In December, Cheryl Heuton, executive producer and creator -- with husband Nicolas Falacci -- of the new CBS drama "Numb3rs" (yep, that's a 3) posted a comment on a math-oriented Internet bulletin board. Questions had come up about network promos for the show's pilot, which depicts a mathematician using equations to solve crimes.

Heuton pointed out that the story is fact-based, and the equations are real, then quipped, "Just wait until episode 4, when the poor guy nearly loses his mind trying to solve P vs. NP ... ."

In case you're curious, Stephen Cook of the University of Toronto begins his statement of the problem by saying, "The P vs. NP problem is to determine whether every language accepted by some nondeterministic algorithm in polynomial time is also accepted by some [deterministic] algorithm in polynomial time."

Heuton's flip comment caused another poster to fire back, "Sure, mathematicians get frustrated, but to 'nearly lose his mind over P vs. NP' is just bizarre and unrealistic."

This gives you some small idea of the deep waters into which Heuton and Falacci are wading when they attempt to blend the esoteric world of high-level mathematics with the more pragmatic world of crime and punishment.

After premiering Sunday, Jan. 23, following the AFC Championship football game, "Numb3rs" moves to its regular Friday time slot on Jan. 28. David Krumholtz stars as Charlie Eppes, a math prodigy at a Southern California university (his classroom stuff is shot at CalTech in Pasadena). His older brother, Don (Rob Morrow), is an FBI agent in Los Angeles, and both often wind up at the home of their retiree father, Alan (Judd Hirsch). At the university, Charlie deals with his mentor, Dr. Larry Fleinhardt (Peter MacNicol); at the FBI, Don deals with partner Terry Lake (Sabrina Lloyd) and agent David Sinclair (Alimi Ballard).

"We had written movies where the main characters were scientists and engineers and mathematicians," Falacci says during a break in filming at the show's sets in a former corporate headquarters in downtown Los Angeles. "We really enjoyed it. They are really detectives, mathematicians, the way they apply their art."

As to making the two leads brothers, Heuton says, "Whenever you have a character who has a lot to learn about being human, you get a lot of character work. We also wanted a show that would take place in a human dimension that would go to the family home.

"We wanted to have our mathematician partnered up in some way with someone whose job is solving crimes, so you could see how their logic fit together differently. It occurred to us that how you would get the best crunch between these two is if they were brothers."

This angle also goes into what happens when there is one exceptional child in a family. According to the producers' back story, while young Charlie was excelling as a child prodigy -- graduating from high school with Don, entering college at 13, monopolizing his mother's attention -- Don was left feeling inadequate and mediocre. But at the same time, Charlie envied Don's more normal life and worries that he's only liked for his genius.

"In a weird way," Morrow says, "the mother and Charlie were tight, and the father and Don bonded over 'We're just regular guys.' Don's probably really intelligent, but because his brother's so intelligent, he thinks he's not. There's definitely been some resentment."

"But Don had friends," Heuton says, "was a popular athlete. Don dated girls. For Charlie, that was the ideal life. He's always knocking on the glass of Don's life, and Don, like a lot of older brothers, is always trying to get away from him."

"There's also no mother there," Krumholtz says, "so you'll learn what the deal is there."

While no one on the show -- except the consultant, a CalTech professor -- is a mathematician, it turns out that Krumholtz, who freely admits, "I was real bad at math" and failed algebra twice, may have hidden talents.

"So far," he says, "there have been a couple moments on set where I've understood something. It feels really cool. It's vindicating. It's like, I'm meant to be here. I guess I do have a knack for this stuff even though I was so bad at it in high school."

Tapped, coincidentally, by Hirsch to play his son on Broadway at 13, Krumholtz's formal schooling is limited to high school and a bit of college.

"It turned out to be a bizarre bit of typecasting," Heuton says, "and David's only figuring that out now. He's brilliant. Our math consultant, who is the head of math at CalTech, was shocked when I told him David wasn't a college graduate. He said, 'You give me that kid now, and I'll make him a mathematician.'

"We read some 80 actors for the part, some very high-profile people, and nobody came close. The minute he read it -- bam. Just like that. This is the guy. You can see him writing the equations. He knows them all. He memorizes them like he memorizes lines and writes them out. It's phenomenal."

"I was the loudmouth in class," Krumholtz says, "literally saying, 'Hey, we don't need algebra. It should be an optional class. I'll never use this in my life. How will this ever apply?' I was so wrong."

Audiences may have a mathematical revelation as well. "The studio let us be across the glass from the focus groups," Heuton says. "Men and women both said, 'I hated math. I was no good at math. Who likes math? But when I watch this show, I can understand, and it makes me feel smart. A little part of me always wanted to appreciate math.' "