Fiacre O’Cairbre is an Associate Professor of Mathematics at Maynooth University. He received his Ph.D in mathematics from Berkeley in California. Fiacre has many publications in a wide variety of areas including mathematics, physics, engineering, history and education. He has been involved in raising the public awareness of mathematics in many different ways including presenting radio shows, appearing on television shows, giving public talks, writing newspaper articles, collaborating on artworks for exhibitions, speaking at festivals, collaborating on a piece of music and organising many Maths Week events, including the annual Hamilton walk. Fiacre jointly received the Maths Week Ireland Award in 2018 for his work in raising public awareness of mathematics.
He considers beauty to be the most important feature of mathematics and has written a paper called The Importance of being Beautiful in Mathematics. The beauty in mathematics relates to the beauty of ideas because mathematics resides in the world of ideas. Freedom is another important feature of mathematics and he has written a paper called Freedom in Mathematics and its Educational Value. Fiacre considers storytelling to play a powerful role in mathematics education and has written papers on the topic.
He has written a lot about William Rowan Hamilton who is Ireland’s greatest mathematician. Fiacre organises the annual Hamilton walk on October 16 which attracts about 200 people including members of the general public (many outside mathematics), transition year students and staff and students from third level. The walk commemorates Hamilton’s famous creation of a strange new four–dimensional system of numbers called quaternions on October 16, 1843 during a Eureka moment as he walked along the banks of the Royal Canal in Dublin. Quaternions are now significant in many applications including physics, space navigation, computer animation and special effects in movies. You can read more about the walk in my paper, Twenty Years of the Hamilton Walk. Contact me if you are interested in coming on the walk. Over the years, a wide variety of people (many outside mathematics) have been inspired by Hamilton’s story to create artworks related to Hamilton. These artworks are discussed in my paper, Mathematics Education and the Public’s Interaction with the Hamilton Story.
Fiacre co-authored a book called A Resource for Transition year Mathematics teachers. The Department of Education sent two free copies of the book to every second level school in Ireland in 2006.
