the cat, but the uncertainty principle is not involved. That is what I'm trying to clarify.

            (BTW, this is a stupid argument. Clearly we are both bored at work.)

    • Good news (Score:3, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      "Good news everyone, we're getting 500 visitors per second!"

  • proof (Score:2, Funny)

    by Andorion ( 526481 )
    Maybe they can put those degrees to good use and write a proof on the Slashdot Effect? They should have collected plenty of data right about now...

    ~Berj

  • SLURM (Score:5, Funny)

    by livhan28 ( 749650 ) on Thursday June 03, 2004 @11:13AM (#9325821) Journal
    theres nothing like a tall glass of SLURM while your waiting for a /.'ed page to load.

  • /.ed a university already? (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    HAH.

    Of course, appstate.edu ranks up there with Zeb's College of Learnin'.

  • It was obvious to me... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by scorp1us ( 235526 ) on Thursday June 03, 2004 @11:14AM (#9325858) Journal
    Since Farnsworth said at the horse track when his horse lost in a photo finish:
    "No fair! you changed the outcome by measuring it."

    It was that day that I knew that Futurama was for me, since I figure the vast majority of casual viewers watching it would not have a clue. The fact that they thew a quantum computing reference out there that would be above 99% of the viewers told me this show was different, and it was for me. It takes balls to do jokes that the majority of people won't get. And that earns my respect...
    That and the numerous Rush references...

    • Re:It was obvious to me... (Score:5, Funny)

      by Rhubarb Crumble ( 581156 ) <r_crumble@hotmail.com> on Thursday June 03, 2004 @11:17AM (#9325906) Homepage
      ...about from this point:

      "Here. Take my +1 Mace."

    • 'The Farnsworth Paradox' is proof that Futurama is too good for mainstream viewing.
      An work of genius unappreciated by an audience forever presented with reality tv nobrainer shows.
      "I've been as dumb as Fry"
      "No I'm doesn't!"

      • It's ParaBOX (Score:5, Funny)

        by caitsith01 ( 606117 ) on Thursday June 03, 2004 @11:47AM (#9326310) Journal
        But yes, what an amazing episode.

        One of my favourite scenes is the hippie universe:

        Freakworth: "Dig it! All of you fitting in this box is like, seriously freaked up."
        Farnsworth: "Nonsense! Why, there's a whole universe in there."
        Freakworth: "Dude. There's a universe in all of us."
        Freak Amy: "Right on, professor Freakworth."
        [Professor Freakworth proffers a flower to Professor Farnsworth]
        Farnsworth: "Get a job!"

        WHY FOX WHYYYYY?????

        There are murmurs that Matt G is trying to resurrect Futurama on the Cartoon Network... let us pray that it is so.

        • Re:It's ParaBOX (Score:3, Interesting)

          by Have Blue ( 616 )
          The problem with resurrecting it on Cartoon Network is that Futurama's 2D-CG hybrid style is very, very expensive to produce (at least several million per episode). CN doesn't have that kind of money; just look at most of their homegrown shows. The only thing they've done that matches Futurama's quality is the Clone Wars cartoons, and that was a single half-hour of animation and almost certainly done with Lucas's financial backing.

          • Re:It's ParaBOX (Score:3, Interesting)

            by ePhil_One ( 634771 )
            The problem with resurrecting it on Cartoon Network is that Futurama's 2D-CG hybrid style is very, very expensive to produce (at least several million per episode).

            That just seems amazingly doubtful. The pilot might have cost that much, to develop the style, etc., but to wrap simple cartoon textures on 3-D objects sounds pretty cheap these days. Far cheaper than paying animators to hand paint, arrange, and photograph thousands of animation cells...

    • Re:It was obvious to me... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Maudib ( 223520 ) on Thursday June 03, 2004 @11:40AM (#9326212)
      The fact that they thew a quantum computing reference

      Quantum computing? Sure I guess quantum computing may take advantage of such properties, but this phenominon is part of quantum mechanics writ large, not just computing.

