The mad scientist proprietor of the Planet Express delivery service for whom the main characters work, he is the great (×30) grandnephew of series protagonist Philip J. Fry.

He alternates between intelligence and amoral senility due to his greatly advanced age (the exact value of which has differed across episodes).

A self-described mad scientist, the Professor is a senile,[1] amoral, deranged, and unpredictable old man (160 years old as of "A Clone of My Own") with very thick glasses and a gift for creating doomsday devices and atomic supermen.

The Professor teaches at Mars University and has worked for Momcorp on several occasions but spends most of his time inventing ridiculous devices and sending the Planet Express delivery crew on suicide missions.

I made up the title so no student would dare take it"; however, this declaration has not precluded the professor from demonstrating mastery of whatever field of science is convenient for a given episode's plot, as shown in Bender's Big Score when he proclaims, "I can wire anything directly into anything!

Approximately 100 years before the series' timeline, he taught a young (not yet Professor) Wernstrom, whom Farnsworth regarded as a prized student.

After he returned a pop quiz to Wernstrom with a grade of A-minus (for poor penmanship), the two became bitter rivals (established in "A Big Piece of Garbage").

It was revealed in "Mobius Dick" that the first crew was ingested by a four-dimensional space whale in 2961, only returning to Earth when rescued by Leela in 3011.

When asked about the nature of his delivery "business", Farnsworth once clarified that he viewed his company more as "a source of cheap labor, like a family."

However, they could not maintain their relationship due to Mom's lust for power, prompting them to break up (this reportedly happened three times).

Some of his more significant inventions include a hat that advanced a monkey to human-level intelligence, a race of mutant atomic supermen, a wide range of doomsday devices, and a pioneer in the development of the 'modern' robots used in the 31st century.

Professor Farnsworth is voiced by Billy West, using a combination of impressions of Burgess Meredith and Frank Morgan.

Many references to the pulp science fiction magazine Weird Tales indicate the Professor may be named in honor of its editor Farnsworth Wright.