Numbers: The Square Root of 625

The square root of 625 is 25. It’s something I committed to memory a long time ago so I could throw it out there every once in a while to impress people with my mathematical knowledge. I know – that makes me a phony. Big whoop. Similarly, I memorized Bill Shakespeare’s sonnet number 18: Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? / Thou art more lovely and more temperate… blah blah blah. Bigger whoop.

Anyway, as a kid I did have an aptitude for numbers which is why, I’m guessing, I still watch CBS’s prime time series Numbers. I mean, it can’t have anything to do with the quality of the show because usually the shows aren’t that hot. And the graphic illustrations of the mathematical principles involved which have evolved from blackboard explanations to video game pop-ups serve only to annoy me.

I know what you’re thinking – why in hell are you still watching it? Like I said, it’s the numbers and math thing. I suspect that deep inside I live with the hope that one day I’ll actually understand one of Charlie Eppes’s explanation. Like this one:

"Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. Heisenberg noted that the act of observation will effect the observed; in other words, when you watch something, you change it, and uh, uh, for example, an electron, you know, you can't really measure it without bumping into it in some small way. Any physical act of observation requires interaction with a form of energy, like light, and that will change the nature of the electron, its path of travel."

And then there are the characters’ personal relationships and conflicts which I usually find more interesting than whatever crime the team is trying to solve.

Oh, and in case you didn’t know, the square of the hypotenuse of a right triangle is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides.