Universities may pride themselves on the diversity of courses they offer to bring new and innovative teaching methods to students. Such is the case for a new module offered at Mount Allison University, where applied mathematics is meeting drama to turn the heads of true crime fans.
Drama studies director Sarah Fanning manages not only the course, but also spearheaded the creation of a screen studies and popular culture minor that the module belongs to.
Fanning ran the course last year with the help of math and computer science professor Matthew Betti, who specializes in applied mathematics. Betti said he believes math can be incorporated everywhere as the “language of the world.”
In the course, students spent a module watching and analyzing the 2007 movie Zodiac and learning more about the Zodiac Killer and his codes. The students also received the killer’s ciphers and used statistical probability to solve them.
“Seeing the adaptation from a textbook situation to a piece of media and having to create a short film for the final project, I knew I needed to take this course.”
The course not only included a media adaptation as a main theme, but also did the same for the assignments. Carson Rafuse, a recent commerce graduate who took the course, said the module’s uniqueness and originality gave the class a refreshing feel.
He also said the course’s multimedia-based structure, rather than focusing on a textbook, added an exciting element.
“Seeing the adaptation from a textbook situation to a piece of media and having to create a short film for the final project, I knew I needed to take this course,” Rafuse said.
Another aspect of the course, according to Fanning, is debunking myths with the help of Betti’s expertise. The majority of the Zodiac Killer’s infamy came from his cryptic ciphers. Contrary to popular belief, however, the ciphers themselves weren’t as interesting as the film portrayed them to be.
“There is a mythology that [the Zodiac Killer] created this complex puzzle, and that was then perpetuated by the police and the media,” Fanning said.
She added that the Zodiac Killer purposely made his ciphers misleading to spur “a public image that he was so smart and one step ahead of everyone.”
Cracking the code
According to Betti, the killer used esoteric symbols rooted in Arabic and Greek traditions, which made the letters seem a lot deeper in meaning than they actually were.
“The people in the States at the time wouldn’t have been able to understand it at all, which, to them, makes it seem deeper than it is,” Betti said. “In actuality, [by] just doing some probability over the English language and seeing at the pattern of what is being used, you would solve it.”
Betti said he wants to emphasize the importance of math in a more general and practical sense. He added logical mathematical thinking would enable a myth, like the case of the Zodiac Killer’s ciphers, to be debunked quite easily.
“The ciphers are just based on a set of arbitrary rules,” he said. “Not understanding them doesn’t mean you aren’t smart.”
Fanning used the real example of a couple who ended up solving the killer’s ciphers.
“It was a husband and wife who solved the first code,” she said. “The FBI and CIA couldn’t do it because they were applying logic which didn’t work.”
Rafuse said he thought Fanning did an incredible job for a debut module.
“It being new, there were some hiccups along the way, but Fanning was incredible in how she listened to the input and having an entire discussion at the end of course on what can be improved on,” Rafuse said.
With the course’s success, Betti said he believes more students will be inspired to try math with a more positive outlook.
“It’s very easy to get students in there if they want a math credit that’s not calculus,” Betti said. “It’s more difficult to get students who are in the arts and humanities to come and see the value of some of this.”
Fanning said she and Betti would also like to use the momentum of the course’s success to bring in modules from other mediums like video games.
“We’d really like to introduce a gaming course in the program and have that co-taught with both drama and math departments.”
Featured image provided by Sarah Fanning.
