A walk on the numerical side

SMALL PRINT:Lace up your sturdy shoes: the annual Hamilton Walk takes place later this month. On October 16th, the event will celebrate that day in 1843 when the Irish mathematician William Rowan Hamilton had a flash of inspiration about "quaternions" while walking along the banks of the Royal Canal in Dublin.

The walk begins at Dunsink Observatory and heads south to meet the Royal Canal, before going east along the canal to end up at Broombridge train station in Cabra. There, a plaque marks the area where Hamilton scratched his formulas for the quaternions on the bridge. A quaternion is a certain type of four-dimensional number and was a totally new concept in mathematics.

All are welcome to participate in the walk, but you must contact Fiacre Ó Cairbre in the Department of Mathematics at NUI Maynooth (call 01-7083763) to book a place.