Talk:Free Will Hunting

Chapek 9
I read somewhere, I can't remember where, that this episode involves Bender returning to Chapek 9 from Fear of a Bot Planet. Could someone find it and confirm please? - Jasonbres (talk) 04:22, 29 June 2012 (CEST)
 * P.S. I recall it referring to it as "Bender's home planet" or something but I'm pretty sure it was referring to Chapek 9. - Jasonbres (talk) 04:25, 29 June 2012 (CEST)
 * FOUND IT! http://blog.zap2it.com/frominsidethebox/2012/06/10-spoilers-90210-seeks-ryan-gosling-shawn-juliet-split-psych-amy-smart-men-at-work.html - Jasonbres (talk) 04:26, 29 June 2012 (CEST)

(n+1)st National Bank
Can we add an explanation for the math joke in the background at around 10m15s, "(n+1)st National Bank"? I didn't understand it, and I couldn't find an explanation after several minutes looking it up. I would appreciate it if someone could explain it in the trivia section. 70.160.166.80 04:14, 7 April 2013 (CEST)


 * It just means that, instead of being a First National Bank, the bank is a national bank of a variable number.
 * In my opinion, the joke is that you would also use superscript if you were using exponentiation. ((n+1)st ---> (n+1)2.)
 * I don't think the article should offer an explanation. I've now added a simple acknowledgement of the joke.  Sanfazer (talk) 14:05, 7 April 2013 (CEST).


 * As a mathematician, I'm incapable of writing anything concisely in English (that's why we have symbolic languages, damnit), but maybe someone else can turn this into an answer that belongs on the article instead of the talk page:


 * Imagine you've written "P(in) -> P(in+1)", and now you have to read your proof out informally: "So if P applies to the nth element, then it applies to the en-plus-oneth…? en-plus-first…? nth-plus-one…?" Every math student goes through this, because you spend quite a while getting used to the idea of the ordinal for n+1 before having to speak it out loud, so it's surprising and kind of funny that you have absolutely no idea how to pronounce it, and everything you try sounds obviously wrong. That moment tends to stick with you.


 * Having to write out "(n+1)th" or "(n+1)st" is basically the same dilemma, which usually comes up separately. (Some people even come up with conflicting choices—writing "(n+1)st" but pronouncing "en-plus-oneth"—and don't notice it for years.)


 * Anyway, long after you've picked one, gotten used to it, gotten used to the fact that half your colleagues do it wrong, and forgotten it, you come across a student saying it for their first time and awkwardly stumbling the same way you did, and you chuckle in recognition. See https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/36512/k1th-or-k1st for a discussion and links to many more. If you can't relate to it being funny, you were never a mathematician, but that doesn't necessarily mean that you suck and it's your fault that Futurama was canceled. --172.68.133.23 23:56, 25 July 2017 (CEST)

Allusions
at around 13.35: When Bender is shown working at the gears with other monks the image resembles the famous stairs painting by M. C. Escher. Although it looks not as illogical as it could, so I'm not sure.


 * Added. Sanfazer: [ talk] 02:54, 1 May 2014 (CEST).