Character mistake: In the epilogue, Charlie illustrates the relationship of mathematics to real life by discussing the golden ratio and its presence in a host of real-life situations, including the shape of a nautilus shell and the distribution of petals in a flower. These claims are disputed by some mathematicians (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_ratio#Nature), and the one about the nautilus shell one is untrue (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_spiral#Spirals_in_nature). It's possible Charlie is just repeating what he has read or heard without investigating it for himself, but this is uncharacteristic of him.
Numb3rs (2005)
1 mistake in Sabotage
Starring: Judd Hirsch, David Krumholtz, Rob Morrow, Alimi Ballard
Amita Ramanujan: Charlie, where did you learn all this stuff about assassination?
Charlie Eppes: If I told you that I'd have to kill you.
Amita Ramanujan: Okay, seriously.
Charlie Eppes: Seriously.
Trivia: Judd Hirsch is an astro-physicist and can actually do the math Charlie does on the show. He caught the acting bug in school and chose that over physics.
Question: In a few episodes, the FBI agents will walk into a room and say "smell that?" and the reply is "shots fired", supposedly because they can smell the distinct odor of burnt gunpowder. Then they'll look behind a desk and find a dead body in a pool of blood. But wouldn't the smell of a dead person, or the blood, be way more overpowering? Or would it take too long for a dead body to start to smell? And how long would the smell of gunfire in an enclosed room last?
Answer: It takes 24-48 hours before a decaying body begins producing a decaying odor. It takes a number of days for it to intensify enough to be immediately noticeable when walking into a room.
raywest ★