The Function Room

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A podcast about the big numbers, the hard sums, the mathematics that defines, runs, shapes, changes, begins, ends, every things our lives and the world around us. Hosted by Colm O'Regan. An award-winning radio broadcaster, comedian, novelist and it turns out lapsed engineer who is trying to feel useful again. Each episode sheds light on a tiny corner of a giant subject with entertaining guests and accessible talk.

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53 episodes
Updated Jul 15, 2025

Episodes53

Newest first

Oct 19, 2023 · 53 min
33 Climate Worrier
Climate Worrier - the maths of Climate Change. I talk to mathematiciand a man wading kneed deep in the climate models, Chris Budd. Professor of Applied Mathematics at the University of Bath, He takes me painstakingly -but not painfully- through the key Big Numbers that you should know about when it comes to climate change. We recorded this a couple of years ago during Maths Week 2023 and guess what, it's still an issue! WHo knew? (Apologies for sound quality on this, I have a slight Long Wave Radio sound about me, just it was a youtube interview and I think the internet had covid when we recorded.)
Oct 16, 2023 · 25 min
32 All the Pieces Matter
This week it's the maths of puzzles, and how to get wrap your brain around the fact that the answer isn't obvious. Rob Eastaway is my guest- the first returning guest. He has a book out called Headscratchers - a compendium of puzzles from the last five years of the New Scientist. And he's over in Ireland for Mathsweek. (check out mathsweek.ie). And given the weekend that was in it, we really have to do a snippet on the maths of rugby.
Oct 4, 2023 · 52 min
31 It's in Our Nature
this week in the function room, It's in our Nature - the fascinating world of biomimicry My guest is Kathyrn Parkes, a technologist with a career spanning nearly 3 decades in designing products and an expert in User Experience. She tells me about what we can learn from nature, the stigmergy of termites, why ants don't have a boss, the benefits of hippo sweat, but also some unusual stuff too.
Sep 21, 2023 · 59 min
30 Anyone's Guess
this week in the function room, It's Anyone's Guess - the maths of guesswork David Malone of Maynooth University and the Hamilton Institute. I ride the wave of ignorance through some big topics like Information theory, Entropy, what makes a good password and how hard it would be to figure out what I had for breakfast. But first, I notice David has that all important mathematician background behind him in the interview - a white board with lots of squiggly symbols. i have to ask
Sep 11, 2023 · 49 min
29 The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same
The maths of symmetry. Hi it’s me Colm O’Regan. The function room is back after a little summer break and my guest is Pauline Mellon, professor of mathematics at UCD She wants to talk about symmetry and I’m glad she did. She brings me on a tour of maths, religion, biology, art, chemistry, AI and naturally of course town planning.
Jul 10, 2023 · 42 min
28 Things Fall Apart
The baffling arithmetic of Dereliction. I talk to Jude Sherry and Frank O’Connor of Derelict Ireland who ask the very simple question about an equation that makes no sense: Why is it that there are tens of thousands of people who need a home and tens of thousand of empty buildings that could be homes. Although specifically about Ireland, this is a question that could be asked anywhere.
Jul 3, 2023 · 51 min
27 A Sense of Ounce
Function Room 27 A Sense Of Ounce – The absolutely fascinating history of one of the most important hallmarks of our existence - how and why we measure things. James Vincent has written a book, Beyond Measure about it and he joins me to talk about this thing we completely take for granted that has changed the world, been part of revolutions, where the metre is stored and also the very strange world of anti-metric guerillas.
Jun 28, 2023 · 40 min
26 Chums' Pedigree
My guest is author of Chums, Simon Kuper about how a small cabal of Oxford chums managed to take over British politics. And from his book just how crap an Oxford and Eton education could be and you can still make it to the top. Along the way we learn what happens when a generation of leaders neither has a clue nor gives a toss about science and maths, the curious case of Jacob Rees Mogg, why Boris Johnson has been an accidental anarchist. what the French for chums is.
