Chalk Dust and Common Sense

Maths explained the way nobody did at school

Ciara Mulvaney2 episodes2 min of audio475 playsEpisodic

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S1 · E2Aug 10, 20260:50299 plays Preview

Why algebra uses letters, with a carpenter who never calls it algebra

Limerick carpenter Donal Fitzgibbon works out stair angles and timber lengths every day. Ciara shows how what he does on a scrap of plywood is the algebra that frightened everyone at school.

S1 · E1Jul 22, 20260:55176 plays Members

Percentages, and why 20 percent off then 20 percent on is not zero

Ciara starts with the number trick that costs people money every day. Percentages of what, exactly, and how to check a sale, a tax and a pay rise in your head without panicking.

About the show

Chalk Dust and Common Sense is for anyone who decided at fourteen that they were not a maths person and has quietly regretted it since. Ciara Mulvaney spent nine years teaching secondary maths in Limerick before moving into adult numeracy, and she has seen the same five fears in a 15-year-old and a 55-year-old. Every weekly episode takes one idea, percentages, compound interest, probability, why algebra uses letters, and walks through it in plain speech in about 25 minutes, with no equations you need to see on a screen. Some episodes are solo, some bring in a listener who asks their real question live, and once a month a guest from outside maths, a nurse, a carpenter, a bookmaker, explains how they use numbers all day without calling it maths. You will leave able to check your own mortgage figures and argue with a headline.

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