Problems and Solutions
Desmond MacHale was born in 1946 in Castlebar,
County Mayo, Ireland. He earned his B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in
Mathematical Science at University College Galway. In 1972, he was
awarded a Ph.D. degree in Group Theory at the University of Keele
in the UK under the supervision of Dr. Hans Liebeck. He taught
mathematics for forty years at University College Cork in Ireland,
rising to the rank of Associate Professor. He has over a hundred
research articles published in refereed mathematical journals and
his interests lie mainly in abstract algebra (groups and rings) but
he has also published articles on geometric dissections, number
theory, Euclidean geometry, trigonometry and a book on mathematical
humour (Comic Sections Plus). Both as a student and teacher, he has
won many prizes for his work on the popularisation of mathematics.
He is currently Emeritus Professor of Mathematics at University
College Cork.
In 1984 he set up the Superbrain Examination open to all students
of UCC and later the Irish Intervarsity Mathematics Competition. He
has written four biographical books on George Boole who was the
first professor of mathematics in Cork from 1849 to 1864. These are
George Boole His Life and Work (2014); New Light on George Boole
(with Yvonne Cohen) (2018); The Poetry of George Boole( 2021); and
Simply Boole (with Yvonne Cohen) to appear. In 2015 he was awarded
an honorary doctorate in Literature by the National University of
Ireland for his work on George Boole. He has written over a dozen
books of Lateral Thinking puzzles with Paul Sloane and many other
books of mathematical puzzles, riddles and jokes—over eighty books
in all.
Among Des MacHale's other interests are Geology (in which he has a diploma), puzzles of all sorts, words, music especially classical and Irish, photography,
He believes that mathematics is like an infinite goldmine—the more gold you dig out, the more there is to find.
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