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 Numbers Gets It Wrong
Commentary On The TV Series "Numbers"
By Tim McGuinness, Ph.D.,
August 17th, 2008
I recently
watched an episode of the TV series
"Numb3rs" produced by Tony Scot, called "The
Art Of Reckoning"
In this episode, one of the
steady characters, named "Larry" had just returned from to trip to the
International Space Station aboard the Space Shuttle. While in orbit,
Larry occupied his mind creating a Kipu. He proceeds to tell the character
Charlie about it. He describes it as an Aztec creation, "use to hide
information from the conquering Spaniards"!
Is there no one in Los Angeles
on the production company that knows anything about history?
The entire explanation was
fraudulent. Totally made up. Who ever wrote that did a grave
injustice to their watchers, and to the incredible people to Peru, where this
amazing artifact originated.
Currently, most investigators consider the kipu to have
been the 'written' language of the Inca people. The kipucamayocs were
the database administrators, so to speak, and were the only ones capable of
interpreting the meaning of the knotted strings, based on the color (e.g.
yellow for gold, red for army), positioning and type of the different knots.
The knots were made in a base-of-10 positional notation that even
shows the use of the zero and they could mean anything from the number of
babies born in a village to the amount of corn that was destroyed in a hail
storm; all depending on the context they were used in.
Some scientists believe they were also used as memory aids
for storytellers or poets.
Sadly enough however, since the Kipus were closely related to the Inca
culture and religion, and because the Spanish conquistadores presumably did
not understand much of it, they were considered a threat and therefore
eradicated as thoroughly as possible.
The knowledge about Kipus has been forever lost in
history.
However, while we
may not know how to read a Kipu, it doesn't mean that we don't know
which culture produced them, how they were used, and that they were
limited to the Inka culture of Peru - NOT Aztecs from Central
Mexico, and NOT invented AFTER the Spanish invasion.
When a movie or TV program
makes such a point of a central object in the story line, and totally lies about
it, how can you have any confidence in anything that series portrays?
Especially one that seems to pride itself on science and mathematics as a
tangible character in the series?
This is just another example of
how the big media just doesn't care to get anything right any more - we are all
to stupid to know any better! Well, for me at least - Numb3rs does not
compute!
Hopefully, if nothing else comes from this movie,
it will be a deeper interest in the hard science of archaeology and
our ancient cultural heritage. However, I suspect that Lucas
and company have permanently stamped the nonsense of crystal skull
worship into the global psyche.
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