Dara O'Briain's School of Hard Sums

A new TV show, the 'School of Hard Sums', hits our TV screens this evening. Presented by former graduate of  the UCD School of Physics (& comedian), Dara O'Briain (or should it be Dara O'Brain?), the series hopes to solve some very tasty real-world brainteasers and conundrums. Alongside Dara is Marcus du Sautoy, Professor of Mathematics at Oxford University who is obviously just there for comedic effect. Together they hope to explore some of the world's greatest and most unusual maths questions in a unique and humorous way.

Each episode in this eight-part series follows a particular theme and Dara, along with comedy guests like David O'Docherty, Andi Osho, Alex Horne, Simon Evans and Jason Byrne, dissect new mathematical conundrums in each episode and find out guaranteed ways to solve them. These conundrums include working out the optimum angle to jump into a river and pull a drowning man to safety, deducing which door to pass through if the choices are one leading to an exit and one leading to certain death and finding out the most slices you can get out of a pizza if you're only allowed to cut it three times - everyday problems obviously.

While as entertaining as Dara's new show is going to be, I am also expecting a great deal of educational value too. Everyone needs to understand the importance of maths in our everyday lives and mixing humour with numbers is the perfect way to do it! 

School of Hard Sums begins tonight on DAVE at 8pm - set your Sky+ box now! Check out the School of Hard Sums website to find out more about the series and complete a number of mathematical challenges!