Maths Magicians!

Yes, technically, Maths week was last week, but like a repeating decimal or pi… Maths never really stops! This year, we were delighted to welcome back Past Pupil Colm Mulcahy (Class of 1975): Irish mathematician, academic, columnist, book author, public outreach speaker, amateur magician and spinner of engaging Maths stories. Colm is Professor Emeritus at Spelman College, where he was on the faculty from 1988 to 2020 and is famous for his Maths outreach programmes and, just last week, was named recipient of this year’s national Maths Week Ireland Award! We were thrilled to have him back, dazzling both Junior and Senior pupils with his maths-based card tricks. We are not sure the legendary Conlethian STEM teacher/god Michael Manning encouraged card play in his classroom, but we are sure he is proud that his past pupil is carrying on the Maths mission with such enthusiasm and charm. Prof. Mulcahy even inspired the Classics Kids who went all ‘mathsy’, measuring the Macedonian sarissa with a handy, if inexact, standard.

We also have a resident Maths Maniac: Mr. Morris, who ran the Maths Week Challenges competition and presented special ‘Maths Mugs’ to the student competition winners. We knew the particular students were deserving winners as they all immediately calculated the volumes of the cylindrical mugs… but none could figure out how to open the boxes!

by Charles Latvis