Abstract
If physics tells the story of the Universe, and mathematics its language, then one might be tempted to believe that, as onscreen depictions of science and scientists improve, mathematics and mathematicians would be similarly uplifted. Unfortunately, onscreen depictions of anything math-related has been a mixed bag in recent years. This has not always been the case. In the past, filmmakers were more comfortable with math, probably because the viewing populace was more comfortable with it. In fact, the best explanation for an onscreen mathematical mistake by a beloved character was that it was actually a gag inserted intentionally by the filmmakers.
Philosophy is written in this grand book—I mean the universe—which stands continually open to our gaze. But it cannot be understood unless one first learns to comprehend the language and interpret the characters in which it is written. It is written in the language of mathematics.
Galileo Galilei, polymath, 1623
We all use math every day. To predict weather… to tell time… to handle money. Math is more than formulas and equations. It’s logic; it’s rationality. It’s using your mind to solve the biggest mysteries we know.
Charlie Eppes (David Krumholtz), Opening narration, Numb3rs
The commonality between science and art is in trying to see profoundly—to develop strategies of seeing and showing.
Edward Tufte, statistician
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- 1.
That the Scarecrow had no idea he was wrong, and did not know his analysis fell far short of accurate, one might argue that this is a perfect example of the Dunning-Kruger effect. Part of this says that if you are inexpert in a topic, you not only lack the ability to recognize mastery, you also have no idea how far away you are from attaining expertise.
- 2.
- 3.
Especially if you subscribe to the notion—as many do—that, once a piece of art is created, it is open to subjective interpretation, divorced from that of its creator.
- 4.
It was actually well over six billion.
- 5.
The end of the novel, where π comes into play is actually very touching and satisfying. It is worth a read—you will understand our frustration at its omission in the film—or, might we recommend the excellent audio book with Jodi Foster performing the narration?
- 6.
The BBC went in the other direction in “The Five Doctors”, the 20th Anniversary Special for Doctor Who. The value of π was an important clue to solving a life or death puzzle.
- 7.
Arndt, Jörg; Haenel, Christoph (2006). Pi Unleashed. Springer-Verlag. Berlin 1998 ISBN 978-3-540-66572-4.
- 8.
Vinge is credited with coining the term “technological singularity” (though a better assessment is that he popularized the term), so we will meet him again in Chap. 4.
- 9.
Miller, Jon D. (2007). The Public Understanding of Science in Europe and the United States. Paper presented at the AAAS annual meeting in San Francisco (Feb. 16).
- 10.
- 11.
His brother Johann was also a famous mathematician.
- 12.
In male cat humor, then, your εχ is not somebody you used to be involved with, it’s your 142nd lady cat girlfriend.
- 13.
Dictated by computer hardware.
- 14.
Examples abound in TV and cinema where mathematics is the key to understanding all of the mysteries of the Universe.
- 15.
For an alternate view on this, see the YouTube video “You’re not bad at math, you’re just lazy”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tg0Z--pmPog
- 16.
What Barbie did not say is the more often-quoted, “Math is hard.” Not that the difference matters much.
- 17.
1992 was 24 years ago, and children who played with Teen Talk Barbie are now, or soon will be, having the children who will play with Computer Engineer Barbie. So, whatever the underlying motivation, this is a good thing.
- 18.
Another mathematical detail that is important, as mentioned in Chap. 1, is that the uncertainty of the information you extract from your data is proportional to 1/n½. The original study suggesting that autism was linked to the MMR vaccine was riddled with errors, but one of these was that the original data set was for 12 children, collected at a party. Studies have since incorporated data from over 100,000 individuals. This means that, all else being equal, a well-controlled study with 100,000 data points is roughly 29,000 times more reliable than one with 12 data points.
- 19.
The modern Skeptics movement relates specifically to scientific skepticism, and involves the testing of various types of claims—from the pseudoscientific to the paranormal—using the rigors of scientific inquiry to gauge their reliability.
- 20.
Before it became Syfy.
- 21.
This ethical approach is technically known as “Utilitarianism.” It is not without its critics, but it has had enormous influence on public policy.
