TeX - LaTeX in pop culture

Question

I'm doing a research on free-software references in movies, TV series, etc.

Things like: "in Dr. House they use KDE as DE" or "Sheldon from the The Big Bang Theory uses Ubuntu." And the like.

I'd love to include some TeX/LaTeX facts, but I've not managed to find any reference. Can you help me?

Only restriction is that the movie/TV series etc. must be English.

I didn't know where to put this question so went for fun. Hope you don't mind this sort of questions, please forgive me if this is not allowed.

I believe that there is no such movies except the related with TeX developments, if they exists. — Sigur, Jun 24 '13 at 14:39
@Sigur This was the same first comment I received in the forum of a very famous free software project which is now the fifth most referenced in my list :) — f.boc, Jun 24 '13 at 14:42
I recall a film actually showing LaTeX code on screen, but I can't find it now. — Werner, Jun 24 '13 at 14:43
@Werner that would be good too, even if LaTeX was not actually named but it was clearly LaTeX it is ok — f.boc, Jun 24 '13 at 14:44
@f.boc, well, let's wait for the experts. Now I'm curious to see some movies too. — Sigur, Jun 24 '13 at 14:45
this is actually a difficult research job because both "tex" and "latex" have other and more popular meanings... — f.boc, Jun 24 '13 at 14:51
In the bad film Stealth some LaTeX code appears for some seconds (not sure if it's LaTeX or Plain). — Gonzalo Medina, Jun 24 '13 at 14:53
@Werner perhaps you mean the film "Stealth" that I just mentioned in a comment? Once I saw the whole film just to see the code appear. It appeared all right, but seeing the movie just for that was a total waste of time. — Gonzalo Medina, Jun 24 '13 at 14:56
I believe that is easier to find a movie with somebody using beamer on a presentation. — Sigur, Jun 24 '13 at 15:03
Also, not directly TeX, but its creator: xkcd: Donald Knuth and 1337: Part 2, and Log Scale (when you hover the mouse over the drawing), and Applied math. — Gonzalo Medina, Jun 24 '13 at 15:09
The slides for UK’s infamous Tempora project were done in LaTeX/beamer and later leaked to the press, who published at least one screenshot. — Konrad Rudolph, Jun 24 '13 at 17:18
@GonzaloMedina if you like you can cut the image from the answer and put into an answer — f.boc, Jun 24 '13 at 23:13
try this google query: 'latex in popular culture' --- the second entry refers to this thread. the first entry refers to wikipedia (thanks that i was alone in the office when opening it). that's precision and recall of google :-)) — mnemonic, Dec 09 '13 at 13:28

score 53 · Answer 1 · answered Jun 24 '13 at 23:44

53

The movie Stealth (2005) has the following storyline summary:

In the near future, the Navy develops a fighter jet piloted by an artificial intelligence computer. The jet is placed on an aircraft carrier in the Pacific to learn combat manuevers from the human pilots aboard. But when the computer develops a mind of its own, it's the humans who are charged with stopping it before it incites a war...

The artificial intelligence computer (or AI) was programmed by the character Dr Keith Orbit (played by Richard Roxburgh). Trivia for this movie includes a reference to LaTeX:

When Keith Orbit is looking at the code for the AI, we can see that the code is written in LaTeX, which is a language for typesetting mathematics much as HTML is used on the Internet for typesetting web pages.

Here's a screen grab from the movie (1:09:06):

enter image description here

answered Jun 24 '13 at 23:44

Werner

603,163

4

I wonder whether this source would be traceable to a publicly available document... – Grimace of Despair Jun 25 '13 at 13:58
8

I would say that if it is an AI, it surely should not be programmed in TeX, but iTeX (bell ringing here), but alas, it is not XML... – JLDiaz Jun 25 '13 at 17:49
2

@JLDiaz Well, Steve Hicks wrote a Mars Rover controller in TeX, so why not a stealth fighter? :D – Xavier Jun 25 '13 at 23:00
Has anyone figured out what is being sown on screen, or is there not enough of it to compile a reasonable facsimile? – Canageek Aug 10 '13 at 07:26
1

My code isn't exactly clean as a whistle, but wow, that's messy... – Ingmar Dec 09 '13 at 13:23

score 32 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 09 '13 at 12:47

32

The XKCD comic File Extensions references TeX directly:

answered Dec 09 '13 at 12:47

Jake

232,450

Gonzalo Medina · Answer 3 · 2013-06-24T23:51:56.837

30

Not directly related to TeX, but to its creator (so it's worth mentioning it); there are some references to Donald Knuth in some of xkcd's comics:

Donald Knuth

1337: Part 2

Log Scale (hover the mouse over the drawing)

Applied math

edited Jun 24 '13 at 23:51

answered Jun 24 '13 at 23:45

Gonzalo Medina

505,128

1

To read the alt-text in a iPad (which does not support hovering), prepend m. to the url of the xkcd comic. Eg, http://m.xkcd.com/1162/ – JLDiaz Jun 30 '13 at 20:56

Jean Baldraque · Answer 4 · 2013-06-27T08:12:21.047

25

Maybe can help:

"So you can create these tables?" she asked him. "In a form suitable for a TEX file?" TEX, pronounced like "Tech," is a computer program that's used for typesetting technical papers and books. "No," said Turner. "I don't do TEX. I do Troff (a comparable program). I guess I'll have to learn it, though. It's an invention of the devil."

Lemonick, M. D., The Light at the Edge of the Universe (1993)

(cited in David Salomon, The Advanced TeXbook (1995))

edited Jun 27 '13 at 08:12

answered Jun 25 '13 at 19:41

Jean Baldraque

1,958

+1 for 'invention of the devil' :) Does it mean Knuth is the devil? – Count Zero Jun 26 '13 at 12:55

Torbjørn T. · Answer 5 · 2015-12-31T09:43:26.247

23

I've seen this one from Something of that Ilk pop up a few times:

https://web.archive.org/web/20150526124611/http://www.somethingofthatilk.com/index.php?id=135

It seems that the official site of the comic has been shut down, hence the link to archive.org.

edited Dec 31 '15 at 09:43

answered Jun 25 '13 at 07:04

Torbjørn T.

206,688

I love that one ;) – phx Jun 04 '15 at 15:41
Unfortunately, that site seems to've closed down and is now a squatter. Link to the Wayback Machine Archive? – WillAdams Dec 31 '15 at 04:36

Herr K. · Answer 6 · 2013-06-24T23:54:24.707

22

I once saved the following picture from a Facebook group called "Trust Me I'm an Engineer". Pretty sure those are LaTeX codes ;-)

Here is the link to the "source"

enter image description here

Also, PHD Comics published two episodes where LaTeX was referred to:

Summer To Do (at the bottom)
OMG! ROTFL!! (at the middle)

edited Jun 24 '13 at 23:54

answered Jun 24 '13 at 23:32

Herr K.

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score 21 · Answer 7 · answered Jun 25 '13 at 17:31

A reference to the creator of TeX - DEK: Doctor Fun produced cartoons over a "520 week" period (spanning around 10 years). This one is from February 10th, 2000:

enter image description here

This alleged book, Donald Knuth's Big Dummies Guide to Visual Basic, is purely fictional.

score 12 · Answer 8 · answered Jun 28 '13 at 14:38

12

The central character of R.A. MacAvoy’s wonderful fantasy novel, Tea with the Black Dragon settles down to read Dr. Donald Knuth’s The Art of Computer Programming with, “a contented sigh”.

answered Jun 28 '13 at 14:38

WillAdams

7,187

TeX - LaTeX in pop culture

8 Answers8