If you’re like me, all too often while relaxing and watching a good procedural drama on TV you find yourself wondering, “How did they solve that differential equation so quickly?” That’s why we need more hit prime-time TV shows with web pages that explain the mathematical content underpinning each episode.
As far as I know, the only show that rises to this challenge is NUMB3RS, the CBS drama featuring Charlie Epps, a math professor at a suspiciously Caltech-esque university who teams up with his FBI-agent brother to solve crimes. The shows creators, Nicolas Falacci and Cheryl Heuton, had a goal from the beginning of creating an entertaining hour of television that would involve science in an intimate way. (I suppose math is almost as good.) As part of the effort, they’ve partnered with Wolfram Research to follow each episode with a web page delving into the various mathematical concepts that were discussed, including Mathematica notebooks to illustrate the various ideas:
Episode 11 this year was entitled “The Arrow of Time.” Here’s the opening:
You can see the full episode here; the math page is here. This stuff would make a great topic for a book.
February 2nd, 2009 at 2:28 pm
Maybe the first about maths, but [{House Medical Reviews http://politedissent.com/house_pd.html}] is almost a classic.
February 2nd, 2009 at 3:24 pm
That House site is great. Any others associated with other shows?
February 2nd, 2009 at 4:30 pm
The Numbers Behind Numbers. A book I mean to use for a course one day.
February 3rd, 2009 at 11:14 am
If you want some more information about Numb3rs and the stuff behind the show, you can listen to the interview we did with the creators and producers of the show on our show Skepticality, it is episode #92.
http://www.skepticality.com/sn_Ep92.html
February 6th, 2009 at 10:49 pm
Our physics colleague at Davis consults on some NUMB3RS episodes. One of them, “36 Hours”, is about emergent collective behavior in robots.
http://www.cbs.com/primetime/numb3rs/video/video.php?cid=446410306&pid=uqIuB8bCnWWU60RwzJ_9R1XeE7jn4pzx&category=editorial&play=true
February 12th, 2009 at 2:50 pm
[...] The Numbers Behind NUMB3RS If you’re like me, all too often while relaxing and watching a good procedural drama on TV you find yourself wondering, “How did they solve that differential equation so quickly?” That’s why we need more hit prime-time TV shows with web pages that explain the mathematical content underpinning each episode. [...]