There's only one more day to go until the season premiere of Numb3rs!

In my previous entry, I briefly referred to Charlievision, where Charlie Eppes (David Krumholtz) visualizes a mathematical approach to a problem. Wouldn't it be nice to understand these mathematical concepts in more detail?

CBS thinks so, and has teamed up with Texas Instruments to create the We All Use Math Everyday site. This site features exercises for individuals, as well as students and teachers, that directly relate to each individual episode.

If you prefer the principles organized by name, instead of by episode, check out Redhawke's All The Math section. If you wanted to find out more about, say, Pi, you would scroll down to the P section, and click Pi. Once there, you get a brief description, and links that help you learn more about the concept.

Those previous two site I've actually mentioned before. There are two great references that have just become available recently that should be required reading for any Numb3rs fan.

Back in August, the new book Numbers behind Numb3rs: Solving Crime with Mathematics became available. NPR's Math Guy, Keith Devlin, got together with Gary Lorden, who is the principal math advisor for Numb3rs, and described math used in the first 3 seasons of the show. This is a great reference to help quell your curiosity about concepts you've seen on the show, but may not have fully understood.

WARNING: If you don't want to know anything more than the commercials are telling you about the show, stop reading now! The following links may contain spoilers and/or plot details.

The newest Numb3rs reference has shown up just this week! Wolfram Research best known for their MathWorld site and their Mathematica software, has just announced their The Math Behind Numb3rs site! This is the richest resource yet for Numb3rs mathematics!

Already they have an explanation of the math used in Trust Metric, the season premiere episode. In this episode, Charlie will be using set covering deployment, the illumination problem and the Mathematics of Friendship (you'll see!). Not only are these concepts discussed on the page itself and the MathWorld site, but you can learn more about them via free interactive Wolfram Demonstration downloads.

Probably the most fun part about this site is that you may be able to learn about the math before the episode airs. Keep this site as your secret source, and you can astound your friends and family with details about the principles during the show. They'll think you're a genius!