# TV Show "Numbers" **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 24, 2009, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-show-numbers/487225 "2009-02-24T17:31:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![GaryM](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/garym/32/241_2.png) [@GaryM](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GaryM)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2009, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-show-numbers/487225/1 "2009-02-24T17:31:04Z")
I’ll readily admit that I’m not very well versed in higher math, but is all that stuff they show on the Numbers TV show for real? Or is it all TV Land math? Simple question really. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2009, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-show-numbers/487225/2 "2009-02-24T17:36:03Z")
From what I could gather when I still watched it\*, the math is all real. The writers take a real math concept and construct a plot around it. \*The first season was great, but starting the second season, it became **CSI: Math** and stopped being original or good. ---
**Author:** ![GaryM](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/garym/32/241_2.png) [@GaryM](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GaryM)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2009, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-show-numbers/487225/3 "2009-02-24T18:28:21Z")
Thanks, I’ll try and pay a little more attention, maybe I can learn something. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2009, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-show-numbers/487225/4 "2009-02-24T19:08:25Z")
You might be interested in the book [The Numbers Behind NUMB3RS: Solving Crime with Mathematics](http://www.amazon.com/Numbers-Behind-NUMB3RS-Solving-Mathematics/dp/0452288576) or the website [The Math Behind Numb3rs](http://numb3rs.wolfram.com/season5.html). ---
**Author:** ![nivlac](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/3bc359/32.png) [@nivlac](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nivlac)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2009, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-show-numbers/487225/5 "2009-02-24T21:34:13Z")
\*CSI \*is to a real crime lab as _Numbers_ is to how math can be used to solve crimes. Lots of dramatic license in the stories. There’s way more uncertainty in how things shake out in the real world. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2009, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-show-numbers/487225/6 "2009-02-24T23:28:16Z")
Yeah, they did cut down on the math after the first season and that was a disappointment. And while the underlying math is real, the applications are Hollywood math, impossibly fast, impossibly accurate, applicable to every database, hackable into any system. Yeah, but. Num3ers probably treats science and intellectualism more accurately and more respectfully than any other show in history. Maybe even better than Mr. Wizard. Science is a real-life goal and chore and possibility and one that is treated equally with blowing guys away with big guns. That’s worth seeing even when the math is slighted somewhat. The only real flaw to the show is the Horrible Wasting Woman Syndrome it features. Each year the female FBI lead, an actress skinny even by Hollywood standards, is replaced by an actress who is, amazingly, even skinnier. When they walk down the aisles of FBI headquarters they pass through doorways two at a time. The women now have less thickness than their guns. They have the visible arm strength of cooked spaghetti. And this is a show where the guys look amazingly like ordinary guys, even the FBI types, with maybe one exception. They tried to break this double standard one year with Kathy Najimy as the head of the physics department but she never fit in and I was glad to see her go.