The Simpsons and Their Mathematical Secrets by Simon Singh

Category: 50 Books

Well, Simon Singh has done it again. He’s written another fun, readable book about math. How? How does he write such entertaining books about math? This is his gift.

In this book, he shows us that the writers of The Simpsons and Futurama are serious math people, we’re talking PhDs here. He briefly talks about the writers’ math histories and how they came to write for The Simpsons,  but this isn’t a biography, it’s a book about people who love math and number theory, and how they quite often write it into their hilarious cartoon shows. Singh writes in such a way that even those of us who are not that into math can (mostly) understand what is going on. His enthusiasm for math and numbers is contagious, so don’t think you’re not smart enough to read this book. It’s very enjoyable.

My only gripe about this book is the same gripe I have with most books that are about jokes/comedy writing. That when you write about how/why something is funny, it becomes a bit tedious and unfunny. I’m not sure there is any way around that, so this is not a judgement on Mr. Singh’s writing, it’s just one of the downfalls of writing about comedy.

Still, it’s interesting that so many mathematicians were all, “You know what? I’m going to give up this math gig and go to L.A. and do comedy writing.” and that they all ended up working on the same shows together. Crazy.

Great book. Kind of a geeky read, but still very readable even to us regular dorks, who after passing college algebra, stopped there.

Tags: ,

No Comments