The importance of maths in our everyday lives will be a persistent theme throughout Maths Week which runs at IT Sligo from Monday October 17th to Friday October 21st.
Maths Weeks will be marked at schools and colleges throughout the country, amid growing concern about dropping standards among Irish students and the knock-on effects in the science, computer and finance sectors. Ireland is currently ranked 26th out of 34 countries in maths competency.
This is the second year that IT Sligo has put on a provocative and entertaining programme of Maths Week events, where students, staff and anyone who knows the importance of being able to count, will be invited to ponder the relevance of the subject.
All events are free and there is something for all interests on the programme, including less confident mathematicians. As well as lectures, there will be a table quiz with a mathematical twist at the Harp Tavern on Thursday evening where knowledge about Sligo Rovers-related trivia may just be an asset. There is a €10 fee for tables of four with proceeds going to charity.
Fittingly the week begins with a look at the career of George Gabriel Stokes, the renowned mathematician and physicist who was born in Skreen, Co Sligo in 1819. Stokes was one of the leading lights in the “Gentlemen of Science” group in Britain where he also served as secretary and president of the influential Royal Society. The Stokes Memorial Lecture will be delivered by Dr Norman McMillan, Director of Drop Technology Tallaght who has spent decades raising the profile of Irish science and technology, and who will outline the relevance of Stokes’ research to Irish industry today in a lecture at 1pm on Monday, October 17th.
As business and employer groups put pressure on government to boosts standards in maths, there will be much interest in Owen McConway’s lecture on the Project Maths initiative at 6pm on Monday October 17th. Project Maths is a more user-friendly maths programme which is expected to be in all second level schools by 2014. McConway, who has taught maths to higher level Leaving Cert students for 20 years, will look at the differences between the old and the new syllabus, and their impact on students as they proceed to third level.
Dr Etain Kiely and David Doyle, both lecturers at the School of Science at IT Sligo, canvassed the views of 193 first year science students, for a presentation “Not Just a Number” which will give an insight into students’ experience of learning maths at second level . Their presentation will be of particular interest to teachers and lecturers and will take place at 7pm on Monday, October 17th.
One of the highlights of the week will be the appearance of “mathemagician” Andrew Jeffrey who will present his magical maths show on Thursday, October 20th at 3pm. Described as a “maths evangelist”, Andrew has written several books for teachers and believes that absolutely anyone can understand and appreciate “the beauty and structure of the mathematical universe”.
Fergal Gallagher lecturer and post graduate student at the Institute will address a problem which has confounded mathematicians for 350 years in his talk “Fermat’s Last Theorem”.
IT Sligo lecturer Liam Winters will look at an even older question. In “History of Numbers”, the lecturer will look at the question “how many” which humans have been asking for thousands of years, since mankind first learned how to count – and how to keep track of their property.
The topic from former IT Sligo lecturer John D Sheehy will be “Trigonometry in 20 minutes”. He has bravely undertaken to explain Trigonometry in record time to those who never got the point while at school. (If he finishes in less than 20 minutes he has promised to address such conundrums as how many cans of beer did the old lady drink per day after she hijacked the Carlsberg lorry).
Lecturer Cillian O’Murchu will look at the importance of maths in the financial services world while a popular presentations will be from Calum Cawley a member of the IT Sligo Hermes Team which came literally top of the world when it won the Microsoft Imagine Cup 2011 earlier this summer. Calum will outline the mathematical dimensions of the project’s plan to make roads safer by analysing driver behaviour.
One of the organisers of the event, maths lecturer Grace Corcoran said it will help focus on the importance of the subject at a time when the government has acknowledged the need to examine how maths is taught. “It is important that students are given the confidence to continue with their maths studies”, she said.
Ms Corcoran said that a time when developing the smart economy was seen as a key to our economic recovery; “Our Maths Week programme is designed to communicate how accessible and how relevant the subject is for all students. Our economic recovery is dependent on creating a strong foundation in science and technology and as mathematics is a key subject in this area it is critical that we prioritise this subject in order to develop the competencies to succeed in science, engineering, technology and finance.”
Maths Week at IT Sligo is sponsored by the Institute of Physics in Ireland, the Sligo Education Centre and the Booknest.