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Archive (Travelers, Season 3 Episode 8) (2018) |
 | Ken Kabatoff / Brad Wright |
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Math plays a major role in this episode of the Netflix series "Travelers". Following the show's usual format, the episode begins with a person in the present day going about his normal activity when... (more) |
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The Brady Kids (Episode: It's All Greek to Me) (1972) |
 | Marc Richards (screenwriter) / Marc Richards (director) |
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I had completely forgotten that there was a cartoon about the Brady Bunch until I ran across this while searching for mathematical fiction. But, it looks so familiar (the pet pandas, the cheesy animation,... (more) |
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Breaking the Code (1986) |
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| Hugh Whitemore (playwright) |
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This biography of Alan Turing is a "character study" of this
fascinating mathematician. Although we do see some mathematics (including
an especially nice description of Gödel's Theorem and its mathematical
significance)... (more) |
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Burn Notice (Episode: Signals and Codes) (2009) |
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| Jason Tracey (screenplay) / Jeremiah Chechik (director) |
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Presumably, each episode of this old TV series features ex-CIA agent Michael Westen catching some "bad guys" in the hope of being re-accepted by his former employer. (I say "presumably" because I've... (more) |
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The Cold Equations (1954) |
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| Tom Godwin |
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This classic science fiction story is a favorite of English teachers
because, even after all of these years, it has the ability to get the
attention of and provoke discussion amongst otherwise apathetic... (more) |
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Crash Course in Romance (2023) |
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| Je Won Yu (director) / Hee-Seung Yang (writer) |
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A grocery store owner and a "celebrity" math teacher fall in love in this South Korean TV series. Each episode’s title is mathematical, and we get to see Choi Chi-yeol being treated like a rock star... (more) |
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Cyberchase (2002) |
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| Educational Broadcasting Corporation |
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Three kids go inside "cyberspace" to help the maternal Mother Board
fight the evil Hacker. Each episode, in addition to learning about
computers, the kids have to develop their mathematical skills to... (more) |
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Doctor Who (Episode: Logopolis) (1981) |
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| Christopher Bidmead |
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This episode of the popular
BBC show "Doctor Who" (most famously the last episode featuring the fourth Doctor as played by Tom Baker) involves a city of whispering mathematicians
whose computations keep... (more) |
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The Dreams in the Witch-House (1933) |
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| H.P. Lovecraft |
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In this story, Walter Gilman, a mathematics graduate student at Miskatonic
University
in Arkham, Mass, rents a room in the famed haunted "Witch House" of Keziah
Mason,
a witch who legend says escaped... (more) |
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Elementary (Episode: Solve for X) (2013) |
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| Jerry Levine (director)/Jeffrey Paul King (screenplay) |
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In this episode from the second season of Elementary featuring a modern version of Sherlock Holmes with a female Watson, the duo discover equations in invisible ink on the walls in a murdered mathematician's... (more) |
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Family Ties (Episode: My Tutor) (1985) |
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| Jace Richdale (Screenplay) / Sam Weisman (Director) |
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I'm writing to bring your attention to a television episode for
possible addition to your mathematical fiction website. The television
show is "Family Ties" and the episode is entitled, "My Tutor".... (more) |
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Fermat's Cuisine [Fermat no Ryori] (2018) |
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| Yugo Kobayashi |
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This four-volume manga series (also recently adapted as a melodramatic Japanese television series) follows a student named Gaku who has given up on his dream to become a world-famous mathematician and... (more) |
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Foundation (1951) |
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| Isaac Asimov |
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In this book and its prequels/sequels, we see humanity guided by the
work of fictional "mathematician, Hari Seldon, who works out the rules
of psychohistory and makes a secret chart that the humankind... (more) |
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The Fringe (Episode: The Equation) (2008) |
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| J.R. Orci (Screenplay) / David H. Goodman (Screenplay) |
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The ``Fringe Team'' (an FBI agent, a mad scientist and his son) investigate a series of kidnappings in which the victim is hypnotized with red and green lights. In each case, the victim was about to... (more) |
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Furuhata Ninzaburô (Episode 13) (1995) |
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| Kôki Mitani |
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In the last episode of the first season of this popular Japanese detective show, the inspector must solve the mystery of the murder of an award-winning mathematician. It turns out that the murderer was... (more) |
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Futurama (Episode: 2-D Blacktop) (2013) |
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| Michael Rowe (writer) / Raymie Muzquiz (director) |
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In the episode 2-D Blacktop from Futurama's tenth season, Professor Farnsworth invents a device that looks like a tesseract and takes his "hot rod" into the fourth dimension. When he collides with Leela's... (more) |
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Futurama (Episode: The Prisoner of Benda) (2011) |