    • Re:It was obvious to me... (Score:5, Funny)

      by devorama ( 625557 ) on Thursday June 03, 2004 @11:54AM (#9326421)
      The gang goes to visit the edge of the universe. It's one of those tourist activities that you never get around to. There is a telescope looking out into the empty expanse. Fry looks into the telescope and sees a mirror image of his entire group, except everyone has a beard, as in Star Trek's evil Spock. Fry asks who they are, and Prof. Farnsworth tells him it's another universe.

      Fry: "Are there an infinite number of universes?"

      Prof. F.: "No, just the two."

    • If you want an obscure reference - Samurai Jack (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 03, 2004 @12:05PM (#9326576)
      In a Samurai Jack episode, a town folk is telling Jack there's two roads ahead of him.

      Jack: "Which road leads to the Dragon's Lair?"
      Town folk: "The left one."
      Jack: "Where does the other road lead?"
      Town folk: "Space Ace."

      If THAT ain't obscure I don't know what is.

      I was still laughing 15 minutes after that, though. :-)

      P.S.: If you didn't get that one, the keyword here is "laserdisc games".

    • Re:It was obvious to me... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Blakey Rat ( 99501 ) on Thursday June 03, 2004 @02:06PM (#9327888)
      What about when he used his super X-Ray gun (I forget what it's called...) to look inside of Bender's head and it showed a 6502 CPU?

      To quote this site [stanford.edu]:

      The key component of the NES system is the MOS 6502 CPU. This is the main processor where the game's code is executed. This CPU was very popular in the 1980's where it was used in some of the first personal computers including the Commodore 64, Apple II, and the Atari systems.


      I thought that was hilarious, but most others I've spoken to have completely missed the joke, even if they did see the "6502" number.

    • Re:It was obvious to me... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 03, 2004 @02:53PM (#9328378)
      "It takes balls to do jokes that the majority of people won't get."

      Not really, because the majority of people wouldn't have realized that the geek-joke even existed.

      But that also highlights the sophistication of their jokes because the jokes are not only selective in who-gets-it, but also who-hears-it.

      To the ones who don't get it, it's just filler-dialogue, which is smart since it wont alienate or insult the intelligence of viewers who don't get-it.

  • Google Cache (Score:3, Informative)

    by amembleton ( 411990 ) <aembleton@bigfoo ... minus physicist> on Thursday June 03, 2004 @11:15AM (#9325871) Homepage
    The site seems to be slashdotted.

    Here is Googles' Cache. [66.102.9.104]

  • 10 SIN (Score:5, Funny)

    by FerretFrottage ( 714136 ) on Thursday June 03, 2004 @11:17AM (#9325907)
    20 GOTO HELL

    The show made me hurt with laughter so many times while the wife looked at me like I'm an ID10T. Well maybe I am, but the show made it clear why you shouldn't use GOTO statements.

  • Mirror (Score:5, Informative)

    by Rufus211 ( 221883 ) <rufus-slashdotNO@SPAMhackish.org> on Thursday June 03, 2004 @11:18AM (#9325913) Homepage
    holy crap that was fast. Site's basically dead after 10 comments. I'm trying to get a mirror up at:
    http://www.contrib.andrew.cmu.edu/~pnelson/www.mat hsci.appstate.edu/%257Esjg/simpsonsmath/futuramama th/ [cmu.edu]
    So far I have the index page and a few pictures, but they'll go up as I get them.

  • google cache (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    link to PDF [216.239.41.104]
    -=no karma whoring=-

  • Maths & magic (Score:4, Interesting)

    by doodlelogic ( 773522 ) on Thursday June 03, 2004 @11:20AM (#9325939)
    This all reminds me of the old saying that at its most advanced, mathmatics is indistinguishable from magic.

    All those lovely Escher pictures [unc.edu] similarly show the ways in which selective use of mathmatics & physics can create imaginary worlds that, while they could not necessaily occur in reality, "feel" realistic.

    Another magical view of the future was the original Futurama Exhibit at the World's Fair [ucdavis.edu].

  • Site is already dead (Score:3, Funny)

    by AmigaAvenger ( 210519 ) on Thursday June 03, 2004 @11:20AM (#9325944) Journal
    dead on an .edu server? should make for some happy admins.

    here is my own .edu sacrifice to this great subject!

