Telegenic Techers

If you’re considering a career in television, Caltech is probably not the place to be. Science—compared to, say, sex—doesn’t sell well. (Think Science and the City or Desperate Scientists—it lacks that certain something.) Despite the long odds, a few members of the Caltech community have recently found themselves under or near those hot bright lights.

Caltech cubists Leyan Lo (left) and Tyson Mao take five after an impromptu round of Rubik’s.

Hollywood Cubes

By Mike Rogers

Tyson Mao, a senior astrophysics major, has gotten considerable on-camera exposure lately and has been quite proactive about getting it. In January, Mao appeared as a contestant on Beauty and the Geek, a weekly reality show airing on the WB Network. The show pairs real-life male nerds who are said to lack social skills with female beauties described as “academically impaired.” The couples team up and compete against one another in various games of skill in an attempt to win $250,000. Alas, Tyson and his partner, Thais, were booted off the show after just three episodes, but not before Tyson had earned more than his 15 minutes of fame and had some fun too.

Tyson applied to be on Beauty and the Geek as a lark last summer, after a casting director sent the Caltech Chess Club an e-mail about the show. Besides his status as a Caltech undergraduate, Mao’s claim to geekdom is that he is a champ at solving Rubik’s Cubes: those famous multicolored 3-D plastic puzzles. He’s been an avid player since 2003, and formed the Caltech Rubik’s Cube Club in January 2004. He briefly held the world record for solving the puzzle blindfolded, until his time of one minute and 58.32 seconds was topped in November by his protégé—Caltech junior Leyan Lo—who did it in one minute and 46.48 seconds.

Mao figures that his Caltech and Rubik’s Cube background must have intrigued the Beauty and the Geek casting director, because he was invited to an initial audition and then went through two more before he received a call on October 3 telling him that he had made the cut. Told to show up at a Manhattan Beach hotel the next day and to pack as if he were on a five-week trip, Mao dropped one class to lessen the burden of being away from his studies, and headed the next day for the hotel.

Mao says that he has never been a fan of reality television. So why would he voluntarily subject himself to the special brand of ridicule dished out by those shows? The prospect of splitting a quarter of a million dollars didn’t hurt. Besides, Mao says, “Caltech doesn’t give you a full spectrum of experiences. I thought that there would be things to learn outside of physics.” And, lest you think he had no interest in meeting those “academically impaired” co-contestants, he adds, “There are no women to meet here at Caltech. This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

But the ladies had to be put on hold while Tyson spent an additional week isolated in his hotel room, waiting for the show’s producers to hammer out the final details. He spent most of his time playing his violin, working on physics problems and his Rubik’s Cube, watching television, and sitting through more interviews.

On October 10, he met his fellow geeks—a variety of studious-looking young men—and they were all driven to a luxurious house in Los Angeles, where the show’s taping got under way. Beauties and geeks were introduced for the first time, and Tyson was paired up with Thais, a comely brunette described by the show as a 22-year-old model and aspiring stylist.

Tyson spent 10 days in the house, sharing a room (and separate beds) with Thais, under the constant gaze of a video camera. They participated in challenge games with the other contestants—the men were typically asked questions about fashion, design, and popular culture, while the women were quizzed about more academic subjects. He had to decorate a room and study for a fashion-and-interiors quiz (he aced it), and he even won a karaoke contest. But ultimately, he was done in by Thais’s inability to answer enough technology questions correctly, despite Tyson’s intensive tutorial.

Although he only got paid $50 a day for his efforts—well below Screen Actors Guild scale—Tyson says he’s glad he did it. “It was a lot of fun meeting new people,” he says. “It was unscripted, so they let us do whatever we wanted.” Was it difficult to be in the house with cameras trained on him for days? “I’m not sure what was the hardest part. Everything was one big blur of adjusting. I’m not sure if I changed socially. In order to see, I’ll have to test my new skills outside Caltech.”

Mao had hardly departed Geek when he resurfaced in a cameo role in another WB show called Twins, playing—what else?—a geek. He also managed to parlay his new media savvy into an appearance on The Tonight Show. That came out of a Rubik’s Cube competition that he organized in San Francisco in January. His classmate, Leyan Lo—whom Mao had introduced to Rubik’s Cube competitions two years ago—went along and stole his mentor’s spotlight when he set a new world record, solving the cube in 11.13 seconds. By the following Monday, Lo found himself bombarded with interview requests. The physics major turned nearly all of them down, including competing offers from NBC’s Today Show and ABC’s Good Morning, America, both of which offered to fly him to New York City.

