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The Professor is clearly a physicist and inventor. Is it ever shown why he is running a small scale shipping company with only a handful of employees, instead of (for example) working in a government lab or university research center?

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  • Even if the professor claims to be a physicist, not much of what we see him do in the show is actually physics. The technical term is "mad scientist" (or some would say "engineer") :-P – David Z Dec 02 '16 at 07:04

2 Answers2

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For the money

Fry: This is awesome! Are we gonna fly through space fighting monsters and teaching alien women to lurve?

Farnsworth: If by that you mean "transporting cargo" then yes. It's a little home business I started to fund my research.

Space Pilot 3000

You may wish to note that the Professor does maintain an office at Mars University, something of a sinecure given that no-one ever takes his classes.

Farnsworth: No, I need it shipped to my office at Mars University. It's a little experiment that may well win me the Nobel Prize.

Leela: In what field?

Farnsworth: I don't care, they all pay the same.

...

Fry: Oh, I don't know. Hey, Professor, what are you teaching this semester?

Farnsworth: Same thing I teach every semester: The Mathematics of Quantum Neutrino Fields. I made up the title so that no student would dare take it.

Mars University

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Valorum
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    Also he'd never be able to work with anyone elses... (cf. A big ball of garbage) – k_g Nov 28 '16 at 03:42
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    Curiously, a common plot device is that the company is going bankrupt or has to officially reclassify everyone as slaves instead of as employees, etc. – zibadawa timmy Nov 28 '16 at 07:51
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    @Zibadawatimmy - Because the company is incompetently run. When Fry and the Professor disappear into the future, you can see the success Leela makes of it. – Valorum Nov 28 '16 at 08:04
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    I beleive I will now watch every episode of Futurama again. – Daft Nov 28 '16 at 14:23
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    @Daft Again? As in you weren't already? Does not everybody live their life in an endless cycle watching the entire series over and over again? – Dason Nov 28 '16 at 18:51
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    @Dason - I assumed that was what he meant. – Valorum Nov 28 '16 at 19:05
  • The quote does not imply no student ever takes his classes, it only implies he tries to sway them away with a complicated sounding title. – Captain Man Nov 29 '16 at 22:13
  • @CaptainMan - Actually that's precisely what it implies. What it doesn't do is state it. – Valorum Nov 29 '16 at 22:20
  • @Valorum Sorry, I meant imply in the formal logic sense, as in A equals B and B equals C implies that A equals C. I didn't mean it in the other sense that owning a cat implies you like cats. Sorry for the confusion. – Captain Man Nov 29 '16 at 22:57
  • Actually this isn't either kind of implication. He's overtly stating it was an attempt to discourage students from taking the class. Everything else is speculation. But then I'm just cynical enough to believe he could get away with having no students year after year. – candied_orange Nov 30 '16 at 08:17
  • @CandiedOrange - Well, we only see him attend one time. The rest of the time he's on Earth. That suggests that his number of undergrads is zero. – Valorum Nov 30 '16 at 10:03
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Professor Farnsworth may have started the company to fund his research (see Valorums answer), but he also sees it as cheap source of labor for his projects (similar to a research group in a lab):

Farnsworth: This is not a business. I always thought of it more as a cheap source of labor, like a family.

from Future Stock

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