    FuturaMath [space.edu]

  • My favourite show (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Progman3K ( 515744 ) on Thursday June 03, 2004 @11:21AM (#9325957)
    And it got cancelled. Typical.

    If the creators of Futurama decided to strike out on their own and sell episodes of the show on the Internet, I'd definitely buy them.

    I can only hope.

    • Its never coming back (Score:4, Insightful)

      by gad_zuki! ( 70830 ) on Friday June 04, 2004 @01:46AM (#9332569)
      Keep hoping. The animation quality on that show does not come cheap. Do you remember the ill-fated return of The Critic in Flash? It was terrible. If you cant afford good animators you can't afford good writers. You need x amount of capital to get the ball rolling and I believe Fururama was VERY expensive, moreso than the Simpsons.

      Time is also against the Futurama fans, whatever "synergy" the creative team had has changed. Its simply not feasible to expect them to suddenly do high-quality work again from such a long hiatus, and thats assuming you can even get all the people.

      Production is a very odd thing, when there's a good team they do good work. There are probably two to three episodes of Futurama which I think are low quality and the rest are really just gems. The problem is the network idiots didn't know they were holding a diamond and wouldnt give them a consistant timeslot.

      Ideally, the Simpsons should have been cancelled after the first season of Futurama and Futurama would have taken its place. There's only so much you can do with the Simpsons and its simply been done, over and over. Futurama would have given Fox a new platform to create comedy and sell lots of commercials

      They dropped the ball, and here we are. Expect the Simpsons to become a horrible shell of what it used to be (many will say its already happened) and a sad "had it coming" cancelation instead of a proud exit.

  • The problem (Score:5, Funny)

    by Digitus1337 ( 671442 ) <lk_digitus@h[ ]ail.com ['otm' in gap]> on Thursday June 03, 2004 @11:21AM (#9325960) Homepage
    With all of the smart people making the show it only leaves dumb people to cancel the show!

  • Easy (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Sebby ( 238625 ) on Thursday June 03, 2004 @11:22AM (#9325986)
    Take 1 great show
    + Run it a few years
    + At the height of it's popularity: cancel it
    ---
    = Fox Network

    • Re:Easy (Score:2, Funny)

      by Space_Nerd ( 255762 )
      No no no
      This is slashdot, so you must phrase that as a cliche.

      Here, ill do it for you:
      Step 1: Take one great show
      Step 2: Run it a few years
      Step 3: At the height of it's popularity, cancel it
      Step 4: ????
      Step 5: More profit for Fox Network

      There, that's better now isn't it?

    • Re:Easy (Score:3, Insightful)

      by phaze3000 ( 204500 )
      Quite frankly I wish more shows did this.

      IMO there's nothing worse than a show which is long past its prime being flogged like a dead horse. All the great comedy series are great because they stopped before they got bad - Fawlty Towers, Seinfeld, The Office.

    • Re:Easy (Score:5, Insightful)

      by jayhawk88 ( 160512 ) <jayhawk88@gmail.com> on Thursday June 03, 2004 @12:36PM (#9326945)
      Close, but this is more accurate:

      1. Take one Great Show that will have a built-in initial audience because of who's creating it, and stick it in the Time Slot Of Doom.
      2. Watch Great Show continually get pre-empted by NFL football, but do little to nothing to ensure that Great Show can be seen by fans at a regular day and time. Bounce Great Show around in your schedule like a pinball.
      3. Totally ignore the creator of Great Show, who's Previous Great Show almost single-handedly saved your network in it's early years.
      4. Wonder why Great Show just can't seem to get any ratings. Cancel Great Show because it's cheaper to run Previous Great Show reruns in the Time Slot Of Doom.

      The hell with Fox. There was a time that they were a pretty kick ass network, but like every other network they've fallen into the pit of Reality TV. Futurama deserves to be on Cartoon Network.

      • Re:Easy (Score:3, Insightful)

        by SamSim ( 630795 )

        Perhaps more to the point, Cartoon Network deserves Futurama. It's the only American TV network I've yet to hear anything bad about. Man, if CN got the Simpsons too, you'd never have to change channel.

