The Mathematics of Futurama 481
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."
Smart? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Smart? (Score:5, Insightful)
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)
Is this the same Futurama where the lead character went back in time and had sex with his grandmother?
Re:Smart? (Score:5, Funny)
- Tony
Re:Smart? (Score:3)
Re:Smart? (Score:4, Informative)
The "grandfather paradox" (what if I went back in time and killed my grandfather - thus my father would never be born, thus I would never exist, thus I couldn't go back in time and commit the murder, so my grandfather would live, so my father would be born, so...) is a sci-fi cliche. Their take on it was great!
Fry, trying to protect his "grandfather", ends up killing him, only to be seduced by his grandmother (believing, in his half-witted way, that since his "grandfather" is dead, his grandmother can't really be his grandmother) and becomes his own grandather. It's gross, it's ironic, it's funny.
Re:Smart? (Score:5, Interesting)
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)
honorary (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Degrees? (Score:5, Interesting)
In one of the DVD commentaries, he talks about an Apple ][ videogame he programmed in assembly.
Re:Degrees? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Degrees? (Score:5, Funny)
He was remarkably like the owner of the Android's Dungeon, except drunker and more into the Dead.
He actually used the word "tripsidaisical" in a conversation with some financers. They were charmed until he pulled a beer from his coat pocket and opened it during the 10:00 am meeting.
Re:Degrees? (Score:2)
Set of degrees that would rival most think tanks? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Set of degrees that would rival most think tank (Score:4, Informative)
David X. Cohen, Batchelors in Math, Harvard; Masters ComSci, Berzerkeley
Ken Keeler, PhD in Applied Math and Masters in EE
Bill Odenkirk, PhD in Inorganic Chem
Jeff Westbrook PhD in ComSci
J. Stewart Burns, Batchelors in Math, Harvard; Masters in Math Berkeley
Perhaps a bit more hard-sciency than the PolSci asshats that populate the average Think Tank.
Re:Set of degrees that would rival most think tank (Score:5, Funny)
/.'ed already. (Score:5, Funny)
sorry....
Re:/.'ed already. (Score:5, Funny)
Now how do I get that damn cat hooked up?
Re:/.'ed already. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:/.'ed already. (Score:4, Insightful)
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
Re:/.'ed already. (Score:5, Informative)
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_
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.)
Re:/.'ed already. (Score:3, Funny)
Good news (Score:3, Funny)
proof (Score:2, Funny)
~Berj
SLURM (Score:5, Funny)
Re:SLURM (Score:5, Informative)
Re:SLURM (Score:3, Informative)
/.ed a university already? (Score:2, Funny)
Of course, appstate.edu ranks up there with Zeb's College of Learnin'.
It was obvious to me... (Score:5, Interesting)
"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)
"Here. Take my +1 Mace."
Re:It was obvious to me... (Score:2, Informative)
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)
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)
Re:It's ParaBOX (Score:3, Interesting)
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)
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)
Fry: "Are there an infinite number of universes?"
Prof. F.: "No, just the two."
No no no... (Score:3, Interesting)
If you want an obscure reference - Samurai Jack (Score:5, Funny)
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".
Another ultra-obscure cartoon joke (Score:4, Funny)
Brain: Are you pondering what I'm pondering?
Pinky: Oh, I think so Brain, but SNOBOL for Windows?
SNOBOL is an early-60s era programming language. The only reason I caught that joke was one of my professors mentioned it offhand the day I saw that episode. I am forever impressed by the writers of P&tB because of this quote.
Re:It was obvious to me... (Score:5, Interesting)
To quote this site [stanford.edu]:
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)
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.
Re:It was obvious to me... (Score:5, Funny)
Why, thats over 200 atmospheres of pressure!
How many atmospheres of pressure can the ship withstand, Professor?
Well, its a spaceship. So anywhere between zero and 1.
Re:It was obvious to me... (Score:4, Funny)
But Alex Lifeson is a member of Rush!
Oh, wait....
Google Cache (Score:3, Informative)
Here is Googles' Cache. [66.102.9.104]
10 SIN (Score:5, Funny)
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.
Re:10 SIN (Score:5, Interesting)
Bender also had the following framed on the wall in one episode:
10 HOME
20 SWEET
30 GOTO 10
Re:10 SIN (Score:2)
HOME
SWEET
HOME
SWEET
HOME
Should it read:
10 HOME
20 SWEET
30 HOME
40 GOTO 10
But that makes it less funny.
Re:10 SIN (Score:5, Funny)
Bender: "Ahhh, what an awful dream. Ones and zeroes everywhere... and I thought I saw a two."
Fry [comforting]: "It was just a dream, Bender. There's no such thing as two."
Who would've thought they could make a show with lots of binary jokes in it and still make it the funniest thing on TV?
Re:10 SIN (Score:5, Informative)
On a similar note, but a bit more subtle is Bender's apartment number: 00100100
(that's a '$', for the non-ASCII literate)
Re:10 SIN (Score:5, Funny)
Best is in that haunted house, when he sees that someone has written a number in blood on the wall.
"01011100101? What does it mean, Bender?""Nothing, it's gibberish. [catches sight of the mirror image and screams] 1010011010?! Ahhhhhh!"
1010011010 being 666 in binary. I also seem to recall him being pursued by a flying toaster and the Windows logo as he flees in terror.
Re:10 SIN (Score:3, Funny)
"P" and "NP"
Mirror (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.contrib.andrew.cmu.edu/~pnelson/www.ma
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)
-=no karma whoring=-
Maths & magic (Score:4, Interesting)
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].
Re:Maths & magic (Score:3, Informative)
Site is already dead (Score:3, Funny)
here is my own .edu sacrifice to this great subject!
