Numb3rs
by CarolineOne of my former math professors, Paul Campbell, teaches an all-levels course on the CBS show Numb3rs. At the time, I hadn’t seen the show and knew only that it starred the dreamy tag-team of Northern Exposure’s Rob Morrow and ubiquitous-but-underused David Krumholtz, plus Judd Hirsch.
People complain that the mathematics used on the show aren’t totally sound, or would only suggest a LIKELY answer rather than a certain one, and so on and so on. I don’t give a crap about that, because almost every television show demands a certain suspension of disbelief — does the legal world reflect Law & Order, does high school reflect Gossip Girl?
Plain and simple, it’s awesome that a show in the formulaic crime genre has chosen mathematics as its bread and butter, both glorifying the role of mathematics in our society AND hyping up whatever the future has in store. I really love it.
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