    • Re:Easy (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Geoff-with-a-G ( 762688 ) on Thursday June 03, 2004 @12:59PM (#9327189)
      Yeah, they're pretty dumb. Isn't it an amazing coincidence that they're as successful as the other major networks which have been around much longer?

      Come on. I loved Futurama and I loved Firefly, and I'm pissed that they were canceled, but I can't paint it as a bad business decision. This very article (about the advanced math in the show) makes the point that it didn't really appeal to the mainstream viewer. "Mainstream" may translate to "those slack-jawed idiots who can't even code in C" in your mind, but in the coffers at a TV network "mainstream" means "the main stream of our revenue - large numbers of people who like the same stuff". And I don't think that "the height of its popularity" was ever that high. It's a big hit with geeks, but most of the non-geeks I know aren't interested or don't seem to "get it".

      Personally, I think the problem is that there is no way for people to pay different amounts for shows. When you watch network TV, you're paying with your eyes. Number of viewers determines their advertisers, and that's where they make the money. That means that a mediocre show, which will mildly appeal to everyone, is more profitable than a show which will be deeply loved by a small group of people. If the compensation was somehow better differentiated, I think we'd get better shows.

      No, I don't actually have a good system of differentiated compensation to propose, short of buying the canceled shows on DVD. Sorry.

      • There's been a number of good shows that never really had a chance at gaining an audience.

        Take FOX's main revenue stream: The Simpsons. It didn't have a whole lot of eyeballs it's first couple of seasons. But FOX was new, and didn't have anything better to try out. It also put the Simpsons on in arguably the best time slots there could possibly be for a new show, with no heavy hitters up against it on other channels. Simpsons eventually drew the crowd. All the news propaganda and churches denouncing the sh

  • google cache (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    A google.com [216.239.59.104] cache link.

    Take care.
    K3n.

  • Masters in Math (Score:5, Interesting)

    by smartiq2 ( 212678 ) on Thursday June 03, 2004 @11:25AM (#9326017) Homepage
    If I recall correctly, one of the main writters had a masters in mathematics.

    It is interesting to listen to the commentary tracks on the dvd's. For example, in "Roswell that ends well", Fry (one of the main characters) ends up going back in time and accidently kills his grandfather. While consoling his grandmother, he ends up in bed with her and thus becomes his own grandpa allowing the future to remain "intact".

    On the commentary tracks, they get into this large discussion about how they tried to find the steady state solution for the amount of DNA in Fry that was pure, and they ended up working on it for quite some time. In the end, they give an email address and ask the public for the solution.

    Then they got into a large discussion on the causality of time and how they should only time travel forward.

    Good stuff.

    • Re:Masters in Math (Score:3, Informative)

      by calypso15 ( 767323 )
      Ken Keeler has a PhD in Applied Math and a Masters in Electrical Engineering.
      David Cohen has a bachelors in Physics and a Masters in Computer Science.
      Bill Odenkirk has a PhD in Inorganic Chemistry.
      Jeff Westbrook has a PhD in Computer Science.
      J. Burns has a bachelors in Mathematics.

      Ryan

  • Mathematical significance of 1729 (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Tree131 ( 643930 ) on Thursday June 03, 2004 @11:31AM (#9326101)
    1729
    When Srinivasa Ramanujan, the great Indian mathematician, was ill with tuberculosis in a London hospital, his colleague G. H. Hardy went to visit him. Hardy, trying to initiate onversation, said to Ramanujan, "I came here in taxi-cab number 1729. That number seems dull to me which I hope isn't a bad omen."

    "Nonsense," replied Ramanujan. "The number isn't dull at all. It's quite interesting. It's the smallest number that can be expressed as the sum of two cubes in two different ways." (Ramanujan recognized that 1729 = 13 + 123 as well as 93 + 103.)

    Copied from here [curiousmath.com]
    I guess it was worth the 5 minutes I spent searching for it.

  • Speaking of math.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 03, 2004 @11:38AM (#9326194)
    Bender: I need a calculator.
    Fry: You are a calculator.
    Bender: I need a good calculator.

