NUMB3RS may do for academia what the CSI franchise has done for forensic science. The new crime drama stars David Krumholtz as Charlie Eppes, a math prodigy on the faculty of CalSci, an L.A.-area university that looks a lot like Caltech. “Everything is numbers,” says Charlie, who helps brother Don (Rob Morrow), an FBI agent, solve cases ranging from serial murder to bioterrorism. Series creators and head writers Cheryl Heuton and Nick Falacci are Altadena residents and Feynman fans who had long wanted to showcase the mathematical mind, but needed a tried-and-true format to sell the concept. Good call—NUMB3RS’s first appearance in its regular time slot pulled over 15 million viewers and was the 11th most watched show of the week. Heuton and Falacci wanted a Caltech feel, so some scenes are shot here, like this one of Charlie and string-theorist colleague Larry Fleinhardt (Peter MacNicol) walking through the Kerckhoff arcades, and Krumholtz spent several weeks on campus over the summer observing the natives. And the equations Charlie scrawls are real—Professor of Mathematics Gary Lorden (BS ’62) provides the formulas and terminology. NUMB3RS airs Friday nights at 10:00 p.m. on CBS.