The work of 19th-century Irish mathematician Sir William Rowan Hamilton features large in a talk to be given in Dublin by Fields Medal winner and All Blacks rugby fan, Vaughan Jones.
Jones will give a free public lecture entitled "Romancing the commutator" on March 15th. The event is one of a series organised jointly by the Royal Irish Academy, The Irish Times and Depfa Bank Ltd to mark 2005 in Ireland as the Hamilton Year. The Fields Medal ranks with the Nobel Prize when it comes to recognising accomplishments in maths. Jones received his in 1990, surprising fellow mathematicians by delivering his recipient's lecture wearing the All Blacks rugby strip.
Hamilton devised quaternion mathematics, which in part is about commutativity. While most mathematical systems accept that A x B is the same as B x A, this equation does not hold in quaternion maths.
Jones promises however that his talk is designed specifically to appeal to non-mathematicians. You won't need a degree in quaternions to enjoy his presentation during which he will go out of his way to make sure no one is left behind.
Support for the All Blacks comes naturally for Jones, who hails from New Zealand. He did undergraduate and graduate studies in Auckland and a PhD in Geneva. He has lectured and conducted research in the US since 1980 and is currently professor of mathematics at the University of California, Berkeley.
The lecture takes place at 6.30pm in the Burke Theatre, Arts Block, Trinity College, on Tuesday, March 15th. The talk is free but must be booked because of limited space. Tickets are available by logging onto the academy's website at www.ria.ie and a small number of tickets are also available by dialling 01-6762570.