- 22.
For example, here’s an actual line from Andrew Wiles’ famous proof of Fermat’s Last Theorem:
$$ \mathrm{X}=\left\{{\mathrm{H}}^0\left({\Sigma^{\upmu}}_1,{\Omega}^1\right)\oplus {\mathrm{H}}^0\left({\Sigma^{\acute{\mathrm{e}} \mathrm{t}}}_1,{\Omega}_1\right)\right\} $$ - 23.
Which is just (22/7) × 34.
- 24.
In this film, more correctly, the meaninglessness of life.
- 25.
Like a logline, an elevator pitch is a short summary of a script—but an elevator pitch is even more succinct. Imagine that you find yourself on an elevator with J. J. Abrams, and you have one floor to pitch your screenplay. Elevator pitches often take the form of, “Imagine Golden Girls meets Cloverfield.”
- 26.
As much as we love her, a 28 year old Danica McKellar playing a high school girl? Really? For that matter, Justin Long was 24 at the time. Neither sold “high school student” particularly well.
- 27.
Perkowitz, S. Hollywood Science: Movies, Science & the End of the World. London: Cambridge University Press. 2007.
- 28.
Air Warfare Expert Christine Fox—Fighter Pilots Call Her “Legs”—Inspires the New Movie Top Gun: http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20091443,00.html
- 29.
Fox was slated to move on from the Naval Fighter Weapons School shortly after the People article was written. As a final tribute—as well as a final tease—the naval aviators began calling her by a new callsign after Top Gun went into production: Star.
- 30.
Author KRG lives in LA, where the entertainment industry there tends to use the unisex term “actor” (except for award ceremonies). Most other places that have active TV/film industries still tend to distinguish and use the terms “actor” and “actress”. It’s simply part of the local culture.
- 31.
You know, off her rocker, crazy.
- 32.
This is also a problem for science publications intended for the general public. In his career as a science and technology journalist, SAC can testify to the constant difficulty editors had in commissioning stories about mathematics, due to the highly abstract nature of many of the concepts involved. Currently Quanta magazine, published by the Simons Foundation, is probably doing the best job of covering developments in mathematics.
- 33.
Screenwriters and filmmakers, too.
- 34.
In fact, one could write a related book Hollyweird Mathematics. Neither author has the inclination to write that book in its entirety—but if you have the cred and want to take the lead, send us an email, and we’ll consider teaming up.
- 35.
Which is not the same as answering how to use the method, to be clear. The method is also used for finding the points where the value of an equation is zero, or its “roots”.
- 36.
Campbell does add, “And if the start value is too far removed from true zero, then it fails,” which is not necessarily true. It can have difficulties in certain circumstances, but—to get technical for a moment—the distance from the root is not necessarily an issue if the equation is smoothly-varying.
- 37.
Or not. Though many linquists will insist the languages are related, there is some debate on the topic.
- 38.
Still, the most “Oh, please” aspect of that scene is that a professor would offer extra credit in an upper-level mathematics class at MIT.
- 39.
People who have seen the show just heard those words in exactly the way we intended.
- 40.
Vos Savant is also married to scientist Robert Jarvik, one of two principle developers of the Jarvik-7 artificial heart.
- 41.
We’re looking at you, Walter White.
- 42.
Which is known today as the Jaime Escalante Math Program at ELAC.
- 43.
2011 National Film Registry More Than a Box of Chocolates, Library of Congress. December 28, 2011. Retrieved April 2, 2016 ( http://www.loc.gov/today/pr/2011/11-240.html ).
- 44.
Because some people have too much time on their hands, there was actually a little bit of a controversy about the numeral 3 that replaces an “e” in the title of the show. Columnist Ellen Gray with The Philadelphia Daily News, lamented, “Some of you may have noticed that in promoting “Numb3rs,” which premieres Sunday before moving to its regular 10 p.m. Friday slot, CBS has chosen to put a 3 in place of the “e” in the title….I won’t be going along with this particular affectation, which slows down my typing and seems to be the graphic equivalent of the reversed “R” in Toys R Us. So there.” One word: macro. So there.
