The first season of Numbers, an American television series, premiered on January 23, 2005 and finished on May 13, 2005. The first season sees the start of the working relationship between Don Eppes, an FBI agent, and his genius brother Charlie, an applied mathematician and professor at a local university. The rest of Don's FBI team consists of Terry Lake and David Sinclair. Don and Charlie's father, Alan Eppes, provides emotional support for the pair, while the brilliant Professor Larry Fleinhardt and promising doctoral student Amita Ramanujan provide mathematical support and insights to Charlie.

Numbers
Season 1
DVD cover
No. of episodes13
Release
Original networkCBS
Original releaseJanuary 23 (2005-01-23) –
May 13, 2005 (2005-05-13)
Season chronology
Next →
Season 2
List of episodes

Cast

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Main

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Recurring

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Guest

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Episodes

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No.
overall
No. in
season
TitleDirected byWritten byOriginal air dateProd.
code
US viewers
(millions)
11"Pilot"Mick JacksonNicolas Falacci & Cheryl HeutonJanuary 23, 2005 (2005-01-23)10124.92[1]

Charlie assists Don on a serial rapist case by calculating a "hot zone", an area where the rapist is most likely to live. Don is removed from the case after Charlie's formula fails to turn up any leads but later a comment from their father then leads Charlie to change the equation to calculate two points of origin, instead of one.

Mathematics used: Geographic profiling, probability theory, 11-dimensional supergravity theory and projectile motion
22"Uncertainty Principle"Davis GuggenheimNicolas Falacci & Cheryl HeutonJanuary 28, 2005 (2005-01-28)10415.46[2]

Charlie successfully predicts the time and place of a bank robbery using what he says are elements of Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, but when the planned arrest goes bad, he retreats into the math problem P vs. NP.

Mathematics used: P vs. NP and Heisenberg's uncertainty principle
33"Vector"David Von AnckenJeff VlamingFebruary 4, 2005 (2005-02-04)10311.55[3]

A deadly strain of influenza is spreading through Los Angeles, killing many people. Don investigates whether the strain was released deliberately, and Charlie tries to calculate the origin and likely spread of the virus. Guest stars include CCH Pounder, J.K. Simmons, andRainn Wilson.

Mathematics used: Patient Zero, Viral vector, Vector and SIR model
44"Structural Corruption"Tim MathesonLiz FriedmanFebruary 11, 2005 (2005-02-11)10510.68[4]

An engineering student dies by suicide, but Charlie suspects foul play. Don disagrees, but he agrees to help Charlie investigate whether the student was murdered because of his research into a building's structural integrity.

The Hyatt Regency walkway collapsed in 1981 as did the Hartford Civic Center in 1978.

The episode concludes with Don Eppes saying that Occam's razor says "that the simplest answer is usually the right one."

Mathematics used: Pendulum and Foucault pendulum
55"Prime Suspect"Lesli Linka GlatterDoris EganFebruary 18, 2005 (2005-02-18)10610.49[5]

A young girl is kidnapped, but her parents refuse to cooperate with Don's investigation. The girl's father (Neil Patrick Harris) is a innovative mathematician, and the kidnapping may be related to his work on the Riemann hypothesis.

Mathematics used: Cryptography, prime numbers, Riemann hypothesis and Riemann zeta function
66"Sabotage"Lou AntonioLiz FriedmanFebruary 25, 2005 (2005-02-25)10211.46[6]

Don is investigating a series of train accidents which are recreations of previous wrecks. The saboteur leaves a note composed entirely of numbers.

Mathematics used: Kasiski examination, Cryptography, Fibonacci sequence, golden ratio and Beale ciphers
77"Counterfeit Reality"Alex ZakrzewskiAndrew DettmanMarch 11, 2005 (2005-03-11)10710.55[7]

A strange series of robberies leads Don into a case involving counterfeit money, kidnapping and murder. Don is assisted by Secret Service agent Kim Hall (Sarah Wayne Callies) while Charlie uses math to analyze fake bank notes and track their spread.

Mathematics used: Guilloché pattern and wavelet analysis
88"Identity Crisis"Martha MitchellWendy WestApril 1, 2005 (2005-04-01)10810.00[8]

A new case with disturbing similarities to an old case leads Don to question whether he put the right man in jail. While Don tries to find the connection between the two cases, he asks Charlie to look for mistakes or flaws in the first case.