“I had school work and didn’t want the publicity,” Lo says. “I also thought the attention was undeserved, because I wasn’t even the winner of the competition,” since the world record was one of five scores that were then averaged, leaving him in second place overall.

But Lo did end up on the Tonight Show. After he turned down an initial invitation, the producers called Mao, who promptly accepted. When Lo, who describes himself as “pretty shy,” heard that Mao would be appearing on the show, he decided to go along.

While Beauty and the Geek manages—just barely—to convey the message that being smart can be cool, Tonight Show host Jay Leno was content to tweak Mao and Lo for a few laughs. Shortly after introducing the duo, he challenged Lo to show off his fast fingerwork by unhooking the bras worn by five women who suddenly materialized on stage clad only in pants and scarlet brassieres. Lo accomplished the feat in eight seconds before he, Mao, and the females (whose backs remained resolutely turned to the audience) were ushered off stage.

“I guess they invited me on the show so Jay could insult me for five minutes, but that’s his job, so I don’t hold it against him,” says Lo, who was hardly star struck by the experience. While he met several other Tonight Show guests behind the scenes, he doesn’t remember their names.

Although both Mao and Lo say that they are not planning to chuck their Caltech education and get an agent, they have been contacted to appear on a revival of the classic game show, I’ve Got a Secret. Notoriety aside, Mao has applied to graduate school to pursue a career in astrophysics, while Lo says that he is happy to focus on his studies. “I’m old news now,” he says, as he deftly unscrambles yet another Rubik’s Cube puzzle. “After the first week, the media attention dried up, which is as it should be.”

Taking a break from filming on location near Chandler dining hall, David Krumholtz (right) gives his best impersonation of a mathematical pedant for a suitably impressed Gary Lorden.

The Numb3rs Game

By Rhonda Hillbery

Caltech is also staying in the spotlight through the continued success of a TV series that truly celebrates geekish brainiacs—Numb3rs. And the Institute’s newly liberalized filming policies make it possible for the Caltech-inspired show to be filmed on campus during the academic week for the first time.

“The writers and actors are really thrilled that they can shoot here,” says professor Gary Lorden ’62, who serves as math consultant to the show. “Caltech is the real place that this story is based around. So they’ve in some sense returned to where they shot the pilot and the place that is their symbolic home.”

Caltech’s recent film-policy changes stem from administration efforts to raise funds and reduce a structural deficit (previously, production crews could not use the campus on weekdays during the academic term). So in recent weeks, Numb3rs fans strolling around campus (it’s called CalSci in the show) have had ample opportunities to enjoy watching on-location filming near venues that include Millikan Pond, Throop Site, Parsons-Gates, and the student houses.

In one episode this season that centered on the theft of a DNA synthesizer, CalSci professors Charlie Eppes and Larry Fleinhardt flexed their brainpower at such Caltech landmarks as the Braun running track and the campus bookstore.

Lorden notes that he is not spending as much time on Numb3rs now that the show has hired its own math researcher. “Before, I had to go write equations on a blackboard,” he recalls of the early days working with Cheryl Heuton and Nicolas Falacci, the creative team behind the show.

But he doesn’t mind the change, saying that this way he has more time to devote to “finding the best possible math and science material. Now I am concentrating on the juicy stuff. It’s a neat thing to help CBS and Paramount portray what people here do—math and science that has a great impact on the world.”

This season, the crimes are thorny as ever, and sometimes grisly, from human organ trafficking to gang shootings in the streets of Los Angeles. But always, math helps our heroes save the day.

Lorden, who enjoys being able to touch base with the show during campus shoots, has done lunch at Chandler with David Krumholtz, who plays Charlie. Another time the actor invited him to lunch on the set. One day, Krumholtz even showed up at the math professor’s office to confer about episode suggestions that would place his character more often in the classroom, teaching. They’ve also joked about who’s got less space—Krumholtz in his trailer or Lorden in his Caltech office.

Math educators are also enthusiastic about the popular series and its potential tie-ins to their favorite subject. A new outreach program utilizing the Numb3rs tagline, “We All Use Math Every Day,” has been developed by Texas Instruments in association with the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM). The program provides downloadable secondary-school lesson plans that tie directly into the episodes.

Since Numb3rs debuted in January 2005, its audience has steadily grown, along with the length of Charlie’s hair. This season the show has frequently landed in what Lorden is happily calling the “magical top 20” in the Nielsen ratings. “I’m hoping it will stay there,” he says. “That will give the show more media attention, thereby giving math and science more attention.”

More information is available at the official Numb3rs website. For an earlier Caltech News article on Lorden’s role behind the scences, visit Crime and Computation.