Jun 19, 2023 · 51 min
#25 Crime Numbers
The maths of Criminology. With Ian Marder, Assistant Professor of Criminology at Maynooth University. We talk about statistics and randomized control studies, and bias and how crime always seems worse than it is, why you should get on with your neighbours and to build the ideal justice system
Jun 9, 2023 · 51 min
24 Carbon of Contention
My guest is Dr Muireann Lynch of the economic and social research institute here in Ireland. She very carefully guides me an idiot on my first tour of the c-word. Carbon. How much it costs to use it, how much it costs, the maths of optimisation, Lagrange multipliers, carbon offsets, what happens when carbon has an infinite price. Warning – this contains traces of calculus that some listeners may find upsetting. But stick with it and we eventually get onto lighter topics like making twixes or other nougat-biscuit equivlants and then of course the end of habitable earth.
May 24, 2023 · 58 min
23 What the Butler Saw with John Butler
John Butler is a mathematician turned computational neuroscientist, a professor of maths and statistics at TU Dublin who looks at the brain mathematically and tries to figure out why the brain does what it does We talk about the senses, why it’s good to get your questions from a child, what an neural network ‘cares about’, lots of stuff but first of all, what is a computational neuroscientist. Find out more about John and his work here: https://johnsbutler.netlify.app/
May 15, 2023 · 42 min
#22 Once Upon A Prime with Sarah Hart
Normally I try and come up with an apt pun but I couldn’t possibly come up with anything better than the title of my guest Sarah Hart’s book. She has written Once Upon A Prime, a very enjoyable read and listen about the many links between maths and literature and myth and poetry. We talk about why giants as we know them can’t exist, the 19th century obsession with statistics, the maths of Ulysses and Moby Dick and taking an idea for a walk.
May 6, 2023 · 49 min
#21 Drawing by Numbers with Ayliean MacDonald
The mathematics of art or the art of mathematics whichever. My guest is teacher, artist, mathematician,m tiktok star, Ayliean MacDonald the only one with that name in the world we think. We talk about the usual things people talk about: aperiodic tiles, Japanese Hitomezashi stitching, L-chair triominals, toilet paper, cozy-gaming and the meditative power of drawing lots of straight lines in a bullet journal. She’s fascinating. Give it a play.
May 1, 2023 · 38 min
Boyle Points - the story of a gas man
This week Robert Boyle, born in Ireland in the 17th century was one of the world's great scientists. I'm talking about him with Eoin Gill, Eoin Gill is a director of Calmast STEM Engagement Centre at South East Technological University, who likes Robert Boyle so much he made an entire summer school about him. Boyle was a massive deal in the scientific revolution of the 17th century, and his work laid the groundwork for modern chemistry, a founder of the Royal Society, part of a list of big scientific cheeses like Newton and Kepler who discovered the universe was a mathematical and not just a miraculous place. But for all his science, dabbled in alchemy and sometimes he still just wanted a miracle.
Apr 22, 2023 · 49 min
The Weather Forecast: The Original Cloud Computing
My guest is Alan O’Reilly, about his hobby weather forecasting. I first met him when he was on my RTE Radio Show Colm O’Regan Wants A Word. But time constraints meant I don’t think we got to talk for the recommended daily weather talk intake of two hours. Alan lives in County Carlow, in the southern midlands of Ireland from where he observes all the weather that the weather can throw at him. We talk about the hot topic at the moment which is of course snow-drizzle called graupel, we talk about not-hearing-the-weather-forecast-anxiety, being lost in the snow, the unbearable lightness of solar panels, and some of the small numbers that make a big difference in the massive maths of weather, and why it all comes down to dew point.
Apr 14, 2023 · 52 min
Some Idle ChatGPT
