Math, Science and Popular Culture

A digital video recorder (DVR) destroyed my evenings. I write that, though, with some guilty pleasure. I really was not much of a television viewer until I upgraded our technology stack, including an HD receiver with DVR pumping glorious time-shifted detail through an LCD television with a surround-sound system.

That was just over a year ago and my evening productivity has suffered. I spent probably six months just exploring features, programming a universal remote and capturing programming. Then I settled in to watch some specific programs in addition to movies and documentaries.

There are four network programs that I want to mention because of their unexpected cultural importance: the CSI franchise, House, Numb3rs and Criminal Minds. In each case, science or mathematics plays an essential role. In each case, the background material is actually well-researched, although the outcomes are almost always ridiculously neat in order to fit the format.

Numb3rs is the show closest to my background in terms of using algorithms and mathematics to solve problems. In a recent show, in fact, one mathematician used a classification and regression tree (CART) algorithm to do something. I’ve used CART before. Some of the other topics in social network analysis and covering algorithms also ring vaguely true, though they are distorted through a lens of excited elaboration that gets tiresome over time.

Northeastern University keeps track of some of the Numb3rs mathematics, here.

But more important, I think, is the cultural message that intelligent people with highly developed skill sets are heroes. Even Gregory House is a hero of sorts in his coldly analytical pursuit of truth, his anti-theism and dedication to correct diagnoses. I contrast this kind of programming with 90210, Dallas or other cultural phenomena that seemed to cater to baser ideas of wealth, power and privilege. Is the brain on the rise?

I have to admit that I am getting some kind of network television fatigue here after a year with the DVR and shows are stacking up on the hard drive. I may have to go back to a stricter media diet, but hope the science and math keeps a place on the television menu.