NUMB3RS: The MATH show

In the CBS show Numb3rs, “Cal Sci” (loosely based on Caltech, California
Institute of Technology) mathematician Charlie Eppes (David Krumholtz)
gets chewed out by his friend, physics professor Larry Fleinhardt (Peter
MacNicol), for missing a meeting, in a scene filmed under the sunlit arches
of Caltech’s Kerckhoff Laboratories.
"Leave it to television to work out a way to make a national symbol of
nerdiness—mathematics—into something sexy.

Aided by an intense, young, tousle-haired math professor named Charlie
Eppes, the creators of Numb3rs, airing Fridays at 10 p.m. (Pacific Time)
on CBS, manage to do just that. Yes, the algorithm ace looks dashing as he
plummets down a hill in a glorified go-cart he calls an extreme-gravity
vehicle. But it’s not just math-flavored machismo. Caltech-caliber
calculations course through the episodes, facilitated by professor Gary
Lorden ’62, who serves as Numb3rs’s mathematics advisor, and
buttressed by scenes shot at the Institute.

Numb3rs, which premiered January 23, covers familiar TV crime-busting
territory—foiling bioterrorism, outwitting bank robbers, and stopping a
serial rapist. But there’s a twist: FBI Special Agent Don Eppes (Rob
Morrow, of Northern Exposure fame) enlists the help of his brilliant
younger brother, Charlie (David Krumholtz), a math professor, to solve
some of the bureau’s most vexing cases.

Real algorithms help the Eppes brothers uncover a serial rapist’s point of
origin when Charlie works out an equation derived from crime scene
locations pinpointed on a map. He uses probability, statistics, graph theory,
and vector analysis to identify the culprit in a Spanish flu outbreak that
strikes Los Angeles. Week after week, viewers see how Charlie uses actual
mathematical methods to help crack tough cases."
[Source: "Crime and Computation" by Rhonda Hillbery (Full Story )]