When your TV show ’s committal to writing staff include folk music with PhDs in maths and sciences , you ’re bond to terminate up with some spectacularly nerdy jokes . And if you dig a little profoundly into some of the gag in Futurama , you wo n’t just express mirth — you may actually discover something .
The Futurama writers had a rule that the show ’s more obscure jokes could n’t be central to the plot . So the background is shove with nods to math , science , history , and literature . Book of Numbers are often translate into maths problem ( alternatively of Studio 54 , the crowd visits Studio 1²2¹3³ ) . automaton selective information is conveyed in binary ( “ The Honking ” references the “ Redrum ” aspect in The Shining , when Bender is perplexed to see “ 0101100101 ” written in blood on a paries , but then realise that it read “ 1010011010 ” in the mirror , a series of digit that translate to “ 666 ” ) . And of course , there ’s theAlienese language . But the writers also work up entire episodes around theBanach - Tarski paradoxand the premise of three - dimensional eccentric enroll two - dimensional blank .
https://gizmodo.com/13-alien-languages-you-can-actually-read-5218119
https://gizmodo.com/did-futurama-get-the-banach-tarski-paradox-right-5818859
Some of Futurama ’s minor jokes require a morsel more context to understand , and if you ’re not already familiar with the mathematic and scientific principles or historical linguistic context needed to get the jest , get a line a snatch more about them can be fascinating and quite rewarding . Here are just a smattering of those jokes .
1. “No fair! You changed the outcome by measuring it!”
In “ Luck of the Fryrish , ” the Planet Express crew goes to the racetrack , where two horse finish a race cervix and cervix . to determine the termination of the race , the officials expend an electron microscope and foretell Number 3 is winner in a “ quantum finish . ” The Professor , cense , shout , “ No fair ! You alter the outcome by measure out it . ” There ’s a reasonableness this joke is a classic .
The Professor is referencing the observer effect , the impact of notice on the phenomenon being note . In quantum machinist , when we measure the state of a quantum organisation , we have it off its current State Department and stop it from being in any of its other potential country . Of course , it ’s rather bad business for a racetrack to have its succeeder be a principle of superposition of two different horse at the same sentence . The Futurama writer also make love to reference the famous opinion experiment about notice and quantum machinist , Schrödinger ’s cat .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHnw_JxZ75c
2. “What happens in Cygnus X-1 stays in Cygnus X-1”
The opening tagline for “ Prisoner of Benda ” is obviously a reference to the catchword “ What materialise in Vegas stay in Vegas . ” But Vegas has nothing onCygnus X-1 , which is a black golf hole candidate . No direction your exposure are getting out of there and end up on Facebook .
add another layer to the joke is the fact that Cygnus X-1 was itself the subject area of a wager . In 1975 , Stephen Hawking bet fellow physicist Kip Thorne that Cygnus X-1 would not at last prove to be a black hole . Eventually , monger conceded the bet , and Thorne allegedly won a one - twelvemonth subscription to Penthouse as his prize .
This is n’t even close to the coolest scientific facial expression of this sequence . After all , author Ken Keeler , who holds a Ph.D. in applied maths , get a numerical proofto correct the episode ’s substance fight .
https://gizmodo.com/futurama-writer-invented-a-new-math-theorem-just-to-use-5618502
3. Loew’s ℵ0-Plex
What comes after the multiplex ? New New York ’s premiere movie theater ( which shows up in a couple of episodes ) is and aleph - nullplex . ℵ0 is the cardinality ( metre of elements in a set ) of all rude numbers , and therefore describes solidification that are countably unnumerable . We suspect that , even in the year 3000 , it ’s a slight exaggeration for the movie dramatic art to claim it has an infinite number of screen — even if it ’s a humble number of infinity .
The ℵ0 - plex was the brainchild of none other than Keeler , who joked in a draft of the “ Raging Bender ” script that it still would n’t be heavy enough to show all the Rocky pic .
In his bookThe Simpsons and Their Mathematical Secrets , Simon Singh notes that Futurama also references a much larger eternity . In “ Möbius Dick , ” Bender cease up in a four - dimensional infinite with many copies of himself doing a conga production line and by and by quips , “ That was the greatest uncountably infinite bunch of cat I ever met . ”
4. Happy ln(bΩer)
This is a pun that requires some knowledge of mathematical symbolic representation , scientific symbols , and Judaic holidays . The “ ln ” refer to a natural log , and the omega is the symbol for ohm , the SI derived unit of electric resistance . So the sign reads “ Happy Logbohmer ” or , rather,“Happy Lag BaOmer . ” Lag BaOmer is a holiday celebrated on the thirty-third day of the Counting of Omer , when the mourning of the Counting of Omer is lifted , so the date of Bender ’s boy Ben ’s Bot - Mitzvah in “ The Bots and the Bees ” is an auspicious one .
