Concerning the Harary connection to Good Will Hunting: According to a review at: http://www.ams.org/new-in-math/hunting-review.html there were two 'math consultants'. Here's an excerpt from the review that explains a connection to Harary: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Patrick O'Donnell, a physicist at the University of Toronto, who was originally hired as an extra. His authentic Irish brogue is heard in a bar scene late in the film, and he can be recognized from a photograph posted on his Web site. O'Donnell says that he built on references in the script to select mathematical content for filming. These references included eigenvectors, complex analysis, graph theory, and combinatorics, and the writers' choices were probably not guided by mathematical coherence. In a telephone interview O'Donnell revealed that he used a paper on graph theory (the reference from Mathematical Reviews appears at the end of this article). Those curious about this particular MacGuffin are welcome to look. Reference [1] Frank Harary and Geert Prins, The number of homeomorphically irreducible trees, and other species, Acta Math. 101 (1959), 141-16 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- On Sun, 23 Jan 2005, Richard Guy wrote:
Lowell Beineke told me in Atlanta that Frank Harary died from complications arising from an operation somewhere around the new year.
The math in Good Will Hunting was supplied by Danny Kleitman, who appears twice in the film -- the second time by accident. There's a scene in a cafe and Danny walks past the window, and returns a few seconds later. R.
On Sun, 23 Jan 2005, ed pegg wrote:
Actually, the math in Good Will Hunting was by fellow funster Frank Harary. http://www.cs.nmsu.edu/%7Efnh/
CalTech is helping to get the math right, specifically Gary Lorde. David Krumholtz is convincing as a math genius -- I recently found out, though, that there is a post-grad "stunt hand" writing out some of the equations.
The producers of NUMB3RS were at the Joint Math meeting in Atlanta, and took on a support staff of mathematicians to review the scripts. As the show progresses, the math will get better.
I wrote a column about it: http://www.maa.org/editorial/mathgames/mathgames_01_21_05.html
Ed Pegg Jr http://www.mathpuzzle.com/
--- Daniel Asimov <dasimov@earthlink.net> wrote:
I'm between TV sets, but would love to be able to (eventually) watch the premiere of this new show, Numb3rs, involving a detective, and his "math genius" brother who helps him solve cases by using math.
It's on CBS tonight at 10 pm ET, 7pm PT; after tonight's premiere it will be at the same time on Fridays.
If anyone's willing to tape it (or DVD it) and send me a copy, I'd be very grateful, and more than happy to overcompensate you for parts, labor, and postage.
Among other things, I'd like to to see if the math is totally, completely bogus -- as in Good Will Hunting -- or not.
Tx in advance.
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-- --------------------------------------------------------- W. Edwin Clark, Math Dept, University of South Florida http://www.math.usf.edu/~eclark/ ---------------------------------------------------------