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If you happened to catch the recent Futurama episode in which various characters from the show switched brains, you may remember that the biggest concern was whether or not each character could switch back to their own body, in order to do so they would have to have enough people to switch brains with, without swapping into a body they had already occupied.

So how do you go about figuring out how many people it would take so the same swap was never made twice? You create a mathematical theorem of course and that’s exactly what Futurama writer and mathematician Dr. Ken Keeler did.

Not only did he create the theorem, they actually showcased the equation on the blackboard during the episode.

I personally don’t understand the theorem at all, but it is pretty cool that they took the time to make the episode appear as close to actual reality as they could, even if the reality of the show is complete nonsense.

The brain/body switch theorem is shown below:

Are you a fan of the show? If you are I’d love to hear what you think about the obsessive type of realism they attempt to put into a show that’s obviously extremely far-fetched.