Maths Week events take place throughout Ireland today

With Maths Week continuing until next Saturday, a highlight today will be a lecture by Keith Devlin of Stanford University, at 6.30pm at TCD’s Science Gallery.

It is free and open to the public. Prof Devlin has championed innovative ways of teaching maths and his latest is through the use of video games. It has led to the founding of InnerTube Games, an online service offering games designed to help develop an understanding of maths.

His talk this evening is called First Person Solvers – Using Video Games to Solve Maths Problems. Details can be found at mathsweek.ie.

As demand is expected to be high, advance booking on the Science Gallery website is “crucial”, say organisers .

Meanwhile, at 7pm Bubbiz the Mathematical Clown will present a family show in Waterford’s Institute of Technology. Other events will also take place around the country. See the website for details

Maths puzzle for today:

Party Time
Since I'm not very political myself, my friend was surprised when I told him I had a meeting last night with a number of TDs from the three largest parties for some last minute lobbying about the budget. "How many of them came?" he asked me. Wanting to appear circumspect I replied, "All were Fine Gael except two, all were Labour except two and all were Fianna Fáil except two." Can you figure out how many were at the meeting in total?

Puzzles prepared by Eoin Gill, answers explained at mathsweek.ie.

Scroll down for solution...

Solution: Four were at the meeting, three TDs and myself