[ Hat tip tor / futurama ]
5. Taxicab Numbers
Eagle - eyedFuturama viewers may notice thatthe bit 1729 shows up an unspeakable lotin the show . It ’s part of the Nimbus ’s registration bit . Bender is Mom ’s boy # 1729 . During “ The Farnsworth Parabox , ” the crew inspect Universe 1729 .
https://gizmodo.com/why-does-the-number-1729-show-up-in-so-many-futurama-ep-1445512975
So what ’s the flock ? 1729 is the Hardy – Ramanujan issue , also known as a taxicab number . G.H. Hardy and Srinivisa Ramanujan were mathematicians and unbelievable friend . consort to Hardy , their interest in 1729 came about when Hardy visited Ramanujan and remarked that he had sit in a cab numbered 1729 . It struck Hardy as a rather muffled number , and he worried that it was an ill prodigy . Ramanujan replied that it was actually quite an interesting number ; after all , it ’s the small number that can be show as the sum of two positive algebraic cubes in two distinguishable way : 1729 = 13 + 123 = 93 + 103
A taxicab number has since been defined as the smallest number that can be expressed as the sum of two positive algebraical cubes in n dissimilar ways . For the most part , the number 1729 is used merely as a nod to Hardy and Ramanujan , but in “ Bender ’s Big account , ” the taxi number 87539319 demonstrate up , amusingly enough , on a cab . 87539319 is the smallest number that can be written as the sum of two cubes in three clear-cut ways : 87,539,319 = 1673 + 4363 = 2283 + 4233 = 2553 + 4143
6. Mars University Physics Annex
This is a sight laugh that confuses some viewers at first glance . After all , the Mars University Physics Department and the Annex clear have different masses , but they appear balanced on the lever tumbler . But we have to conceive the mechanical vantage of the lever tumbler . The fulcrum is considerably closer to the main construction than the extension , so to balance the lever tumbler , the force that the annex exerts on the lever tumbler must be less than the military force that the chief construction exerts on the lever .
A balanced lever tumbler can be expressed with the equating ( M1)(a ) = ( M2)(b ) , where M1 is the mass at one goal of the fulcrum , M2 is the mass at the other end of the fulcrum , a is the distance from the fulcrum to M1 , and b is the aloofness from the fulcrum to M2 . Of course , this all goes to hell when Nibbler ’s ship kingdom outside the main building .
7. All Those Beers
In the installment “ The Route of All Evil , ” Bender , Fry , and Leela all head to the , ahem , 711 to buy beer . All of the beer are punny — Pabst Blue Robot , Lobrau — but some of them are in particular geeky :
We get a citation to the scheduling language FORTRAN , which was modernize by IBM in the fifties . Bender tope it in lieu of Olde English 800 , so of course it has a computer language in the name alternatively of a human one .
The Klein bottles are a non - orientable object , much like a Möbius slip . Its surface is one continuous “ side , ” so you want to watch how you teem that beer .
St. Pauli Girl beer gets philander up with the Pauli elision principle , named for Wolfgang Pauli . The principle express that two identical fermions ca n’t occupy the same quantum commonwealth simultaneously . We have no estimate how that affects the taste of the beer .
8. Bull Space Moose Party
Not all of Futurama ’s jokes source math and science . Some are abouthistory and political science . In “ A Head in the Polls , ” Fry checks out dissimilar political party , and in true Futurama form , the most unnoticeable jokes are scupper in the background . A kiosk that seems to be manned by Bullwinkle bears the banner “ Bully Space Moose Party , ” a book of facts to the Progressive Party of 1912 . The political party was formed by former US President Theodore Roosevelt after he had a falling out with fellow Republican President William Howard Taft . The third political party was call the Bull Moose Party because a journalist cite Roosevelt as saying “ I ’m feel like a bull European elk . ” course , though , Fry regain himself pull to the Apathy Party .
https://gizmodo.com/futurama-gives-the-most-twisted-presidential-history-le-5825829
9. Witten’s Dog
You may have hear of Schrödinger ’s cat , but Witten ’s Dog is entirely an invention of Futurama . It , paired with the phrase “ Superdupersymmetric String Theory , ” is a nod to Ed Witten , one of the male parent of superstring theory and one of the earth ’s greatest living theoretical physicists . In the commentary for this episode , “ Mars University , ” it ’s explained that a Caltech physicist drew this parody diagram , which is , at its heart , just a swish poop joke .
10. The Cryptic Crypt Inscription
In “ The Duh - Vinci Code , ” the work party wing to Rome to explore the tomb of Saint James and comes across an inscription in papistical numerals that is distinctly not a date , but rather part of an equation . In his ledger , Singh notes that there ’s nothing random about this particular bent of number , and that solving the problem gives a very interesting resolution .
IIXI – ( XXIII * LXXXIX ) translates to 211 – ( 23 * 89 ) , which touch one . If we rearrange the equality 211 – ( 23 * 89 ) = 1 , we get 211 – 1 = 2047 . This equation takes the class of a Mersenne prime , in which a prime number is found though 2p – 1 , where p is any premier numeral . The interesting matter about 2047 is that it ’s not prime . In fact , it ’s the pocket-size issue described by 2p – 1 that is n’t prime .
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