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| Ken Keeler (writer) / Stephen Sandoval (director) |
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Although many episodes contain mathematical "in jokes", from the point of view of mathematical fiction, the most notable episode of Futurama was "The Prisoner of Benda" (2011). In that episode, a machine... (more) |
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Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1979) |
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| Douglas Adams |
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Everyone ought to read this trilogy of four (or is it five now?) books that brilliantly combine science fiction with the drollest of British humor. Despite my high regard for it, I've not added it to... (more) |
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I of Newton (1970) |
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| Joe Haldeman |
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In this short story a mathematics professor accidentally summons a demon
by cursing while working on a problem involving integration. The devil
brags
that he is able to disprove Fermat's last theorem,... (more) |
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The Infinite Worlds of H.G. Wells (Episode: The Truth about Pyecraft) (2001) |
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| Chris Harrald (Script) / Clive Exton (Script) / Herbert George Wells (story) |
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Please correct me if I'm mistaken here, but it seems that the 2001 TV miniseries The Infinite Worlds of H.G. Wells took the story ``The Truth about Pyecraft'', which has no math in it, and made the main... (more) |
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Der kalte Himmel (2011) |
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| Johannes Fabrick (director)
/ Andrea Stoll (writer) |
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In this German film, a woman raising her children on a farm in 1967 tries to get help for her mathematically talented but anti-social son. Obtaining the services of a forward-thinking Berlin psychiatrist,... (more) |
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Kim Possible (Episode: Mathter and Fervent) (2007) |
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| Jim Peronto (script) |
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This episode of the Disney animated TV series "Kim Possible" is a comic book parody featuring a mathematical villain.
As an English assignment, Kim Possible and Ron Stoppable have to write a paper... (more) |
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The Last Enemy (2008) |
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| Peter Berry (Screenplay) / Iain B. MacDonald (Director) |
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In this BBC TV series, mathematician Stephen Ezard (Benedict Cumberbatch) returns home from China for his brother's funeral but finds himself caught up in two simultaneous stories of high level espionage.... (more) |
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Law and Order: Criminal Intent (Episode: Inert Dwarf) (2004) |
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| Renee Balcer (story) / Warren Leight (script) / Alex Chapple (director) |
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The collaborator of a world-famous, wheelchair bound mathematical physicist is murdered. When the detectives investigate, suspicion falls on the mathematician's wife/nurse who appears to be abusing him.
Like... (more) |
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Lewis (Episode: Reputation) (2006) |
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| Russell Lewis (Story) / Stephen Churchett (Screenplay) |
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In this pilot episode of the spin-off from the popular Inspector Lewis television series, a female math student is murdered while she participates in a sleep study. Perfect numbers show up in the form... (more) |
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The Mad Mathematician (from ITV's Junior Maths) (1984) |
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| ITV Schools |
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Each episode of Junior Maths, a British children's TV program that was part of ITV Schools, featured a story about "The Mad Mathematician". For example, in this episode (currently available on YouTube),... (more) |
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The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (2017) |
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| Amy Sherman-Palladino / Daniel Palladino |
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The main plot of this show -- which concerns the transformation of Midge Maisel from a Jewish housewife in the 1950s into a successful and edgy standup comic -- has nothing to do with mathematics. So,... (more) |
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Math Patrol (1977) |
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| TV Ontario |
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"Math Patrol was a 15-minute long educational TV series produced in the late 1970s by TV Ontario about the adventures of a secret agent named "Sydney" who dressed up as a kangaroo with a blue trenchcoat.... (more) |
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Mathmakers (1978) |
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| TV Ontario |
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Canadian television show (circa 1978) about making a television show.
Humorous story lines illustrate mathematical concepts.
"The program was developed and produced by TVOntario in 1978. Each
episode... (more) |
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MathNet (1987) |
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| Childrens Television Workshop |
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A children's TV show in which mysteries are solved using
mathematics. The suspects and victims always ask the investigators
"Are you the police?" To which they reply "No, we're
mathematicians!"... (more) |
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Mattemorden (2015) |
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| Alexander Barth/Gustav Öhman Spjuth |
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In this Swedish TV series, a police officer with dyscalculia and a "professor" who can only do math when he is drunk are working together to solve a murder in which the only clue is a math problem. Unfortunately,... (more) |
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The Mentalist (Episode: 18-5-4) (2010) |
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| Bruno Heller (writer) / Leonard Dick (writer) / Charles Beeson (director) |
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In this episode of the series about agents from the California Bureau of Investigation, an unemployed mathematician is murdered by someone wearing a clown suit.