Mathematics used: Poker, geometric progressionpaper folding, pyramid scheme, fingerprint and Schrödinger's cat
99"Sniper Zero"J. Miller TobinKen SanzelApril 15, 2005 (2005-04-15)10910.54[9]

Don is investigating a series of sniper killings, and Charlie is searching for an underlying pattern to the attacks. What appears to be bad data can't be eliminated from the analysis, because it fits the only pattern he can find. Lou Diamond Phillips guest stars as FBI sniper Agent Ian Edgerton.

Mathematics used: Projectile motion, Tipping point, regression toward the mean and exponential growth
1010"Dirty Bomb"Paris BarclayAndrew DettmanApril 22, 2005 (2005-04-22)11011.50[10]

A truck carrying radioactive waste disappears, and Don figures that a dirty bomb will be set off in downtown Los Angeles. When three suspects are caught but refuse to turn on each other, Charlie must try to convince one of them to give up the others and also the location of the waste.

Louis Slotin used his body to cover a plutonium explosion in 1940s; he died 9 days later after his "walking ghost phase".

Mathematics used: Prisoner's dilemma and radioactive decay; Caesium-137
1111"Sacrifice"Paul HolahanKen SanzelApril 29, 2005 (2005-04-29)11110.80[11]

A researcher is murdered in his home, and Charlie must reconstruct data erased from his computer while Don investigates possible suspects. Guest stars include Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Corey Stoll, Bruce Davison, and Elizabeth Dennehy. David Krumholtz and Joseph Gordon-Levitt co-starred in the 1999 film 10 Things I Hate About You.

Final appearance of: Sabrina Lloyd as Terry Lake

Mathematics used: Sabermetrics and econometrics; bathythermograph; Van Eck phreaking
1212"Noisy Edge"J. Miller TobinNicolas Falacci & Cheryl HeutonMay 6, 2005 (2005-05-06)11211.80[12]

An unidentified flying object travels over Los Angeles and then disappears. Don suspects terrorist activity, and Charlie tries to find out more about the object and its flight path. Guest stars include Gloria Reuben, Bill Smitrovich, and Ethan Embry.

Mathematics used: Combinatorics and conditional probability distribution – "squish-squash" with Fourier analysis
1313"Man Hunt"Martha MitchellAndrew DettmanMay 13, 2005 (2005-05-13)11311.29[13]

A prison bus crashes, allowing two dangerous convicts to escape. Don is joined by his former Fugitive Recovery partner Billy Cooper (Max Martini) as the Bureau launches an effort to recapture them. Guest stars include Christina Cox and Jennifer Westfeldt.

Mathematics used: Bayesian inference, Markov chain, Chapman–Kolmogorov equation and Monty Hall problem

References

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  1. ^ "Weekly Program Rankings". ABC Medianet. January 25, 2005. Retrieved February 10, 2010.
  2. ^ "Weekly Program Rankings". ABC Medianet. February 1, 2005. Archived from the original on December 21, 2008. Retrieved February 10, 2010.
  3. ^ "Weekly Program Rankings". ABC Medianet. February 8, 2005. Archived from the original on December 21, 2008. Retrieved February 10, 2010.
  4. ^ "Weekly Program Rankings". ABC Medianet. February 15, 2005. Archived from the original on May 28, 2010. Retrieved February 10, 2010.
  5. ^ "Weekly Program Rankings". ABC Medianet. February 23, 2005. Archived from the original on March 11, 2015. Retrieved February 10, 2010.
  6. ^ "Weekly Program Rankings". ABC Medianet. March 1, 2005. Retrieved February 10, 2010.
  7. ^ "Weekly Program Rankings". ABC Medianet. March 15, 2005. Retrieved February 10, 2010.
  8. ^ "Weekly Program Rankings". ABC Medianet. April 5, 2005. Retrieved February 10, 2010.
  9. ^ "Weekly Program Rankings". ABC Medianet. April 19, 2005. Retrieved February 10, 2010.
  10. ^ "Weekly Program Rankings". ABC Medianet. April 26, 2005. Archived from the original on December 21, 2008. Retrieved February 10, 2010.
  11. ^ "Weekly Program Rankings". ABC Medianet. May 3, 2005. Retrieved February 10, 2010.
  12. ^ "Weekly Program Rankings". ABC Medianet. May 10, 2005. Retrieved February 10, 2010.
  13. ^ "Weekly Program Rankings". ABC Medianet. May 17, 2005. Retrieved February 10, 2010.
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