Ted's Polish-Mexican Page

I hardly watch Numb3rs, mostly because I usually have a game at that time, not because of a busy social life. I watch the show when I can, but it ain't "destination television." Last night, my game was early, so I managed to catch it.


Let me get this right, first thing, I'm supposed to buy Rob Morrow as a badass FBI agent. Okay, once I buy that, I am supposed to buy that Morrow's character, Agent Don Eppes, needs to go to his brother, Dr. Charlie Eppes, for help on every darned case. Yes, I know that mathematics and an understanding of logic is helpful in big criminal investigations ("We use numbers every day..."), but puhleese. Despite the references to Fourier analysis and Bayesian search theory, most of the mathematics on the show could be accomplished by one of a dozen or so forensic accountants that work at the FBI's Los Angeles field office. Maybe Agent Eppes is trying to steer some money his brother's way, I don't know.

Last night's episode involved a sinkhole that spontaneously appeared in a school yard that injured several children. So, who do they call to investigate? The mathematician, his cosmologist buddy, and his dad. Well, the father, Alan Eppes, is supposed to be a retired planner, so I guess he'd know something. But why, get Dr. Fleinhart, who knows more about wormholes than sinkholes? Yeah, he's a brilliant astronomer (and dragonslayer); I'd get it if he was a planetary scientist, but, he's a theoretician for God's sake. Doesn't that CalSci University have any geologists on staff?

Somehow, Fleinhart uses seismology to find out what is going on. The guy knows the fine points of seismology. Geez, it's like he's Reed Richards or something.


One interesting touch: Dr. Eppes's girlfriend is named Amita Ramanujan. She's his graduate assistant. As we all know from television and movies, all male professors have a bevy of hot graduate students who they are allowed to date with no consequences. The interesting part though is that she is apparently named in honor of brilliant Indian mathematician Srinivāsa Rāmānujan, who like the character was a Tamil.

Rāmānujan was a self-taught and invited to study at Cambridge in 1914. His career there was short lived because of his work schedule and the poor diet he maintained while in England (insert joke about English cooking here, but as a Tamil Brahmin, it was hard "keep kosher," so to speak, with war time food shortages). He returned to India where he died of turberculosis exacerbated by a vitamin deficiency.

Since he was self-trained, he was never shown how to write a proper proof. Many of his formulae had no proofs at all. An entire journal, the Ramanujan Journal, is dedicated to proving his theorems and finding applications for them in other fields.


Hasta la proxima. Do zobaczenia.