The victim, Noah Valiquette, was a... (more) |
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Midnight Diner (Episode: Omelette Rice) (2016) |
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| Joji Matsuoka (Director)
/ Marina Oshima (Screenplay) |
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Each episode of this Japanese TV series follows the stories of some patrons of a Tokyo diner that is only open from midnight to 7AM. "Omelette Rice" is a love story between two regulars who meet there... (more) |
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Nanny and the Professor (TV Series) (1970) |
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| AJ Carothers (creator) / Thomas L. Miller (creator) |
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A handsome math professor gets the help of a magical British nanny in raising his adorable kids in this early '70's sit-com.
I actually used to watch this show when I was a little kid, but had completely... (more) |
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NUMB3RS (2005) |
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| Nick Falacci / Cheryl Heuton |
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This TV crime drama (premiered January 2005) follows the adventures of a pair of brothers, one a mathematics professor and the other an FBI agent, as they combine forces to solve mysteries.
Cool effects... (more) |
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Odd Squad (2014) |
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| Tim McKeon/ Adam Peltzman |
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A governmental organization run by children investigates "odd" phenomena and solves problems with some math and a lot of computer graphics in this live-action TV show from TVOKids and PBS Kids.
I'm... (more) |
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The Outer Limits (Episode: Behold, Eck!) (1964) |
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| John Mantley (screenplay) / William R. Cox (story) |
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In this episode of the classic science fiction series Outer Limits, a 2-dimensional being trapped in our world is aided by Dr. Stone, an engineer described as being an expert in "optical geometry" and... (more) |
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The Pikestaffe Case (1924) |
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| Algernon Blackwood |
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This quite unsatisfying yarn hangs its hat on the old idea of finding a way into a mirror to discover a new reality. The author waves his hands quite a bit to build an aura of mystery (by appealing... (more) |
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Proof Geometric Construction Can Solve All Love Affairs (2017) |
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| Takahashi Manbou (lyricist) / Ane Manbou (illustrator) |
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This is not a short story or novel or movie, it is a music video by Japanese musician "Manbo-p" (featuring manga-style illustrations by his sister). As the title implies, it is a romance in which a boy... (more) |
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The Queen's Gambit (2020) |
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| Scott Frank (writer&director) /Allan Scott (writer) /Walter Tevis (writer) |
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This popular TV mini-series about the personal trials of a chess prodigy is based on a novel. Interestingly, as I learned from Lauren Tubbs, a tiny bit of math was added for the screen adaptation:
One... (more) |
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Recess (Episode: A Genius Among Us) (2000) |
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| Brian Hamill |
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This episode of Disney's Saturday Morning cartoon "Recess" is clearly a parody of the film "Good Will Hunting". I hope this doesn't lower anyone's opinion of me...but I personally liked it better than... (more) |
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She Spies (Episode: Message from Kassar) (2003) |
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| Vince Manze (script) / Joe Livecchi (script) / Steven Long Mitchell (script) |
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Although I lived in the US and had a TV in 2003, I somehow completely missed “She Spies”. I had no idea such a show existed. And so, while watching this episode to see whether it really is “mathematical... (more) |
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Simpsons (Episode: Homer3) (1995) |
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| John Swarzwelder / Steve Tomkins / David S. Cohen |
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In this segment from an episode of "The Simpsons" cartoon, Homer finds a
portal to the third dimension while trying to hide from his
sisters-in-law. This is a joke on the fact that they are usually... (more) |
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The Simpsons: Girls Just Want to Have Sums (2006) |
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| Matt Selman |
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In this episode from the 17th season of the hit cartoon The Simpsons, the principal of Bart and Lisa's school makes a sexist comment (clearly a reference to the controversial comments from Harvard President... (more) |
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Threshold (2006) |
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| Bragi F. Schut/ Brannon Braga / David S. Goyer / Dan O'Shannon |
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This science fiction TV series featured a sarcastic dwarf mathematician character. According to Mathematics Goes to the Movies, mathematical highlights included a 4-dimensional alien object intersecting our world in the first episode, references to "isomorphic group therapy [sic]", "monotonic null sequences" and "quadratic reciprocity" in the second, and a strange statistical study in the 11th.
(more) |
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Touch (2012) |
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| Tim Kring |
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This TV show combines disparate familiar elements. Like "24", it has Kiefer Sutherland running around trying to save people. Like "Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close" it has the autistic child of a single... (more) |
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A Very Peculiar Practice (1986) |
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| Andrew Davies |
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In this television series about a medical doctor at a British university, a recurring character during the first season was a mathematician who was the doctor's roommate, Chen. Their "flat" was therefore... (more) |
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Without a Trace (Episode: Claus and Effect) (2007) |
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| David Amann (writer) / Alicia Kirk (writer) / Bobby Roth (Director) |
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In this Christmas special episode of the TV crime drama, a department store Santa turns out to be a mathematical prodigy who has quit his job as a mathematician/programmer due to ethical concerns that his work will cause others to lose their jobs. He becomes involved in a scheme to make money by applying mathematics to gambling.
(more) |
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