The Simpsons: 10 Hidden Jokes Everybody Missed

2. Maths Jokes Are Everywhere In 3D Land (Treehouse Of Horror VI)

The Simpsons 3D land
Fox

One of best Treehouse of Horror bits is the ambitious 3D generated segment where Homer somehow finds himself in a whole new dimension. As you might expect from a room filled with mathematics nerds, the writers decided to stuff as many math jokes in this new 3D environment as possible. Some jokes were particularly well-hidden and required some actual hands-on work from fans in order to reveal it. Just a warning, more mathematics will occur from this point forward.

As Homer is exploring his new surroundings, he walks past a string of hexidecimal numbers: 46 72 69 6E 6B 20 72 75 6C 65 73 21. When this is converted to ASCII, the random series of numbers and letters spell out 'Frink Rules!'.

Still, Frink's boast is nothing compared to what the writers slipped in as a reference to Fermat's Final Theorem (where no three positive integers a, b, and c can satisfy the equation an + bn = cn for any integer value of n greater than two). When Homer is walking around, an equation passes behind him that appears to disprove Fermat's theorem. But should that equation be put into a scientific calculator, you'll find that the theorem still holds and that the equation is off by a minuscule 0.00000004.

But this still wasn't the last reference to Fermat's theorem...

Contributor
Contributor

My life story is nothing special. I haven't cured ebola, I'm nowhere near stopping terrorism, and I'm still working on that climate change problem. Instead, all I've done so far is put a few hundred words together in an attempt to make people laugh. You can follow me at @Fry_ying_pan but don't be offended if I don't tweet back. It's usually because I've spent too long trying to think up a witty response that the reply window has closed.