List of Numb3rs episodes (season 2)

Numb3rs Season 2

DVD cover
Country of origin United States
No. of episodes 24
Broadcast
Original channel CBS
Original run September 23, 2005 (2005-09-23) – May 19, 2006 (2006-05-19)
Home video release
DVD release date October 10, 2006 (2006-10-10)
Season chronology
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Season 1
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Season 3

Season two of Numb3rs, an American television series, premiered on September 23, 2005 and its season finale was on May 19, 2006. Season two sees several changes to Don's FBI team: Terry Lake is reassigned to Washington DC and two new members join Don and David Sinclair: Megan Reeves and Colby Granger. Charlie is challenged on one of his long-standing pieces of mathematical work and also starts work on a new theory, Cognitive Emergence Theory. Larry sells his home and lives a nomadic lifestyle, while he becomes romantically involved with Megan. Amita receives an offer for an assistant professor position at Harvard University, but is plagued by doubt as her relationship with Charlie is challenged and her career is in upheaval. Alan begins work and dating again, though he struggles with the loss of his wife.

Episodes

# Title Directed by Written by U.S. viewers
(million)
Original air date Production
code
14 1 "Judgment Call" Alex Zakrzewski Ken Sanzel 11.18[1] September 23, 2005 (2005-09-23) 201

When a judge's wife is shot and killed, Don and his team look into the judge's cases to determine if one of his verdicts led to the murder.

Mathematics used: Scatterplot, Bayesian Spam Filtering, Buffon's needle and Conditional Probability 
15 2 "Better or Worse" J. Miller Tobin Andrew Dettman 11.83[2] September 30, 2005 (2005-09-30) 202

Don and his team are called in when a woman attempting to rob a jewelry store in Beverly Hills is shot by a security guard.


Mathematics used: Von Neumann cellular automata, Farey sequence and pseudo-random numbers 
16 3 "Obsession" John Behring Robert Port 11.40[3] October 7, 2005 (2005-10-07) 203

The FBI becomes involved in the stalking of a popular singer after she is threatened by an intruder in her house and reveals a series of threatening letters she has received through the mail.


Mathematics used: Trigonometry, curvelet analysis, Forensic Information System for Handwriting (FISH), spherical astronomy and art gallery problem 
17 4 "Calculated Risk" Bill Eagles J. David Harden 11.09[4] October 14, 2005 (2005-10-14) 204

Don and Megan are called to the murder scene when the CFO of a powerful energy company—who was about to testify against her fellow executives—is murdered at her home and her son is the only witness.


Mathematics used: Conditional probability and compound interest 
18 5 "Assassin" Bobby Roth Nicolas Falacci & Cheryl Heuton 11.17[5] October 21, 2005 (2005-10-21) 205

Along with David Sinclair and new FBI Agent Colby Granger, Don discovers a secret code during a raid and enlists Charlie's help to crack it.


Mathematics used: Transposition cipher, game theory and paper planes 
19 6 "Soft Target" Andy Wolk Don McGill 11.13[6] November 4, 2005 (2005-11-04) 206

A week-long series of counter-terrorism exercises are put to the test by Homeland Security in Los Angeles, but the first one is violated by someone who releases a potentially lethal gas in the subway system.


Mathematics used: Percolation theory and diffusion 
20 7 "Convergence" Dennis Smith Nicolas Falacci & Cheryl Heuton 12.36[7] November 11, 2005 (2005-11-11) 207

Don investigates a series of home invasions in which the thieves steal only high-end items from wealthy individuals. Meanwhile, an old adversary challenges Charlie's work.


Mathematics used: Group theory, data-mining, Fourier analysis, calendars, Three-dimensional trilateration, Set theory and projectile motion 
21 8 "In Plain Sight" John Behring Julie Hébert 12.44[8] November 18, 2005 (2005-11-18) 208

Megan feels responsible for an agent's death following an explosion at a house where meth is being illegally produced and that the FBI targeted for a bust.


Mathematics used: Flock behavior, steganography and matrices - error correction code 
22 9 "Toxin" Jefery Levy Ken Sanzel 12.67[9] November 25, 2005 (2005-11-25) 209

Don learns that someone is poisoning non-prescription drugs made by a leading pharmaceutical company after four people nearly die from the tampering.


Mathematics used: Information theory - information entropy, graph theory - Seven Bridges of Königsberg and soap bubble theory with Steiner tree 
23 10 "Bones of Contention" Jeannot Szwarc Christos Gage & Ruth Fletcher 12.53[10] December 9, 2005 (2005-12-09) 210

An archaeologist is killed in a museum, and the object she was studying is taken.


Mathematics used: Exponential decay and Voronoi diagram 
24 11 "Scorched" Norberto Barba Sean Crouch 11.96[11] December 16, 2005 (2005-12-16) 211

An arsonist believed to be part of an extremist environmental group sets a fire at a car dealership that kills a salesman. The group's name is spray painted at the scene and is the fourth such fire, but the first to claim a life.