FuturaMath [space.edu]
My favourite show (Score:5, Insightful)
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)
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.
Re:My favourite show (Score:3, Interesting)
Unless you know something I don't (entirely possible).
I know there were talks about some other network picking up the show, but I don't know what became of it.
I've bought the first three seasons on DVD, and this is AFTER downloading all the episodes on the Internet!
The DVDs have better picture quality, of course, and bonus material, most of which I loved the commentaries; it must be the best job in the world to work with that crew!
The problem (Score:5, Funny)
Easy (Score:3, Insightful)
+ Run it a few years
+ At the height of it's popularity: cancel it
---
= Fox Network
Re:Easy (Score:2, Funny)
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:4, Interesting)
Re:Easy (Score:3, Insightful)
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)
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)
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)
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.
Problem is that they don't give the shows a chance (Score:3, Insightful)
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)
Take care.
K3n.
Masters in Math (Score:5, Interesting)
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)
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)
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.
Re:Mathematical significance of 1729 (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Mathematical significance of 1729 (Score:4, Informative)
Speaking of math.... (Score:5, Funny)
Fry: You are a calculator.
Bender: I need a good calculator.
1729 (Score:4, Informative)
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)
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)
1^3 + 12^3 9^3 + 10^3
Aleph-null plex (Score:3, Funny)
--
Gary
Let the quotes begin! (Score:5, Funny)
Fry: Oh my god!
Bender: Oh your god.
links dead (Score:3, Insightful)
Here is the Google cache of the PDF in HTML format. [216.239.39.104]
geeks (Score:5, Funny)
First Episode (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:First Episode (Score:5, Informative)
Wonderful, isn't it?
I'm Not alone, I hope!! (Score:3, Insightful)
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)
From the activity sheet [appstate.edu]:
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!
Re:bit torrent? (Score:5, Insightful)
Easy... (Score:3)
1. Linux distros
Whether they only use a small part of their bandwidth, or the whole thing, their ISP bill isn't going to get any higher. So might as well download the thing for free rather than getting the boxed set CD / DVD in the mail
2. FOSS
Same thing - how many of you have even dropped a penny into a paypal account fo
Re:bit torrent? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you like Futurama enough to want to see it come back, then buying the DVD is basically the only way to prove to Fox that it's worth it. It tells them a) you love the show and b) you love the show enough to spend good money on it. That last one is probably the more important bit.
Personally, I think the slightly geekier audience of Futurama vs Family guy didn't help its dvd sales; geeks are probably more willing to search out for Bittorrents/kazaa/emule/gnutella of a show, while the mass market is content with dvds.
Re:bit torrent? (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, nobody should buy any DVD expecting it to count as a "vote" for their favorite show. Buy it if you want it. Don't expect something to come of it.
Re:bit torrent? (Score:5, Informative)
Buy the DVDs!
The show was funny and deserves the support of its fans.
Man, I'll copy DVDs of crappy Hollywood movies I get from Netflix all day long, but those TV Show boxed sets I buy the day they come out. 20 or so hours of entertainment for $50 (or $20 on ebay). They seem like a pretty good deal to me.
I've come to the conclusion that the only way that anyone will make more TV I'd actually like to watch is if I spend money on the things that have been produced already. They wouldn't keep making Star Trek crap if people weren't buying the old stuff.
All that said, I see at least the entire first season on suprnova.org right now.
Re:A vision of the future.... (Score:2)
But of course, we all know that the Earth of the future was wiped out by something far more insidious, a force even more dastardly than the giant brains, the giant anti-brains at Fox. If it doesn't have bitch-slaps, gratuitous cleavage or people being humiliated, it's not for Fox. Of course this doesn't explain "24" and "Malcolm in the Middle", two other good shows, but it does explain most of them.
Re:A vision of the future.... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:A vision of the future.... (Score:3, Funny)
- Hey, why didn't the building Fry was in get destroyed?
- Um...
- Uh...
- Because... Shut up!
[ all laugh ]
I can't remember exactly who said what, but it was really amusing listen to them nitpick thier own show.
Re:my lead pipe hurts! (Score:5, Interesting)
What a great show. It had a bad time slot and was probably too geeky for mainstream. In fact, I was part of the problem. I didn't even watch it very much when new shows were coming out. I had this "Simpsons wannabe" attitude and thought the show was OK, but nothing special. It was only years later that I discovered how great the show actually is.
3D animation, technical references galore, very funny.
I almost fell out of my chair when on that one episode there were a bunch of aliens (invaders or something?) coming out of a spaceship making all sorts of arcade references and such, then one goes "All your base are belong to us!"
Re:my lead pipe hurts! (Score:3, Insightful)
You discovered that you would like the show, not that it is great. Futurama is for geeks. It is smart in a "Geek" sort of way. The Simpsons is smart, but you don't have to be a Slashdotter to get the stuff.
Face reality: You were right the first time, sort of. I wouldn't call it a Simpsons wannabe, but rather "Simpsons in the Future" or
"Slashdo
Re:did the network give a reason (Score:4, Funny)
Me lose brain cells? Ha ha ha ha.... why I laugh?
Re:Quote from the Simpsons (Score:4, Informative)
I never laughed so hard during the Simpsons as when I heard the guy say that.
For a recap, they're talking about how a certain cliff is popular for being used in suicides. And a geek (sounded like the Krusty-Burger fry cook shouts as he's leaping: "Why did they Cancel Futuramaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!?????"
I think that was a good dig by Groening. Fox really shafted them from the beginning. I think he even said so much in an interview.
Man, I miss Futurama. I think I'm gonna watch the DVD's again when I get home tonight.
Funniest moderation ever : ) (Score:5, Funny)
20 SWEET
30 GOTO 10
(Score:0, Redundant)
Redundant indeed