  • 1729 (Score:4, Informative)

    by Strange Ranger ( 454494 ) on Thursday June 03, 2004 @11:42AM (#9326237)
    > "Well, sure. For example, Bender's serial number is 1729, a historically significant integer to mathematicians everywhere; that "joke" alone is worth six years of grad school, I'd say."

    For us non-math-geeks here's a bit on 1729 [utm.edu]

    Among other things "It is the smallest number expressible as the sum of two cubes in two different ways."

  • Lesson This Teaches (Score:4, Interesting)

    by istartedi ( 132515 ) on Thursday June 03, 2004 @11:50AM (#9326356) Journal

    Get an advanced degree in mathematics or physics, and you will come up with the idea to put "St. Pauli Exclusion Principle" on a six-pack of beer in a cartoon, and only a few geeks who like to stay up and watch Adult Swim last night will get the joke.

  • 1729 (Score:3, Interesting)

    by marksilverman ( 539239 ) <mark@marks i l v e r m a n . c om> on Thursday June 03, 2004 @12:00PM (#9326510) Homepage
    The article refers to 1729 being "a historically significant integer to mathematicians everywhere". If you're not a mathematician, 1729 is Ramanujan's number -- the smallest natural number that can be written as a sum of cubes in two different ways:

    1^3 + 12^3 9^3 + 10^3

  • Aleph-null plex (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 03, 2004 @12:10PM (#9326635)
    My favorite reference was when the gang went to the movies, and it was an "Aleph-null plex". That is, the number of movie theaters was countably infinite. How horribly dorky!

    --
    Gary

  • Let the quotes begin! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 03, 2004 @12:11PM (#9326655)
    My favorite futurama quote of all time:

    Fry: Oh my god!
    Bender: Oh your god.

  • links dead (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Angry Black Man ( 533969 ) <vverysmartman@ho[ ]il.com ['tma' in gap]> on Thursday June 03, 2004 @12:34PM (#9326918) Homepage
    Link has been Slashdotted...

    Here is the Google cache of the PDF in HTML format. [216.239.39.104]

  • geeks (Score:5, Funny)

    by DarkHelmet ( 120004 ) * <mark&seventhcycle,net> on Thursday June 03, 2004 @12:40PM (#9326991) Homepage
    I knew the very first episode that these people were geeks when Bender was drinking liquid FORTRAN.

  • First Episode (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Jbrecken ( 107271 ) on Thursday June 03, 2004 @04:10PM (#9329144)
    Recently, CN reran the first episode, and I noticed that you could actually see Nibbler's shadow before Fry falls into the cryochamber.
    If anyone has the first episode as originally aired, was the shadow always there, or did they edit that into the scene for syndication after they did the episode with the brains?

    If it was always there, I'm seriously impressed with the planning that went into the story arc.

  • I'm Not alone, I hope!! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by doublebackslash ( 702979 ) <doublebackslash@gmail.com> on Thursday June 03, 2004 @04:12PM (#9329155)
    I just wanna know if I was the only one that did the caculation of Fry's intrest on his 93 cents? (on a Ti-83 none the less, they used a palm, wusses)
    Also, who else here was the only one in the room cracking up hen the professor complained about the quantum finish?

    Those little things that go into futurama are what make it worth my time to watch, and that is sying a lot.

    --
    Honor system DDos. Please "ping -f 24.247.68.40&"

  • Sum Of Two Cubes (Score:3, Interesting)

    by tadmas ( 770287 ) <david AT tadmas DOT com> on Thursday June 03, 2004 @08:25PM (#9331080) Homepage

    From the activity sheet [appstate.edu]:

    Bender: Hey robot, what's your serial number?
    Flexo: 3370318.
    Bender: No way! Mine's 2716057.
    [They both laugh. Then Fry laughs, but stops and looks confused.]
    Fry: I don't get it.
    Bender: We're both expressable as the sum of two cubes.
    Flexo: Woooh!

    In the DVD commentary, David Cohen goes on to say that it's tricky to find the cubes. Well, he's right. Here's the trick, in case you were interested:

    3370318 = 119^3 + 119^3
    2716057 = 952^3 + (-951)^3

    No one ever said the cubed numbers had to be positive.... and yes, I'm a dork for working this out!

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