A mathematician has predicted that Ireland's rugby team will beat France in their crucial confrontation over the weekend.
The maths professor believes it will be a very tight victory to Ireland but the numbers suggest there could also be a late breakaway during the pool D match on Sunday.
The prediction is all down to a bit of maths known as "Poisson Theory" says Prof Steve Humble of Newcastle University, who ran the numbers twice to come up with a victory for the boys in green.
Only probabilities
He also warns however that these are only mathematical predictions based on probabilities and not certainty. So don't rush out and bet the house on an Ireland win or invest the life savings with the local bookie.
Prof Humble, also known as Dr Maths, will be in Ireland next week for Maths Week Ireland, an all-Ireland festival of maths and numeracy. It runs from October 10th to 18th and includes lectures, displays and fun events for all ages at venues across the State.
Dr Maths's two predictions - one for an 18-15 win and another for a 26-18 scoreline both delivering a victory for Ireland- used a maths theory published by 19th century mathematician Simeon Poisson in 1837.
“The theory allows you to predict events that at first glance seem to be random or have little pattern,” he says.
“It is used, for example, to help work out how many staff will be needed to work in a call centre at particular times in the day, or similarly to predict the size of queues at supermarkets checkouts.”
Notoriously difficult
He says that rugby results can be notoriously difficult to predict with any certainty due to unmeasurables such as team commitment and performance on the day.
Even so, the numbers do look like tipping the balance in Ireland’s favour, despite using a form of mathematics developed by a Frenchman.
The result is crucial, given if Ireland lose to France they will meet the All Blacks in the quarter finals. An Irish win would likely line us up with Argentina.
Poisson’s theory isn’t needed to guess which team we would like to play after the weekend when we move into the next round.
