Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (Math Props)

A Math Prop from Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, a 2008 TV series. A keyboard from the Victor 600 model adding machine!
Please comment if you know of any other math props in film or TV!
Curta image CC-BY-SA-3.0 France by Wikimedia user Rama.

[@somecreeep]

3:08 What's wrong with the bra-ket notation from episode 3? That's the standard way of representing matrix elements of an operator. Not too many bars. I do think it's a cardinal sin to write J like a backwards L, but other than that, I don't see much wrong with it. Maybe they shouldn't have divided by J^2 since you can't divide by operators, but if they're just being lazy about some agreed-upon norm for operators (e.g. determinant or a Frobenius norm), that's fine too

[@ChrisStaecker]

Ah- maybe it's OK? I don't actually know much about the bra-ket notation. I've only ever seen it like . But now scrolling down deep on wikipedia I see there really is such a thing as . I stand corrected! I was also initially thrown by the backwards L, but eventually decided it was supposed to be a J. I figured they copied it from somewhere, and maybe whoever was copying it thought it actually was a backwards L, so they wrote it like that.

[@MattMcIrvin]

@@ChrisStaecker Yeah, it looks to me like they got something out of a quantum mechanics text and at least used it as the basis of what they were writing.

[@Gremriel]

Lol! I just saw another video of an old calculator, and I thought: I haven't seen Chris Staecker in a while. And here you are.

[@ChrisStaecker]

I got real busy over the last few months but I'm hoping to make more videos again now-

[@Laundry_Hamper]

The hordes demand mirth. Math mirth.

[@musicalBurr]

Funny coincidence. I just started rewatching this from the start only a couple of days ago. I do like it - for starters Summer Glau is a wonderful Terminator robot! There's some interesting time-travel logic that shows up later on in the 2nd season, like criss-crossing time branches or something. Too bad they didn't keep going into the third season.

[@jaapsch2]

I love it when props are made from repurposed other items. It happens more often with electronic toys than calculators, and usually in low budget films/series. Eg Firefly used a Master Merlin game as a controller

[@Nashvillain10SE]

You mean like how OceanGate Expeditions repurposed a Logitech F710 Wireless PC Gamepad to take a submarine down to the bottom of the ocean floor to see the Titanic wreck?

[@creamwobbly]

They also repurposed a fiberglass manufacturing process that was good for about half the depth they were planning to go to.

[@8_Bit]

Fun! This is the first time KZbin's recommended your videos to me since the L.A. Noire / The Prisoner videos.

[@ChrisStaecker]

I guess they think you really love the props! I made lots of videos about the Curta last December, which totally burned me out- i'm just now getting back into it.

[@rithessa]

Forehead actress is going to keep me smiling all day.

[@ChrisStaecker]

DOES. NOT. QUIT.

[@1ucasvb]

The math in the blackboard seems to mostly check out. They are expectation values for angular momentum operators in the total angular momentum basis, and there's also an integral for the spherical harmonics which is also relevant.

[@ChrisStaecker]

I should've been more careful!

[@zalibecquerel3463]

Great to see you again! Hope you're doing well.

[@1906Farnsworth]

1:53 There was plenty of coaxial cable in the 1960's. It's how I received my TV back in those days, because we were too far from the stations to get it via antenna. Coax was used as far back as World War 2, and before.

[@ChrisStaecker]

Yes coax is certainly very old, but this type of connector appeared in the 70s I believe.

[@1906Farnsworth]

@@ChrisStaecker Do you mean F connectors? Had 'em in the 60's. The ones with the integrated crimp rings might be newer than that, can't remember that much. The ones from the '60s had separate rings to crimp it on.

[@ChrisStaecker]

@1906Farnsworth yes the F connectors, which Wikipedia assures me became common in the 70s. I’m no expert…

[@timetraveller6643]

They go back further and build a time machine out of an abacus, a sundial , and some trig tables. click, click, click, whooosh !

[@musicalBurr]

Haha! Funny. :-)

[@jaapsch2]

You mean, like the Dial of Destiny?

[@theobserver314]

A surprise, to be sure, but a welcomed one.

[@MrEMeat-kk9tc]

Happy to see you making videos again!

[@Salsmachev]

My favourite math props moment is in the second live action Scooby Doo movie. The movie itself is nothing special, but there's a scene where Velma uses a flight computer slide rule and I literally shouted at the screen when I saw it. I don't remember exactly what they were doing with it, but I'm pretty sure that's not the right slide rule to be using.

[@ChrisStaecker]

Thanks- i'll check this out

[@MattMcIrvin]

Ever seen the shot of Spock using one of those on the starship Enterprise? He actually used it in multiple episodes if I recall correctly.

[@MichaelDoornbos]

I have an R.C.Allen adding machine but never thought of it as a potential movie prop. Neat!

[@TomCarlson]

One of these just sold on eBay for five bones! I woulda bid, but I already have one.

[@walkernet4426]

Professor, you mentioned that “like most of projects I’ve done, I have a pretty good idea of what the theorems would end up being, even from day 1.” Could you maybe (at your convenience) share more on how the thinking process would look like, and how to judge the risk of a problem? From my guess, the process would be, initially we have a conjecture that we want to prove, and a few ideas of how to do that. Then we tried it out, however, it doesn't work, and maybe the statement is wrong, so we change the statement, and then try to prove it, iterate the process until we have a tackable statement and its proof. I'm not sure whether this would be typical for mathematical research. Personally, I spent a very long time to figure out how to prove a conjecture, and I've tried many things but did not figure out how to prove or disprove, I would be very appreciate to hear from you that whether this type of problem is actually on the spectrum of high risks, and we should more focus on projects that we have an idea of how it would be at day 1, to keep ourselves on the track. Lastly, Thank you very much for sharing this video! It's great to see how mathematician works, and how a collaboration starts. 🌞

[@LeoStaley]

I love that there are 320 views and 19 comments, and that you called summer Glau a forehead actor.

[@StephenRansom47]

[blank] Bashing is always fun in movie props … I keep thinking that Brazil & 12 Monkeys must have Oodles. 😅 *oodles - lots

[@ChrisStaecker]

I have plans for Brazil- not sure about 12 Monkeys

[@MattMcIrvin]

The prop designs for Brazil must have been so much fun because they were going out of their way to make everything look as unpleasant and awkward as possible. The desk phone with a little patch-cable switchboard on the front of it and a ringer that does this horrible "bee-yurp... bee-yurp..."

[@StephenRansom47]

@@MattMcIrvin Indeed … Terry is a master of World Building … it’s 🤔 Brazil-Punk!

[@N_Wheeler]

Still waiting on your 'Apollo 13' slide rule video.

[@johnathanjamesjohnsonjr7408]

...🕶️👍

[@diogoduarte4097]

The bar is really low to get a "good" rating

[@ChrisStaecker]

Yeah this one really isn’t that great, but I liked it so it gets the “good”!