Mathematical Fluency is No Easy Equation Gary Robbins OCRegister.com
April 9, 2oo5 I was feeling dumb about being stupid in mathematics until I called Gary Lorden recently to ask about actor David Krumholtz's skill in writing complicated equations in CBS' new hit TV show "Numb3rs." Lorden is chairman of the math department at Caltech and a consultant on "Numb3rs," which focuses on Charlie Eppes (Krumholtz), a university math genius who helps the FBI solve crime. Math, apparently, is indispensable to crime-fighting. Lorden told me that Krumholtz doesn't write all of those equations, which are also known as "expressions." The scribbling requires speed, precision and experience. So the producers have, at times, needed a "stunt hand." The hand belongs to Caltech grad student David Grynkiewicz. The director simply shot a close-up of Grynkiewicz's hand scribbling equations. To which I say: A-hah! Higher math is so complicated that merely writing out scripted equations is so tough an actor needs help doing it. I no longer feel quite so dumb. Some of you are saying, "Well, that's a stretch." Really? Then why do so many of you use Quicken software to compute your finances? Is it because you like Quicken's colorful little icons? No. It's because you struggle with math. And I'm talking lower math. There's no shame in that. Of all the academic disciplines, math is easily the most arcane. The field is split into odd-sounding sub-specialties. Grynkiewicz is a master of combinatorics. I looked the word up in dictionary.com. It means, "Combinatorial mathematics." That wasn't much help, so I deferred to my brother-in-law, an economist at the Federal Reserve in Philadelphia. He says, "This stuff is important in game theory and some areas of macroeconomics, where they do something called 'calibration.' About all I remember now are simple binomial distributions (coin tosses)." Yeah, thanks, but I'm still not getting it. Indeed, merely defining the field is maddening. The famed German mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss wrote, "Mathematics is the queen of science, and arithmetic the queen of mathematics." There's a difference between math and arithmetic? Who knew? As long as the cashier gives me the right change at 7-Eleven, I really don't care. And the next time someone tells me, "Math is the only universal language," I'm going to say, "Really? Then why do so few of us speak it?" // go back // |