- 45.
If you are a fan of the film Serenity (2005), it takes a while before you stop expecting Charlie to say, “You can’t stop the signal, Don.”
- 46.
Network 23 has always been known for its imaginative offerings.
- 47.
“Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics” was also episode 121 in the NBC drama The West Wing.
- 48.
The phrase was popularized by Mark Twain (among others). Twain attributed it to British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, but the earliest known appearance of the phrase was years after Disraeli’s death.
- 49.
Illusory superiority, also known as the “Lake Wobegon Effect” is a cognitive bias in which individuals overestimate their own abilities with respect to those of others. Doesn’t everybody think they’re an excellent driver? See also the science box in this chapter “The Nature of Randomness, or Why Stars ‘Die in Threes”.
- 50.
Assuming, of course, that it wasn’t a murder/suicide.
- 51.
The observation about random data was suggested by KRG who was the Eureka science advisor. It was totally based upon a saying from one of his old professors—Purdue seismologist Robert Nowak—who has quipped on more than one occasion, “Random events will tend to cluster. If they’re evenly-spaced, they’re probably not random.”
- 52.
See Newman, W. I., D.L. Turcotte, and B.M. Malamud (2012), Emergence of patterns in random processes, Phys. Rev. E., 86, 026103.
- 53.
Of course, assigning a value of zero to a non-winning ticket may also be flawed. How much are a few daydreams about what you’d do with the jackpot worth?
- 54.
Shudder.
- 55.
Making Amita the Charlie Blackwood of Numb3rs—what is it that makes producers say, “Although this is a show about the power of mathematics, Amita is too hot to be a mathematician, but… yes… an astrophysicist would be perfect!”? Like an astrophysicist doesn’t spent all her day doing math and/or coding and/or running computer models. Of course, the irony is that many of the mathematical methods used in all areas of physics were formulated to help solve problems in astronomy or celestial mechanics. (Calculus anybody?)
- 56.
A great player in his own right, Morgan was the second baseman with the World Series Champion Cincinnati Reds in 1974 and 1975, winning MVP honors both seasons.
- 57.
NBA Great Charles Barkley is also an outspoken critic of similar analytics in professional basketball.
- 58.
The character Peter Brand was an amalgam of several assistants who worked for the Oakland Athletics, but the character was based primarily upon Paul DePodesta, who was the assistant to manager Billy Beane. In January 2016 the National Football League Cleveland Browns received criticism for hiring DePodesta, a lifetime “baseball guy.” Already the complaints have started that DePodesta’s system undervalues the manager in baseball, and that no NFL head coach with an ounce of self respect will buy into it. The complaints sound suspiciously like those at the end of Moneyball. We look forward to the future success of the Cleveland Browns, and to the sequel Moneyball II: Pigskin Prophecies. http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/14508016/cleveland-browns-hire-new-york-mets-paul-depodesta-chief-strategy-officer
- 59.
The episode aired several years before the 2011 film.
- 60.
The series Numb3rs partnered with Wolfram Research—makers of the mathematical software tool Mathematica—to create the web site “The Numbers of Numb3rs” ( http://numb3rs.wolfram.com /). The site features descriptions of the mathematical and statistical techniques featured in various episodes of the series, and is definitely worth a visit!
- 61.
It’s interesting how Walter O’Brien, the main character in Scorpion, looks less like his real-life counterpart, and more like Charlie Eppes from Numb3rs, while the character of Sylvester Dodd bears more than a passing resemblance to Peter Brand, the statistician from Moneyball. Say what you will about Scorpion, and neither of your authors are fans of the show, the producers are clearly connoisseurs of cinematic mathematicians.
- 62.
Meaning he’s not wholly without redeeming qualities.
- 63.
Which blurs the line between math and physics, admittedly.
- 64.
Episode 911 (season 9, episode 11), "The Spark in the Park".
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Grazier, K.R., Cass, S. (2017). The Scarecrow’s Blunder: Mathematics and Statistics. In: Hollyweird Science: The Next Generation. Science and Fiction. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-54215-7_4
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