Welcome back to the function room with me Colm O’Regan. This week, it's ChatGPT. The latest thing that makes people starting dropping the phrase AI into small talk. ChatGPT and all the Ais are of huge interest to my guest. Conrad Wolfram. He’s kind of a big deal. Strategic and international director of Wolfram Research which makes Mathematica the computational software and nearly 4 decades in the area of computational education, Conrad has written The maths fix, about how AI will, or should make the maths we study in school very different. We talk steam engines, democracy and poems about lightbulb filaments. You know, the standard stuff. Find him at conradwolfram.com, find chatGPT at chat.openai.com
Apr 6, 2023 · 37 min
Mental Arithmetic: It's All In Your Head
My guest is Rob Eastaway. Author of many books which make maths more interesting and accessible. He also has a podcast called Puzzling Maths with Andrew Jeffrey which you should check out if by some miracle you’re not getting all your maths vitamins from here. His most recent book is Maths on the back of an Envelope and it’s about the surprising power of mental arithmetic. Along the way, finding out,how to tell the height of a tree using the remains of a savoury snack, estimating crowds, dividing restaurant bills, counting weddings, getting a rough idea of what’s going on using Rob’s favourite word: -ish And generally hopefully, giving us all a bit of confidence to get the answer wrong but close enough. At the very end Ruby takes his advice on board and just start adding stuff up out of the blue. Well not out of the blue, off the milk carton. Follow me on twitter @colmoregan, the podcast @functionroompod. Rob is at https://robeastaway.com/
Mar 30, 2023 · 36 min
All We Hear Is: Radio Pulsar
This week on the function room, my guest is Professor Jocelyn Bell Burnell, astrophysicist from Northern Ireland who, as a postgraduate student, discovered a NEW TYPE OF STAR. That’s like discovering A NEW TYPE OF STAR Jocelyn was a postgraduate student at the time and famously her supervisor was awarded the Nobel Prize for radio pulsars, and there was no mention of Jocelyn. Even though she helped build the Interplanetary Scintillation Array – the thing that found it- over two years and she was the one who first noticed the weird data the was the radio pulsar, sometimes reviewing nearly 100ft of paper. That is just one part of a long career and distinguished career. We talk about that and sexism in science, religion in science, and the perils of managing big data 1960s style and at the end inspired by Jocelyn, my daughters and I look up at the stars.
Mar 23, 2023 · 59 min
Back Once Again For The Renegade Masters Student
After a long hiatus, the function room is back and for the first episode, comedian and erstwhile mathsy type Dara O'Briain is the guest. We chat about all sorts, hard sums, looking at the stars, the fantasy of one day going back to learn 'just for the sake of it' and then agreeing that idea might need a bit more thought. And no he didn't do a masters but I make no apologies for embellishments for the sake of a pun.
Sep 22, 2021 · 58 min
Where Is There a Will?
In this episode after Ruby makes up her mind, we’re talking about the mathematics of free will. It's recorded at the Cat Laughs Comedy Summer Series in Kilkenny, Ireland. A special series of shows to reintroduce everyone to the vague concept of Going To Stuff Again.My guest is Dr Kevin Mitchell. He’s a neuroscientist a professor at Trinity College Dublin and author of a book called Innate which goes right into the heart of the brain…well not the heart, confusing terminology, but right into the cells. And as he got to the smallest bits of the brain, Kevin started to wonder about free will and whether we have any choice in any matter. The notion of free will has been debated by the finest minds for thousands of years. So naturally I felt qualified to join in.And what has it to do with maths. Well…buckle up because we’re in for a bit of a head melt as we tackle topics like quantum physics, a smidge of chaos theory, WHAT IS A NUMBER ANYWAY and where annoying phantom traffic jams come from on the motorway. (apart from over reliance on cars obvs)You can Kevin at https://www.kjmitchell.com/ and on twitter at https://twitter.com/WiringTheBrain and of course me at www.colmoregan.com and on twitter the podcast is at https://twitter.com/functionroompod