Getting creative with the cutting edge

Describing life inside a tennis ball helped a UCC PhD researcher win the 2009 Science Speak competition, writes DICK AHLSTROM…

Describing life inside a tennis ball helped a UCC PhD researcher win the 2009 Science Speak competition, writes DICK AHLSTROM

ON THE FACE of it, a drunk fly trying to escape from inside a tennis ball would seem to have very little to do with mathematics. Yet this unlikely scenario provided an intriguing starting point for the winner of the annual Science Speak competition.

University College Cork’s Julie O’Donovan claimed top prize in the event, which took place at the RDS Dublin at the end of April.

The national event sees PhD researchers from all of the Republic’s seven universities presenting their scientific research to a general audience. The challenge is that the students must use ordinary language and avoid scientific jargon.

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O’Donovan had a particular mountain to climb in this regard, given that her research is in pure mathematics. She won through by turning complex mathematical ideas into whimsical creations, getting laughs from the audience as readily as a stand-up comic.

O'Donovan works with supervisor Dr Tom Carroll in UCC's department of mathematics, within the School of Mathematics, Applied Mathematics and Statistics. The title of her talk was Collections of Spherical Obstacles that Brownian Motion Can Avoid, a mouthful in itself.

Her actual research goal is to devise new mathematical theorems, and the one referred to in her presentation describes an object moving randomly, following what is known as “Brownian motion”, through a space that contains randomly distributed obstacles. The theorem tells her whether the object can escape the space without hitting any of the obstacles. But how to describe such a thing without jargon?

She overcame the problem by creating a scenario involving a fly and a tennis ball. Her object follows “Brownian motion” as required by the theorem.

“I think of Brownian motion as a drunk creature and the random path it follows, a drunk fly or a drunk bird flying about randomly,” she says, explaining her work this week.

Her theorem describes a finite space, which she turned into the inside of a tennis ball. The obstacles became dangerous things that, when touched, cause immediate annihilation.

“The fly starts at the very centre of the tennis ball and comes out of this very small origin, a pub. The drunk fly wants to escape from the tennis ball, but the obstacles are in the way,” she says.

The fly can only use Brownian motion to escape, but, she asks, would it be able to do so? “Would the random motion cause the fly to hit the obstacles or could it escape?”

Happily, the theorem is powerful enough to answer this question. The obstacles will claim many victims among the flies, but not all of them. “If you let the flies go enough times, some will escape,” she says.

It cannot tell you how many, however. “All the theorem says is that some will escape.”

O’Donovan put on a masterful show, engaging with her audience and helping them to understand her work. “You have to connect with reality when you are talking to the public, or you will switch them off,” she says.

Her tennis-ball world may seem fanciful, but it gets the message across, and the theorem itself is not without possible application. It could be used in studies looking at the spread of disease, she suggests. It could be used, for example, to predict the likelihood of a person with swine flu infecting others around him as he moves through a building.

Each of the seven Science Speak finalists won through from similar events in their own universities, so the competition was tough. “I was nervous, but enjoyed it,” O’Donovan admits.

Science Speak is a joint initiative organised by the RDS and The Irish Times, in association with Irish Universities Promoting Science. It is supported by the Discover Science and Engineering programme and Wyeth Ireland at Grange Castle, Dublin.

RTÉ presenter Pat Kenny served as compere for the event, which took place on April 27th. Judges on the night included Peter Brabazon, Evelyn Cusack, Mary Mulvihill, Aoibheann Ní Shuilleabháin and this reporter.