this week in the function room, It's Anyone's Guess - the maths of guessworkDavid 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

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 UCDShe 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.

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.

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.

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.