In one particular scene, Homer stands pensively at a fully scribbled blackboard. Next to the obligatory drawings of doughnuts, there is a seemingly harmless equation: 3,98712 + 4,36512 = 4,47212. Type it into a calculator and it appears correct. But amazingly, it contradicts one of the most established theorems of mathematics.
Following some of the arguments in Ernest Becker's 1973 study The Denial of Death, he proposes that such crises are at least partly the result of the western reluctance to face mortality. In Britain, we eschew open coffins, for instance. When our relatives die, as my mother did two years ago, they die in a hospital rather than at home. We can hardly even bring ourselves to say die, preferring euphemisms such as pass away.
