One plus one equals Doh! How The Simpsons can teach children maths

Children are being taught maths by studying episodes of The Simpsons.

Simon Singh, author of The Simpsons And Their Mathematical Secrets, said there was enough maths in the cartoon series to fill a university course.

The author, journalist and TV presenter is testing his material on students at Heathland School in Hounslow, before the book is published this week. He will then create a free lesson plan for teachers all over the country.

Mr Singh, who also wrote bestseller Fermat’s Last Theorem, said The Simpsons contained hundreds of jokes and references to advanced maths, which are missed by most viewers.

The material is deliberately included by a writing team “bristling” with maths PhDs and masters degrees who love the subject, he added. He visited the team in America to research his book. “The Simpsons is an extraordinary example of maths in popular culture done in a deliberate way” he said.

“Using The Simpsons is a way of looking at these topics and opening them out to students. They think, ‘I like maths and the people who write the coolest show in the world love maths as well,’ so they feel part of a community.”

In his lessons, he shows students stills from episodes to highlight the maths jokes and references. He then goes into more detail about the highly complex subjects they refer to.

In Marge And Homer Turn A Couple Play, they are at a baseball match when fans are asked to guess the size of the crowd. A scoreboard flashes with three options: 8,191, 8,128 and 8,208. These are a Mersenne prime number, a perfect number and a narcissistic number — concepts a teacher can then explain.

In another episode Homer is at a blackboard where it appears he has solved Fermat’s Last Theorem — an equation believed to be unsolvable. He has not — but it would need a calculator to 13 decimal places to work that out.

The only puzzle Mr Singh said he could not unravel was the number of the yellow family’s house: 742 Evergreen Terrace. When he asked the creators of its significance, they told him “Simon, it’s just a number.”