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This is a blog where a professor from Northeastern University's Math department posts mathematical comments on the television show "Numb3rs". To comment, write to bridger@neu.edu.
Unique visitors since 6/14/2005:
February 24, 2007
Charlie spoke in last night's episode about "Cake-cutting" algorithms. Since an algorithm is a mathematical "recipe," that seems appropriate in connection with cakes. But what is this all about?
Here's the idea in the simplest, two-person situation. A and B have a rectangular, uniform cake, say 10 inches long, and they want to cut it "fairly"... continued »
February 19, 2007
Early on in last Friday's (2/16/07) show, Amita and Charlie talk about a modified "Kruskal count."
Frankly, I couldn't see how Kruskal counts could be applied in any way to finding the killer of the two boxers... continued »
February 16, 2007
Looking again at last week's episode ("End of Watch" about the cop-killer) I realized there were a few more things to clarify.
The first bit of mathematics comes in when Charlie does a Laser Swath Mapping (LSM) of the construction site where Officer Everett's body was found... continued »
February 11, 2007
In last Friday's episode, Alan is being sued because the golf course he designed is reflecting too much light into neighbors' windows. The reflection of light is a very interesting subject because it involves physics -- including quantum mechanics -- biology and, of course, a lot of mathematics tying it all together... continued »
February 7, 2007
Data can often be interpreted in many different ways, and what is significant when looked at in one way may not be when looked at in another. Here is a simplified example.
Seven spies are given the nicknames: MINT, APPLE, LIME, CHARTREUSE, OLIVE, SAGE and ORANGE. One of the spies is the leader of the ring, and we have reason to believe that this leader has a "special" code name... continued »
February 3, 2007
In trying to locate the source of some Caribbean money laundering, Charlie mentions that he is searching for "outliers" -- not to be confused with Caribbean outriggers, of course!
An outlier is an item of observed data which differs significantly, in either quality or size, from the other data. Oddly, outliers are important in statistics because they can be either significant or misleading.
Here's a simple example... continued »