Exhausted jugglers find opportunity in becoming mathematicians

DID YOU know that mathematics has plunged the art of juggling into a state of perpetual revolution? Professional jugglers once imagined that all juggling patterns had been exhausted, but when mathematicians began to look at the patterns as purely mathematical formulas in the mid-1980s, they constructed new patterns jugglers never knew existed.

Juggler turned mathematician Dr Carl Bracken says: "Juggling has been around for thousands of years - only recently new patterns have become available."

Dr Bracken will present The Maths of Juggling at NUI Maynooth this morning.

He will be joined by Dr Fiacre Ó Cairbre, who will give a presentation entitled The Big Picture of Maths. The event is open to the general public and begins at 11am (contact 01-708 3763) .

Meanwhile, at University College Cork this afternoon, Dr Steve Humble, also known as "Dr Maths", will present a magic show for secondary school pupils at 1.15pm and a workshop for teachers at 5pm. He says he is a great believer in helping children to understand the relevance of the mathematics they study in school.

"Children learn bits of maths but don't they see how it links to their lives. So it goes into their brain, stays a little while and fades away," he says (contact 021-490 2378).

Mosaics and their beautiful geometric patterns are to be discussed in Dublin's Chester Beatty Library by a Spanish scholar, Prof Jose Maria Montesinos, of the Universidad Complutense in Madrid.

The event starts at 6.30pm this evening (contact 01-407 0779).

The role of maths in weather forecasting is the subject of a talk taking place in UCD at 12.30pm this afternoon.

Prof Peter Lynch, Met Éireann professor of meteorology, will tell transition year, 5th and 6th year students how computers have improved our ability to predict the weather (contact 01-716 2120).

Daily logic puzzle: You've got a drawer full of odd socks: purple, pink and orange. You don't know how many of each colour; you pull out socks one at a time until you get the desired combination.

If you want a pink pair the most socks you need to pull out is 10. If you want an orange pair, the most you need to pull out is 12. For a purple pair, the most you need to pull out is 14.

How many socks of each colour? (Answer tomorrow.)

Answer to yesterday's puzzle: It is impossible to arrive on time.