MATHS TEACHERS may like to take some of two public lectures their students along to which are to be held at St Patrick's College, Drumcondra, Dublin, in the next few weeks.

Dr John Cosgrave, of the college's mathematics department, will talk on the subject of "The Recently Discovered Record Prime Number" tomorrow night at 8 p.m. He will examine the background to the discovery in September this year by the US company Cray Research, and explain in simple language how the primality of this new record prime was established.

At a second lecture, he will discuss "Prime Numbers and Public Key Cryptography" on Wednesday, November 6th at 8 p.m., explaining how in 1977 a remarkable new form of cryptography was created in the US and how this new method, called public-key cryptography, is of great interest to governments, security agencies, human-rights groups, companies and so on.

"I am especially interested in having young people attend," Dr Cosgrave says. "I will not assume any previous knowledge of mathematics; I will he making a special effort to develop everything from scratch."

The lectures will take place in Room €201 in the college.