AKIPRESS.COM - Homer Simpson predicted the mass of the Higgs boson, often known as "the God particle," 14 years before it was discovered by scientists, a science writer claims, reports The Telegraph.
In a 1998 episode of the hit animated television show “The Simpsons,” the character more famous for his love of doughnuts than mathematics is shown in front of a blackboard working on an equation. That equation predicted the mass of the Higgs boson, according to author Simon Singh.
"The Simpsons is the most mathematical TV show on prime-time television in history. A lot of the writers on The Simpsons are mathematicians," Singh told a literary festival, according to The UK Daily Telegraph.
"If you work it out, you get the mass of a Higgs boson that's only a bit larger than the nano-mass of a Higgs boson actually is,” Singh, author of “The Simpsons and their Mathematic Secrets,” said. “It's kind of amazing as Homer makes this prediction 14 years before it was discovered."
Singh, who has a PhD in particle physics from Cambridge University and CERN, Geneva, also told the audience that he hopes young people will be inspired by the show’s creators’ enthusiasm for the subject.