64 of 65 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Read the book. Watch the show., August 29, 2007
If you watch the TV show Numbers, you'll enjoy reading this book. If you read this book, you'll enjoy watching the TV show.
My wife, who hates math (and is admittedly very poor at it), and I, who love math, both started watching this show from the first episode. She enjoys the show as much as I do. This book, which uses some of the episodes from the show for illustration, does a very fine job of discussing some of the mathematics used on the show. But it does more than that. It discusses the mathematics used by real law enforcement, the CIA, NSA, FBI, courts, etc.
I think one of the strengths of this book is that it corrects a misunderstanding about mathematics, which is that mathematics is identical to arithmetic. Or another misunderstanding, which is that math uses just numbers. Math is much more than that; it's more than algebra or geometry or even calculus. This book discusses a few of these additional areas, such as graph theory, geographic profiling, and Bayesian inference. It has just enough math to be interesting to the wannabe mathematician (like me) and enough good explanations and analogies to be interesting to everyone.
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14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Technical reading at times but very interesting for the nerd in all of us, December 4, 2007
I'm a huge fan of the tv series, and I wanted to find out more behind the formulas and models used on the show. What I realized is that I'm not as mathematically savvy as I could be, and that the show is very good at applying very complex models to real life, layperson situations.
The book does a very good job at breaking down the theory and explanation, and also explains that the mathematics is intended to address probability and statistical analysis, not to solve the problem. This, I believe, is the key to enjoying both the book and the show.
A great supplement to the show.
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A good survey of Mathematics in action, April 14, 2008
I started watching Numb3rs after reading this book. Actually the book helped appreciating the show since the show itself does not clarify many of the techniques they use and most of the time we just have to trust the show. In that sense this book acts as a companion book to the show itself. But it does more than that. The chapter on network analysis was particularly interesting and the discussion on misplaced degrees of separation a good one. The authors make a very readable text even for non-mathematicians.But authors try to cover too many sub fields of applied mathematics in this small book. The depth of the book suffers because these ambitions selections.
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