Colm Mulcahy facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Professor Emeritus Colm Mulcahy
Mulcahy kicking off Math Awareness Month in 2014
Alma mater	University College Dublin, Cornell University
Spouse(s)	Vicki Powers
Scientific career
Institutions	Spelman College

Colm Mulcahy (born in September 1958) is a mathematician from Ireland. He is a professor at Spelman College and is now a Professor Emeritus, which means he is a retired professor who still keeps his title. He is also a writer, a public speaker, and even an amateur magician!

Colm Mulcahy loves many areas of math, like algebra and number theory. He is especially interested in how math and magic mix, often using card tricks. He also enjoys learning about the history of math, especially the work of Irish mathematicians and the famous writer Martin Gardner. In 2024, he received a special award from Maths Week Ireland.

Colm Mulcahy's Journey in Math

Early Life and Learning

Colm Mulcahy studied math at University College Dublin in Ireland. He earned his first two degrees there in 1978 and 1979. Later, he went to Cornell University in the United States. He earned his PhD, which is a very high degree, in 1985.

Teaching and Sharing Math

From 1988 to 2020, Professor Mulcahy taught math at Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia. He helped organize Mathematics Awareness Month in 2014. This event helps people learn how fun and important math is.

He has written for many popular websites, like Scientific American and The Huffington Post. His math puzzles have even appeared in famous newspapers like The New York Times and The Guardian. He also helps guide the Museum of Mathematics in New York City.

Math and Magic

Colm Mulcahy is known for understanding the math behind card tricks. For ten years, he wrote a column called Card Colm. It was all about math and magic, especially card tricks. Many of his ideas are in his book, Mathematical Card Magic: Fifty-Two New Effects. He has also appeared on the Numberphile web series, which explains math topics in a fun way.

He has an Erdős number of 2. This is a special number that shows how closely a mathematician is connected to a very famous mathematician named Paul Erdős. A number of 2 means he worked with someone who worked with Erdős.

Honoring Martin Gardner

Who Was Martin Gardner?

Colm Mulcahy was friends with Martin Gardner for the last ten years of Gardner's life. Martin Gardner was a very famous writer for Scientific American. He wrote about math, magic, puzzles, and science.

Gathering 4 Gardner

Professor Mulcahy is a key part of an organization called Gathering 4 Gardner. This group celebrates Martin Gardner's amazing work. It is often called G4G. The group first met in 1993 and now meets every two years. Colm Mulcahy helped create the official Martin Gardner website in 2013. He also led the committee that celebrated Martin Gardner's 100th birthday.

Celebration of Mind Events

Colm Mulcahy has also helped promote events called "Celebration of Mind." These events are inspired by Martin Gardner's ideas. Today, more than 100 of these events happen every year all around the world. They bring people together to enjoy math, puzzles, and magic.

Irish Math and Mathematicians

Colm Mulcahy often writes about the history of math in Ireland. He is active in Maths Week Ireland, which is the world's largest program to get people excited about math. He also works with the Irish Mathematical Society.

He created and takes care of the Annals of Irish Mathematics and Mathematicians. This project records four centuries of math history in Ireland. It has monthly blog posts since September 2016. Maths Week Ireland now supports this project and has made yearly Irish Mathematics Calendars since 2016.

Awards and Recognition

In 1997, Colm Mulcahy received the Allendoerfer Award. This award is for excellent writing that explains math clearly. He won it for an article about how wavelets are used to compress images. An article he helped write about Martin Gardner was also featured in a book called The Best Writing on Mathematics 2015.

In 2024, he received the Maths Week Ireland Award. This award honors people who do great work in helping the public understand math. When he accepted the award, Professor Mulcahy said: "Maths is a language that explains so much of the world around us: the sun, moon, planets and stars, hence the calendar and tides here on earth. That’s how it started for us humans; that and commerce. It’s about observation, curiosity and patterns, explaining symmetries and coincidences, navigating on earth and in space, and making reliable predictions."

Personal Life

Colm Mulcahy was married to Vicki Powers. She was also a mathematician who studied algebraic geometry and election theory. They both had the same doctoral advisor at Cornell University.