Numb3rs: A Missed Opportunity for Mathematical Accuracy

[franznietzsche]

Woo hoo! Base jumping! Can we do it in base 13 instead of base 10 though? I hear that's more fun.

My soul is dying and you're making jokes about number base systems?

Well actually my soul can't die anymore, its been sold too many times. You may only get two mortgages on your house, but I'm slick enough to have about 30 on my soul.

I'm wacthing some movie right now on FX. Its horrible, not in that its a bad movie, but it makes Nip/Tuck look like a bastion of sainthood by comparison. I'm laughing my ass off, and Machiavelli is cry tears of pride in his grave.

 

[Zorodius]

Am I the only one intending to watch tonight's episode for the sole purpose of ridiculing it?

 

[Moonbear]

Am I the only one intending to watch tonight's episode for the sole purpose of ridiculing it?

I already watched...well...sort of. I'm a few time zones ahead of you. This one was even worse than last week, if you can imagine it, so I couldn't even stay focused to laugh at it.

 

[motai]

Am I the only one intending to watch tonight's episode for the sole purpose of ridiculing it?

Nope, I watched it, and it seems like its repeating itself. Same premise as last episode, but now with a virus.

 

[Moonbear]

Nope, I watched it, and it seems like its repeating itself. Same premise as last episode, but now with a virus.

But now we know the weird math genius guy is a professor with security clearance! He sure doesn't look old enough to be a professor (and this is coming from a professor who still gets mistaken for a grad student on occasion).

 

[Benzsk8]

Sorry for bringing this really old thread back up, but couple things have to be cleared up. Most of the equations are true especially when Bill Nye is a guest. It is not ment to be a total math based show hence the Friday primetime spot and the most watched Friday night show. Also Moonbear if you read the background on the show you would understand that he went to Princeton at the age of 13 and is 30 now they reference that in the show too. Now don't take this the wrong way, I'm not tring to insult anyone and we are all allowed to have our opinion, also some of these points have been addressed after the first season and as you know most of the time the first season is not the greatest. Once again this is not ment to insult anyone and we are all allowed to think what we want to.

 

[Evo]

Is anyone actually watching this show? I stopped before the first season ended, it's just too silly.

It's a fictitious tv show, who's going to read "background" about it? It would be different if it was about someone real, but it's not. Me thinks some people get too involved with their tv set.

 

[Defennder]

You know what would be sillier than the Numb3rs show itself? The Uncyclopedia entry on Numb3rs. It really cracks me up:

http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/NUMB3RS

Sorry if this is a little off-topic. Couldn't help it.

 

[Evo]

You know what would be sillier than the Numb3rs show itself? The Uncyclopedia entry on Numb3rs. It really cracks me up:

http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/NUMB3RS

Sorry if this is a little off-topic. Couldn't help it.

That's funny.

 

[D H]

I was about to tell Benzsk8 to stop necromancing old threads. However, even if he hadn't brought up this 3 year old thread, I wouldn't have seen this:

http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/NUMB3RS

Much better than that stupid show ever was. Thank you!

I also liked the connection to the show "Crimes Solved Instantly". Very apropos.

 

[Benzsk8]

It's a fictitious tv show, who's going to read "background" about it? :

Well you should know that you need to underrstand the topic you are talking about before you say it is dumb. It's like saying E=MC^2 is a horrible concept because it was just used for the atomic bomb without talking about its other uses. Now I do say some of the ideas in numb3rs are off, but its a primetime show ment to entertain not be a math intensive lecture. The idea is to show normal people what math is used in.

 

[Evo]

The idea is to show normal people what math is used in.

Well, then they've really missed the mark!

If it gets some kids more interested in math, that's great, but if you know math, watching the show is painful.

 

[D H]

but if you know math, watching the show is painful.

That misses the mark a bit. It's on a par with saying that getting a root canal is painful.

Some of my scientific and engineering cohorts used to wish that TV would have a show about our kind of work. My response was that any such show would either be terribly boring or terribly wrong. This show is both.

The TV producers need to make more Crimes Solved Instantly shows so my lawyer buddies at the bar have even more to gripe about. (Lawyers and investigators feel more or less the same about CSI and its ilk as those of us at PF feel about Numb3rs.)

 

[Benzsk8]

I agree that they miss the mark for math people, but from what I have read it's basically to show people how math is used in every day life like car remotes and gambling. It is also pointed to get kids interested in math because TI has a whole Numb3rs course for students. You also have to agree that some of the math is impraticle for the case. Is he really going to be able to do all that math in couple of hours?

 

[RocketSurgery]

The first episode is actually almost an exact retelling of a case that was solved by the help of a Mathematician. I've heard that the math shown is actually some of the math that the guy used. Perhaps the people who think the math isn't used correctly aren't so knowledgeable in the areas covered in the show?

 

[Hurkyl]

I'm not sure why everyone has a problem with the show; the few I've seen have been at least fair. In the most recent one I've seen, they brought up the notion of a statistical sample being 'too random', and I thought their handling of it was reasonable.