THE MATH behind NUMB3RS
Original Math Notes
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Season 1: Episode Index
Episode 101:
Pilot Episode
Los Angeles FBI agent Don Eppes recruits his mathematical genius brother Charlie to help him solve crimes. In the debut episode, a serial rapist begins killing his victims, terrorizing the area, so the brothers work to pinpoint the suspect's point of origin by using a math equation based on the various crime-scene locations.
Math used:
geographic profiling, probability theory, eleven-dimensional supergravity theory, projectile motion
Episode 102:
Uncertainty Principle
Charlie accurately predicts where a band of bank robbers will strike next, but when Don and his team confront them, a massive shoot-out occurs and four people, including an officer, are killed. The outcome disturbs Charlie and he retreats into the family garage to work on an unsolvable math problem, which he also plunged into after his mother become ill a year earlier. But Don needs his brother's help and tries to get Charlie to return to the case.
Math used:
P versus NP problem, Heisenberg's uncertainty principle
Episode 103:
Vector
When various L.A.-area residents seemingly having nothing in common become extremely sick and die on the same day, Don fears that bioterrorists may have released a deadly virus into the environment. While he tries to discover whether anyone is behind the outbreak, Charlie attempts to locate the point of origin.
Math used:
patient zero, viral vector, vector, SIR model
Episode 104:
Structural Corruption
Charlie believes that a college student who committed suicide by jumping from a bridge was actually murdered, and that his death is related to an engineering thesis he was working on about one of L.A.'s newest and most important buildings, which may not be as structurally safe as its owner claims it is. Back at home, Alan prepares for his first date in 35 years.
Math used:
pendulum, Foucault's pendulum, Occam's razor, fluid dynamics
Episode 105:
Prime Suspect
A six-year-old girl is kidnapped by a pair of clowns hired to perform at her birthday party shortly after the celebration ends. The girl's dad is a brilliant mathematician who is working on a complex problem and refuses to cooperate with the police, saying that he can get his daughter back without their help. This leads Charlie to believe that the kidnappers are after something that the missing girl's father is working on. Back at home, Alan decides to sell his house.
Episode 106:
Sabotage
A serial saboteur claims responsibility for a deadly accident in which a train crashes into an empty school bus that was abandoned on railroad tracks. The perpetrator left a note that appears to be a numeric code, which Charlie tries to crack. Soon it's learned that the accident is a re-creation of a previous wreck, and that the person behind it is responsible for six train mishaps over the past three years, all of which were copies of earlier rail disasters.
Math used:
Kasiski examination, cryptography, Fibonacci sequence, golden ratio, Beale ciphers
Episode 107:
Counterfeit Reality
Don learns that counterfeiters are at work producing small-denomination bills, and that they have taken an artist hostage to draw the images for the fake money. If the missing woman isn't located soon, Don fears that she will be killed when her work is finished on the phony cash. The counterfeiters have already murdered at least five people, two of whom stole money from them. The case is made more difficult for Don when his former lover, now a Secret Service agent, is assigned to it.
Episode 108:
Identity Crisis
A man wanted for stock fraud is found garroted in his apartment and the crime is eerily similar to a murder committed a year earlier, a case Don closed when an ex-con confessed. Now, Don reinvestigates the old case to determine if he put an innocent man in jail. He asks Charlie to go over the evidence to see if anything was missed the first time around.
Math used:
poker, geometric progression, paper folding, pyramid scheme, fingerprint, Schrödinger's cat
Episode 109:
Trajectory
The city is in a panic after a sniper goes on a shooting spree and randomly kills several people, including a postal worker. The investigation reveals that more than one shooter is at work. As Charlie works the case, he's frustrated by a sniper expert Don brings in to help out.
Math used:
projectile motion, tipping point, reversion to the mean, exponential growth
Episode 110:
Dirty Bomb
A truck carrying radioactive material is stolen, and the thieves threaten to set off a dirty bomb in L.A. in 12 hours if they aren't paid $20 million. While Don attempts to track down the truck, Charlie tries to come up with the most likely location where the bomb may be detonated in order to inflict the most damage on the population.
Math used:
game theory, prisoner's dilemma, radioactive decay
Episode 111:
Sacrifice
A senior computer-science researcher working on a classified government project is found murdered in his Hollywood Hills home, and data has been stolen from his computer. The investigation reveals that the victim was going through a bitter divorce and was trying to keep his wife from getting his money. Charlie also learns that the project the man was working on may involve baseball.
Math used:
sabermetrics, econometrics, Van Eck phreaking
Episode 112:
Noisy Edge
An unidentified flying object that is invisible to radar is heard in the night sky near L.A., and Don fears it may be linked to terrorists plotting to crash the vehicle into a downtown building. While Don tries to determine what the flying object is, Charlie attempts to trace its flight pattern to a specific target. Also, Charlie takes up golf, and Alan instructs him on how the game is played.
Episode 113:
Man Hunt
Don searches for two convicts, one of whom is a contract killer who escaped when a prison bus crashed near L.A. Don fears the convicted murderer may try to harm a doctor who testified against him in court, so Don gets help from a friend he once worked with in fugitive recovery. Meanwhile, Charlie attempts to zero in on where the felon may be hiding and where he'll strike next.
Math used:
Bayesian inference, Markov chain, Chapman-Kolmogorov equation, Monty Hall problem
 
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