I was never a big fan, so I just heard that Numb3rs was canceled for the fall. I guess the law will have to go back to fighting crime the old-fashioned way: calling in Batman to help.
I was never a big fan, so I just heard that Numb3rs was canceled for the fall. I guess the law will have to go back to fighting crime the old-fashioned way: calling in Batman to help.
Of course it was my favorite show on TV. It was set at Caltech (though lawyer’s anxieties prevented that from being explicitly stated) and often filmed on location there. I spoke with the creators of the show, neighbors of mine from Altadena, former home of Feynman, and the Math Adviser to the show (who had sub-advisers) was Dr. Gary Lorden, now Professor Emeritus at Caltech’s Math Department (though formally a Statistics Professor). I took Probability and Lebesge Integration from him. He’s a great guy, was Executive Officer for Math at Caltech, is a superb teacher, and (I’m biased) wrote a great 2-page Letter of Recommendation for one of my faculty applications. Now have to fall back of “The Big Bang Theory” (which does admit to parodying Caltech).
I got some flack on the facebook page about this. Part of this pseudo-debate may be the difference between “intellectual closure” and “emotional closure” in fiction, screenplay, and teleplay.
The NUMB3RS teleplays were all scrupulously vetted for accuracy in Mathematics and FBI procedure. Now and then this may have distorted characterization or subplots. The actors were stylistically different, as I discussed with Judd Hirsch, who portrayed Alan Eppes, a former L.A. City planner, a widower, and the father of both Charlie and Don Eppes. In real life, Judd Hirsch has a bachelors degree in Physics.
David Krumholtz, who first came to my attention as Bernard, the 800-year-old elf with an attitude, in The Santa Clause and its sequel The Santa Clause 2, and has also starred as Goldstein in the films Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle and its sequel Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay, portrays Professor Charlie Eppes, mathematics genius who consults for the FBI and NSA. He teaches at CalSci—the fictitious California Institute of Science.
From almost a different school of acting, Rob Morrow played Don Eppes, Charlie’s older brother, and the lead FBI agent.
I was often annoyed by a third style, Peter MacNicol, portraying Professor Larry Fleinhardt, a theoretical physicist and cosmologist at CalSci. Charlie’s former mentor and now best friend, who also consults frequently for the FBI, orbits in the Space Station, and makes Zen look silly.
Some liked, and some disliked, the Romance subplots revolving around Navi Rawat playing Professor Amita Ramanujan, mathematician at CalSci and an FBI consultant. She has been dating Charlie Eppes and the couple became officially engaged at the beginning of season six. Charlie was her thesis adviser.
The all-too-fast marriage looked like a series-killer to me. But I’ll still hope for a feature film.
Navi Rawat is now on Burn Notice - it’s fun to see her play evil after playing such a sweetie.
Very funny!
I developed a sort of confused attitude to the show. It wasn’t very interesting from a mathematical perspective (to me). But I really like the idea of mathematics coming into a television show in a major way. Mathematics of course underlies alot of the technology of this kind of activity — a nice
idea to make it explicit.
What am I going to do on friday nights now?
I loved that show. My son who is 17 and I woudl watch it every friday. We both loved the math and the story line. It is a shame I really enjoyed it.
Carmine: You could turn to crime, crime so sophisticated that only mathematicians can solve it.