Mathematicians Become Hollywood Consultants 521
techstar25 writes "With the recent success of movies incorporating mathematics, Dr. Jonathan Farley, a professor of mathematics at the State University of New York at Buffalo who is currently doing research at Harvard, tapped into his professional knowledge and headed west to Hollywood, where he and Dr. Elizabeth Burns, founded Hollywood Math and Science Consulting to help television and movie producers portray accurate mathematics on screen. Their first client: the CBS drama Numb3rs. 'In many cases, they want me to elaborate on some of the math already in the script,' said Farley. 'I help add dialogue and fine tune the math already in the script. It's not just about fixing mathematical mistakes . . . It's also about helping them get the culture right.'"
They do need help (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Math Culture? (Score:3, Interesting)
Then there's the jokes.
Q: What do you get when you cross a banana with a goat?
A: |goat| * |banana| * sin(theta)
Re:Mathematics Out of the Closet (Score:2, Interesting)
Tech in Twenty-Four (Score:2, Interesting)
Hmmm 24 comes to mind... (Score:1, Interesting)
I would love to get paid to go over scripts and fix there computer terminolgy. Kudos to the guys who are pioneering this type of consulting.
For example? (Score:4, Interesting)
Care to provide examples of your claim?
Re:Now if someone (Score:2, Interesting)
"You mean it's not accurate to say 'I'm gonna drop a hydra and pop their firewall?' Eh, it still sounds good, so screw it"
"We can't image enhance the picture taken with this cell phone to accurately read that liscense plate off the car that was driving 80 miles an hour? Too bad, keep it in."
Something tells me that hollywood execs realize they are sensationalizing, and that their techniques, interfaces, and terminology isn't quite accurate, but they don't care. The same is true in a lot of things. I can't even watch movies involving the military with my Dad because he was in the service for 26 years and has a hernia pointing out all the things they get wrong. Guess what, I don't care because I'm not a military person just like a lot of their target market doesn't care about the failed geekspeak because they aren't geeks.
Re:About Numb3rs (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Every specialist sees the errors (Score:5, Interesting)
However, some shows set really bad example. For example in Law and Order which is supposed to be the most serious and respected of the legal shows, the main hero of the show (the prosecutor) keeps doing things that are either illegal or immoral for an attorney in his position. It usually has something to do with hiding evidence that he is supposed to submit to the defence, or tricking a defendent or a witness. And the show celebrates these breaches of the ethics rules, essentially portraying the prosecutor in being really clever in getting the bad guy.
Pretty much every second part of every eposode is portrayed as a heroic battle between the good guys (that prosecutor and an ever changing hot female prosecutor) on one side and the forces of evil (the civil rights of the defendant and the rules of ethics) on the other side. I have yet to see a show where an innocent defendant has been spared inprisonment because of the proper observance of his rights.
And of course since more or less the whole population has seen at least several Law and Order episodes (and many people watch that show religously), when the government decides to curb civil rights, the people don't really mind, which is not what you would really expect from this freedom loving nation.
Re:Killjoys (Score:5, Interesting)
Momentum cannot be "absorbed" by the slide because it is conserved. The force can be spread out in time, but the momentum transfer is unchanged. Check out the Mythbusters episode in which they shoot a human-sized hunk of meat hanging from a hook with powerful rifles. It barely moves. There simply isn't that much momentum in a bullet.
Classic math mistake (Score:3, Interesting)
(They could have fixed this mistake digitally for the DVD release, one would think....)
Smarten Up (Score:5, Interesting)
Seriously? What do you think people would rather watch, someone working through complex equations on paper or a chalkboard for hours on end, or generating a few models and then explaining how they apply to the real world? Is your need for accuracy so important that you are double-checking their work instead of paying attention to the plot of the show? Have you stop watching SciFi since you realized there are no such things as transporters and aliens, and that hacking into a Gibson isn't nearly as fun as they make it look?
Sure, it's not 100% accurate, but neither are the forensics dramas, murder mysteries, or hospital shows. People don't want to watch the all boring bits of someone else's life where they catalog swabs, fill out paperwork, or treat someone's rash. It's a drama, it's supposed to be about the story and the science or math is mostly there to give it some context. If it shows people that there are practical applications for otherwise cerebral stuff, then it also encourages education and research, which is a win for everyone.
I understand you, as a math major, had higher expectations for the show, but what's the point of making a show that only 0.1% of the population can even follow, let alone want to watch? Maybe you work on equations all day and want to come home and see it mixed in with your police dramas, but I doubt many people do. Still, I find their characterizations and science to be reasonable, maybe a little sophomoric but much better than most of the fluff out there.
Re:Thank God (Score:5, Interesting)
stuff like the shelf with the two books labeled "P" and "NP" (IIRC in "Put Your Head on my Shoulder"),
Re:Mathematics Out of the Closet (Score:4, Interesting)
The brain is damn good at that too btw. Try it, reduce a video to a really small resolution, watch it and you will be impressed about how much you can recognize when it moves.
Re:Mathematics Out of the Closet (Score:2, Interesting)
If you have a 1.5GB image, the resolution is probably something on the order of 2000dpi, and was taken with a camera that costs more than your house. You can "zoom in" all you want, but you *still* can't zoom further than the actual resolution of the picture, and keep getting increasing detail.
Don't get me started on the security camera frames, digicam shots, and blurry 35mm scans that they're working with on CSI et al. Maybe if all security cameras cost $100,000 and had 100TB hard drives for storage, the magic technology could be feasible. And even if the show takes place in some kind of fantastical alternate universe where this is true, the level of absurdity they take it to would *still* be difficult to swallow. It's almost like they make it intentionally unbelievable.
