Mathematicians Write Great Comedy

This book has been published recently: The Simpsons and Their Mathematical Secrets.

Discovering that Simpson contains many jokes related to maths? No, several of the writers have a background in mathematics, physics or computer science.

And why do writers with that background choose cartoons? Maybe it has to do with concise, incisive ...? I want to go back to Marshall McLuhan's definition of "cool media": media requiring more active participation of the user, abstract patterning and simultaneous comprehension of all parts. Cartoons as example.

And this is what the language of mathematics does. It expresses something that stimulates thinking - usually you wrap your own mathematical mind around. A logic expression on the object mathematics level need a semantic function into a model level - to bring it to live, talk about it, find examples, find new abstractions ... This is one essence of maths. The other is the operational semantics - the calculations.

At the other hand, how to find stories well worth reading - and thinking? Use maths as language - keep to it until you know the whole plot - translate into English - illustrate - remove the mathematics?

This is why I liked reading Red-blooded Risk, Aaron Brown: written in a rigorous style with no equations, contains illustrations and graphic narrative.

Mathematicians are good writers, and readers? Especially if the media is cool.