The Simpsons and Their Mathematical Secrets by Singh Simon

Author:Singh, Simon [Singh, Simon]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, azw3, pdf
ISBN: 9781408835319
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2013-10-28T18:30:00+00:00

If you lived on the surface of this doughnut universe, you could follow the grey arrow and eventually return to your original position. Alternatively, you could follow the black arrow and, again, you would end up back where you started. The doughnut universe behaves rather like the spacescape of Asteroids, Atari’s best selling video game of all time. If the player’s ship flies eastward, then it leaves the screen on the right and returns on the left, eventually returning to its original position. Similarly, if the ship heads northward, then it leaves the top of the screen and reenters at the bottom, eventually returning once again to where it started.

Of course, we have discussed the theory only in terms of two dimensions, but within the laws of physics it is permissible for a three-dimensional universe to be rolled into a cylinder and formed into a doughnut. For nonmathematicians, it is almost impossible to visualize manipulating three-dimensional space in this manner, but Hawking and Homer understand that the doughnut is a perfectly viable reality for the shape of our universe. As the British scientist J. B. S. Haldane (1892–1964) once said: “My suspicion is that the Universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose.”

In other episodes, the writers create a trigger event that galvanizes Homer’s brain, which in turn allows him to excel in mathematics. In “HOMЯ” (2001), Homer removes a crayon that has been lodged in his brain and suddenly realizes that he can use calculus to prove that God does not exist. He shows the proof to Ned Flanders, his God-fearing neighbor, who is initially suspicious of Homer’s claim to have made God vanish in a puff of logic. Flanders examines the proof and mutters: “We’ll just see about that . . .uh-oh. Well, maybe he made a mistake . . .Nope. It’s airtight. Can’t let this little doozy get out.” Unable to find any flaw that will undermine Homer’s logic, Flanders sets fire to the proof.

This scene pays homage to one of the most famous episodes in the history of mathematics, when the greatest mathematician of the eighteenth century, Leonhard Euler, pretended to prove the opposite of Homer’s conclusion, namely that God does exist. The incident took place while he was at the court of Catherine the Great in St. Petersburg. Catherine and her courtiers were becoming increasingly concerned about the influence of the visiting French philosopher Denis Diderot, who was an outspoken atheist. He was also supposedly terrified of mathematics. Hence, Euler was asked to construct a fake equation that would apparently prove the existence of God and put an end to Diderot’s heresies. When he was publicly confronted with Euler’s complicated equation, Diderot was left speechless. Diderot became the laughingstock of St. Petersburg after this humiliating encounter, and he soon asked for permission to return to Paris.

Homer’s mathematical brain receives another temporary boost in “$pringfield (Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Legalized Gambling)” (1993). At the start

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