Re:...And while they're at it... (Score:3, Interesting)
In independence day Jeff Goldblum (sp?) sees a captured alien ship which has not been opened or examined by humans before. The ship is sealed and one cannot get inside of it or open it to see its internals. They know nothing about alien technology.
So what does Jeff Goldblum do? He sneezes and that gives him an idea. Why not give the ship a virus? He proceeds to open his apple notebook and somehow interface with the ship to give it a virus.
Re:CBS Isn't Listening... (Score:3, Interesting)
The concept that somehow that the principle of illuminating a subatomic particle and changing either the location or velocity of a partical somehow affects human behaviour is an example of Junk Science and is nothing but technobabble. But then more people know about the tension between Einstien and Heisinbug than know about Hawthorne.
Re:I'll bet [objoke] (Score:1, Interesting)
Funny, I don't really enjoy being that anally retentive, it just comes naturally.
Re:Mathematics Out of the Closet (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Mathematics Out of the Closet (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Or the teletype/typewriter sound effect... (Score:3, Interesting)
Twenty years ago, the match results used to come in using real teletypes across the UK, and so they had a TV camera placed right above the teletype machine, with the output line being subtitled on the screen. This was a simple and efficient solution.
But then, the switch to electronic transmission and computer display was made, and so instead of doing something new, they still pretend to have a 75 baud connection. Rather ironic, when the entire match is being broadcast by satellite.
Sneakers Consultant (Score:3, Interesting)
To his dismay, on the day of the shoot, he discovered that someone had just grease-penned some mockup slides to make it look more "authentic."
He said something like, "If I'd known thats what they wanted, I could have handed something over in a few minutes. And it'd be correct!"
Re:Every specialist sees the errors (Score:3, Interesting)
My father, who was a retired district attorney used to tell me that Law and Order (the early episodes) was the closest to the real thing ever put on a screen. He would watch it every week, only every so often getting a little irked that they totally messed something up.
My uncle used to be a Captain in the Air Force whose job was to be a "key turner" in one of those ICBM silos. A few years ago I asked him about the opening scene in "War Games". His response: "Well, it didn't look as cool in real life, and it wasn't as high tech looking, but otherwise, that's exactly how it was".
So occasionally Hollywood does get it almost right, even if they do take a few liberties. Though I'll have to admit ever since joining the Army, most films about the subject really piss me off.
Re:Mathematics Out of the Closet (Score:2, Interesting)
My problem with this idea is that most TV shows are about people. So what if you wrote a sitcom where all the people talked out of mouths in their hands and performed all kinds of obscure social customs that no-one understood?
That's a stupid example I know, but then if someone said - "that show blows, it's not real" then my friends can say "suspension of disbelief" all they want - the show's still shitty and unrealistic and hard to relate to.
I see science ideas in movies/TV shows as being just as important as social/people ideas are. Sure, in some styles of shows it doesn't matter - eg Sabrina Teenage Witch show, it's magic, anything can happen. But when people write a science fiction movie or TV show then they should be sensitive to their target audience and show some respect.
As a footnote - I always wonder why script-writers/producers/directors stuff the science up because you can achieve just as many cool effects, do as many weird things, have impressive situations, all within the confines of reality + logic.... I just don't get it.
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Mathematics Out of the Closet (Score:3, Interesting)
I could live with those mistakes if they were intentional. A show where people talk with mouths in their hands would be interesting, but that has to be an intentional part of the plot. (And in general it should figure in some of the puzzles)
If a mathematical proof relies on a pi being 16 that is fine, but it better be intentional, and figure in the plot in other ways so that I can tell the writer is doing it intentionally. (Any writer attempting this had better be good at math because a universe where pi = 16 would be weird in many ways and that needs to be explained)
Re:Mathematics Out of the Closet (Score:5, Interesting)
The book?
Poetry. About the making of "The Bomb."
Look mom, top of the world. I'm an "acknowledgement."
There are two things I find interesting about the whole thing. The first being that the poet was perspicacious enough to understand that he couldn't just "wing" the science and claim "poetic license." He knew he was writing about deep juju that he didn't understand and that he'd damned well better make sure he got the juju right. Most poets are fools. This one isn't. Even poetry needs to get it right.
The second thing is where I, personally, come into the picture. The poet was a college English professor with access to the whole of the college's science department, but. .
We met in a coffeehouse.
So, it isn't enough to simply know your science. You have to also know how to convey the concepts to the foolish script writers in a manner that fools can understand and get it right. This would appear to be an unusual skill, but I believe one absolutely essential for all scientists to cultivate, because the populace at large is dependent upon us to explain these things to them; and if we don't do a good job we get nonsense like state legislatures introducing bills to make pi equal to 3, which carries far greater consequences them some stupid movie doing something stupid.
And I'm really rather flattered by the review, as it reflects the quality of my work on the book.
KFG
Re:Sneakers Consultant (Score:3, Interesting)
The irony is he thought they wanted something that looked good, and they wanted something that looked like a real mathematician would come up with.
Re:Mathematics Out of the Closet (Score:2, Interesting)
Like jumping out of a taking-off jet's wheel well (without a parachute) and landing in a swamp, with no injuries whatsoever? Arnold Schwarzennegger did that in "Commando". (Note that, no matter how low its altitude, the jet, in order to be airborne, had to be traveling at least 100 MPH. The forward speed would kill anyone jumping out of it.) Of course, even worse in the suspension-of-disbelief department was that Allysa Millano could be his daughter. Now who would believe that?
Re:Mathematics Out of the Closet (Score:2, Interesting)
Granted, it's still implausible but the whole premise of the show is perfectly ridiculous too. I can hardly criticise it for the nuance being implausible.