Sunday, April 03, 2005

Numb3rs Review: "Identity Crisis"

I never got around to posting my Numb3rs review because this episode was rather low on the math. There was a small element of Bayesian reasoning, where Charlie attempts to figure out the likelihood that Charlie convicted the wrong guy based on two crimes having the same M.O.

Plot Summary: Don discovers a crime with an M.O identical to a case that he thought he had solved a year ago. He gets Charlie to tell him that the likelihood of a coincidence was very small, and then goes after the real killer. Along the way, Charlie insults a fingerprint specialist, but she gets her revenge, with a "butcher's hook" (no no, not that kind).

What I found more interesting was a real life Numb3rs story (with no crime though), via the New Yorker, starring the brothers Chudnovsky, and a delicately tampered rug. And if you're tired of such seriousness, check out this profile of the most beautiful mathematics grad student on TV, Navi Rawat (courtesy Sepia Mutiny).

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