20 Times ‘The Simpsons’ Accurately Predicted The Future

Since the dawn of time, mankind has searched for ways to know its future. Early humans used oracles for glimpses into the soon-to-be, and fortune tellers once spelled out our fate with tarot cards and chicken bones. Today, however, there's one surefire way to take a nice long peek into the future — by watching cartoons. This may sound absurd, but over its three-decade run, The Simpsons has predicted all kinds of humorous, bizarre, and flat-out terrifying events and inventions that actually came true. So put down your crystal ball and pick up the remote, because these Simpsons predictions are so scarily accurate that you'll be dying to know what they'll let us in on next.

There's very little meat in these gym mats

"Tosh! Shredded newspapers add much-needed roughage and essential inks."

In a season six episode, Principal Skinner is under pressure about school budgets. After being reprimanded by his colleague Mrs. Krabappel about the inedible food, the camera pans back to the kitchen. With a gym mat poised at one end of the meat grinder and grey sludge oozing from the other, Lunch Lady Doris' secret is revealed. Sounds far-fetched, but unfortunately, it's not.

Would you like fries with that?

Years later, a report came out that claimed the McDonald's McRib and various sandwiches from Subway contained the chemical substance azodicarbonamide. The compound has been used as a whitening agent in foods like flour and bread, and, you guessed it — it's the same substance found in gym and yoga mats.

Equations for dummies

"That's why I haven't done anything with my life! I need to be more like Thomas Edison!"

The 1998 episode "The Wizard of Evergreen Terrace" sees Homer attempt to follow in Thomas Edison's footsteps by creating a variety of wacky inventions. During the episode, Homer is seen writing a seemingly nonsensical equation on a blackboard. But was it really nonsense?

Thomas Edison eat your heart out

Yep, you guessed it — his equation wasn't nonsense at all. In fact, it was nearly identical to that of the mass of the Higgs boson, an elementary particle that wasn't officially discovered until 2012. You heard it hear, folks — Homer Simpson successfully predicted the mass of the Higgs Boson 14 whole years before physicists at CERN managed it.