1. Biography

2. Superbrain Competition

3. Selected publications

4. Awards and honours

5. References

6. External links

Biography

Des MacHale was born in Castlebar, County Mayo. He earned his BSc and MSc in mathematical science at University College Galway in 1967 and 1968, and completed his PhD at the University of Keele in 1972 under Hans Liebeck. Since then he has been at University College Cork, where his research has focussed on group and ring theory, especially Boolean rings.^[4]

In 1985 MacHale published George Boole: His Life and Work, the first book length biography of Boole.^[5] In 2014, a year ahead of Boole's bicentennial, this was reissued in revised and expanded form as The Life and Work of George Boole: A Prelude to the Digital Age. He is considered the world's leading expert on Boole and in 2018 published another book New Light on George Boole, co-authored with Yvonne Cohen.^[6][8]

MacHale is a prolific author on various other subjects, including brainteasers and he has written some 30 books of jokes and discussions of humour.^[7] His Comic Sections: The Book of Mathematical Jokes, Humour, Wit and Wisdom is a book which combines two of his passions. He has written over a dozen books of lateral thinking problems with author Paul Sloane; and many of these problems are featured on the Futility Closet website.^[8] He has written several books about the 1952 American film, The Quiet Man. He speaks often–at schools, on radio, and television–on mathematics, humour, and puzzles.^[9]

MacHale designed the logo of the Irish Mathematical Society.^[10]

He is a longtime opponent of smoking, and for decades has played a leading role in the Irish Association of Non-Smokers. He appeared on RTÉ's The Late Late Show as early as the 1980s in an attempt to educate the public about the dangers of smoking.^[5]

Superbrain Competition

For a quarter century, starting in 1984, he ran the Superbrain Competition at University College Cork, also setting the questions and grading the papers. This annual competitive mathematics exam was and continues to be open to all UCC undergraduate and master's level students, and consists of 10 questions to be done in 3 hours. Students who have done well on it have sometimes ended up in academia themselves. A book of the questions (with full solutions) from 1984 to 2008 inclusive was published as The First Twenty-Five Years of the Superbrain by Diarmuid Early & Des MacHale (The United Kingdom Mathematics Trust, 2011). Sample questions, which require at most some basic knowledge of geometry, calculus and probability, include "Prove that cosine of 29 degrees is not a rational number", "What is the maximum and minimum number of Friday the thirteenths that can occur in any calendar year", and "Find with proof all solutions of the equation , where x, y, and z are all positive integers".^[11]

Selected publications

• 2018 New Light on George Boole (with Yvonne Cohen), Cork University Press, {{ISBN|9781782052906}}
• 2014 The First Twenty-Five Years of the Superbrain (with Diarmuid Early) United Kingdom Mathematics Trust, {{ISBN|1906001227}}
• 2014 The Life and Work of George Boole : a Prelude to the Digital Age, Cork University Press, {{ISBN|1782050051}}
• 2004 Picture The quiet man : an illustrated celebration, Appletree, {{ISBN|9780862819309}}
• 1995 Best Irish Humorous Quotations, Mercier, {{ISBN|1-85635-138-6}}
• 1993 Comic Sections: The Book of Mathematical Jokes, Humour, Wit and Wisdom, Boole Press, {{ISBN|1-85748-006-6}}
• 1989 The World's Best Maggie Thatcher Jokes, Angus & Robertson, {{ISBN|0-207-16224-7}}
• 1987 The Book of Irish Bull: Better than All the Udders, Mercier, {{ISBN|0-85342-822-0}}
• 1985 George Boole: His Life and Work, Boole Press, {{ISBN|0-906783-14-3}}

Awards and honours

On George Boole Day, 2 November 2015, University College Cork awarded MacHale an honorary doctorate of literature in recognition of his contributions to scholarship on Boole.^[12][13][14] On 15 October 2016 Maths Week Ireland presented MacHale with the inaugural "Raising Public Awareness of Maths" award.^[15][16]

References

External links

• {{MathGenealogy|id=159049}}

• American Academy of Nurse Practitioners
• American Academy of Otolaryngology
• American Academy of Otolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery
• American Academy of Periodontology
• American Academy of Periodontology Foundation
• American Academy of Private Physicians
• American Academy of Project Management
• American Academy of Psychiatry and Law
• American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law
• American Academy of the Spanish Language
• American Accent
• American accent
• American Ace (Timely Comics)
• Americana: Dispatches From The New Frontier
• American Adobo
• American Adventure (disambiguation)
• American Adventure Theme Park
• American Adventure World
• American Advisors Group
• American aerial bombing of Afghanistan
• American Aerolights
• American Aerolights Eagle
• American Aerolights Eagle 215B
• American Aerolights Eagle XL
• American Aerolights, Inc.