Mathematics used: Combustion and principal components analysis 
25 12 "The OG" Rod Holcomb Andrew Dettman 13.93[12] January 6, 2006 (2006-01-06) 212

When Don and his team are called to the murder scene of a Los Angeles gang member, they learn the victim is a fellow agent who had been working undercover.


Mathematics used: Poisson distribution and social network analysis 
26 13 "Double Down" Alex Zakrzewski Don McGill 12.98[13] January 13, 2006 (2006-01-13) 213

When the FBI is called to investigate a murder at a Los Angeles card club, it leads the agents to unravel a complicated card counting scheme involving a group of college students whose lives may now be at risk.


Mathematics used: Probability involving sampling without replacement, time series analysis and randomization 
27 14 "Harvest" John Behring J. David Harden 13.22[14] January 27, 2006 (2006-01-27) 214

A South Asian teenager is found in the blood-spattered basement of an old downtown hotel where she was apparently being tortured. The investigation soon reveals that the girl, along with three other missing women, are victims of a black-market organ-harvesting scheme.


Mathematics used: Markov chain, ellipses and genetic variation 
28 15 "The Running Man" Terrence O'Hara Ken Sanzel 13.31[15] February 3, 2006 (2006-02-03) 215

A DNA synthesizer with the capability of customizing diseases is stolen from the campus where Charlie teaches, and Don fears the thieves may be terrorists out to start or advance a bio-warfare program.


Mathematics used: Benford's law, continued fraction, astronomy, and probability 
29 16 "Protest" Dennis Smith Nicolas Falacci & Cheryl Heuton 11.94[16] March 3, 2006 (2006-03-03) 216

A pedestrian is killed when a homemade bomb explodes under a car outside of a downtown Army recruiting center. The investigation reveals that a similar bombing occurred exactly 35 years ago at an ROTC office that killed two people.


Mathematics used: Graph theory, Ramsey numbers and recursive sequence 
30 17 "Mind Games" Peter Markle Andrew Dettman 11.67[17] March 10, 2006 (2006-03-10) 217

When the bodies of three illegal-immigrant women are found on government-owned land in a wilderness area, Don investigates and learns a psychic led the police to the crime scene after allegedly seeing visions of the bodies. Charlie becomes extremely annoyed after learning that Don is using the psychic's help to solve the case, maintaining that true psychics do not exist.


Mathematics used: Fokker-Planck equation and Binomial theorem 
31 18 "All's Fair" Rob Morrow Julie Hébert 12.09[18] March 31, 2006 (2006-03-31) 218

In an effort to find the murderer of an Iraqi woman, Don enlists the help of the victim's cousin, who lives in Los Angeles. Through her cousin, Don learns information about the woman's disturbing connection to Saddam Hussein, which could lead to her murderer. Meanwhile, Charlie reunites with an ex-girlfriend, a best-seller neuropsychologist.


Mathematics used: Density, Sudoku, logistic regression and game theory 
32 19 "Dark Matter" Peter Ellis Don McGill 13.69[19] April 7, 2006 (2006-04-07) 219

As Don and his team investigate the motive behind two students' deadly school shooting, Charlie uses the school's radio frequency identification system to track the shooters' movements through the school's hallways.


Mathematics used: RFID and optimization problem 
33 20 "Guns and Roses" Stephen Gyllenhaal Robert Port 12.09[20] April 21, 2006 (2006-04-21) 220

When an ATF agent is found dead amid questionable circumstances, Don demands to take on the case, which revolves around an elaborate bank heist, after he learns the victim is his ex-girlfriend.


Mathematics used: Echolocation and biomathematics (DNA sequence alignment
34 21 "Rampage" J. Miller Tobin Ken Sanzel 12.32[21] April 28, 2006 (2006-04-28) 221

After an unknown man opens fire in the FBI offices, Don and his team must investigate his motive and his connection to a dangerous arms dealer who is on trial.


Mathematics used: Chaos theory, Brownian Motion, Self-organized criticality, Venn diagram and tesseracts/hypercubes 
35 22 "Backscatter" Bill Eagles Nicolas Falacci & Cheryl Heuton 12.01[22] May 5, 2006 (2006-05-05) 222

An FBI investigation into a computer hacking scam, which taps into a bank's system to gain access to customer's identities and financial assets, becomes personal for Don when the Russian mob spearheading it comes after him and threatens the safety of Charlie and Alan.


Mathematics used: Explicit and implicit functions, geometric progression and exponential growth. Neil Sloane's Integer Sequence Database was also used. 
36 23 "Undercurrents" J. Miller Tobin J. David Harden 12.35[23] May 12, 2006 (2006-05-12) 223

Five young Chinese girls wash up on the shore; while Charlie works out where they came from, it emerges that one of the girls is carrying Avian Flu.


Mathematics used: Encoding, vector fields, kinematics, n-dimensional space and strange loop
37 24 "Hot Shot" John Behring Barry Schindel 12.72[24] May 19, 2006 (2006-05-19) 224

When two women are found dead with an apparent drug overdose, Don suspects a serial killer. Charlie's help on Don's case is hindered by his bizarre dream about his mother.


Mathematics used: Directed graph, parabolic equations, probability and trajectory 

References

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External links