There is a sort of "deflation" that occurs when people learn maths in a conventional way, something that can put them off the subject forever. Yet there is a richness to maths that is worth trying to understand.
So argued Prof Timothy Gowers who last night delivered the annual Hamilton Lecture in Dublin. The lecture honours one of Ireland's finest mathematicians, William Rowan Hamilton, who lived and worked at Dunsink Observatory during the 1800s.
"There is a sort of deflation involved in teaching maths," he acknowledged to his capacity audience in the Arts Block, Trinity College Dublin. The problem isn't the subject's difficulty as much as the way that it is presented to students.
"I think that it is possible to try to explain how to think about maths and not just present a finished product," he said. "A common complaint from maths students round the world is they are given theorems and proofs but no information about how one came to that proof. There isn't any plausible story about how a proof was achieved."
Prof Gowers is the Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge University and a Fellow of Trinity College. He is also the recipient of the prestigious Fields Medal, comparable in maths to the Nobel prizes for the sciences.
Last night's talk centred on Pythagoras's Theorem. It was organised by the Royal Irish Academy (RIA) and The Irish Times with sponsorship from DEPFA Bank.
Earlier yesterday Prof Gowers presented nine RIA Hamilton Prizes for undergraduate maths. The winners and their universities were: Norma Coffey, UL; Michael Francis Duffy, UCD; Allan Ellingsgaard, UU; Andrew Patrick Haugh, UCC; John Paul Judge, DUC; Raymond Kinane, NUI Maynooth; Judith Millar, QUB; Conall Murphy, NUI Galway; and Lennon Ó Náraigh, TCD.
