What's Science Ever Done For Us: What the Simpsons Can Teach Us About Physics, Robots, Life, and the Universe

From Booklist
Just in time for the release of the big-screen Simpsons movie, and in the tradition of numerous others in the Science of . . . series, comes this entertaining, educational look at the world's most famous yellow-skinned cartoon characters and what they can teach us—believe it or not—about genetics, artificial intelligence, time travel, space travel, extraterrestrials, quantum physics, the Coriolis effect, and other mind-expanding matters. Like William Irwin's The Simpsons and Philosophy (2001), the book extracts wisdom and real-world lessons from the long-running animated show: Halpern uses an episode in which Homer sells a tobacco-tomato crossbreed called tomacco, for example, to explore the subject of genetic mutation; the famous episode "The Springfield Files," in which a green-glowing alien is revealed to be Mr. Burns, leads the author into a discussion of the dangers of overexposure to radium. Halpern, a physics and mathematics professor, is clearly a big Simpsons fan, and, in addition to being informative and accessible to the lay reader, his book is a lot of fun. It's not often you laugh while you read a science book; like The Simpsons itself, the book is funny and smart. Pitt, David

Review
"A hugely entertaining celebration of the science behind the cartoon silliness."
(The Guardian Review, Saturday 18th August 2007)

"…a book that can be enjoyed by all ages." (Physics World, December 2007)

"[The book] is a fun introduction to some aspects of science that will appeal to anyone curious about some common science…" (concatenation.org, Wednesday 16th January 2008)

"A hugely entertaining celebration of the science behind the cartoon silliness." – Guardian, August 18, 2007