Is the burning subject on everyone’s mind: how does The Simpsons foretell the future?
The long-running cartoon has been credited for predicting numerous key international events, like the sinking of the Titanic sub, years before they occurred.
The programme, which chronicles the antics of Marge, Homer, Lisa, Bart, and Maggie Simpson, among other Springfield residents, was also spot-on about Elon Musk’s rebranding of Twitter to X and Greta Gerwig’s feminist reinvention of Barbie.
But how exactly do they accomplish it? According to the YouTube channel Chuppl, there is only one clear answer.
The team claims that The Simpsons’ accurate forecasts are due entirely to the authors’ backgrounds, adding that most have degrees in math and social sciences and are thus well educated in trends.
In The Simpsons Conspiracy: How They Predict The Future, the host said: ‘Unlike most other shows, The Simpsons writing team consists largely of writers who are extremely educated in fields ranging from mathematics to social sciences because of this they are also really connected to those that are on the cutting edge.’
They used novelist David Cohen as an example, who studied physics at Harvard before deciding to pursue writing instead of a career in academia.
The YouTubers also stated how The Simpsons writers ‘always ensured the maths was correct’ and even consulted specialists such as Columbia University astrologer David Schiminovich.
David was hired to design the equation Homer puts on the chalkboard at the beginning of a 1998 episode, which predicted the mass of the Higgs boson more than a decade before Cern researchers did.
Using a graph, the Chuppl team calculated that The Simpsons predictions took an average of 13 years to come true.
The data also demonstrated that the majority of the correct forecasts are produced by authors with math degrees, supporting their previous assumption.
Al Jean, the showrunner of The Simpsons, previously stated that the crew lacked a sixth sense and were instead making ‘informed guesses.’
‘Most of the other things like Trump being President or Brazil winning the world cup are educated guesses,’ he told us.
‘Trump was considering being President back in the 90s. We wanted Germany to win because we went to Brazil to lose and Germany was the next best bet for the World Cup.
‘So, a lot of the things that we predicted are just, unfortunately, things you could see coming.’
Other The Simpsons’ forecasts have included allegations of voter fraud, the horse meat crisis, and even the Covid-19 epidemic.
What will happen next?
The Simpsons is available to stream on Disney Plus.
