MATHEMATICAL FICTION:

a list compiled by Alex Kasman (College of Charleston)

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A Disappearing Number (2007)
Simon McBurney
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One of the storylines of McBurney's A Disappearing Number written for his experimental theater troupe, "Complicite", concerns Srinivasa Ramanujan's collaboration with G.H. Hardy. Another focuses on a modern female mathematician's desire to have children. Other subplots involve an Indian businessman and an Indian scientist at CERN.

The Complicite website says of this play:

Contributed by Complicite

A Disappearing Number takes as its starting point the story of the most mysterious and romantic mathematical collaborations of all time.

Simultaneously a narrative and an enquiry, the production crosses three continents and several histories, to weave a provocative theatrical pattern about our relentless compulsion to understand.

Threaded through this pattern of stories and ideas are questions. About mathematics and beauty; imagination and the nature of infinity; about what is continuous and what permanent; how we are attached to the past and how we affect the future; how we create and how we love.

A man mourns the loss of his lover, a mathematician mourns her own fate. A businessman travels from Los Angeles to Chennai pursuing the future; a physicist in CERN looks for it too. The mathematician GHHardy seeks to comprehend the ideas of the genius Srinivasa Ramanujan in the chilly English surroundings of Cambridge during the First World War. Ramanujan looks to create some of the most complex mathematical patterns of all time.

Some pictures from the production are available at the Barbican Theater website, at least for the moment.

More information about this work can be found at www.complicite.org.
(Note: This is just one work of mathematical fiction from the list. To see the entire list or to see more works of mathematical fiction, return to the Homepage.)

Works Similar to A Disappearing Number
According to my `secret formula', the following works of mathematical fiction are similar to this one:
  1. Ramanujan’s Miracles – A Drama To Demystify Mathematics by R.N. Kapur
  2. Continuums by Robert Carr
  3. The Indian Clerk by David Leavitt
  4. Partition by Ira Hauptman
  5. Measuring the World by Daniel Kehlmann
  6. Beyond the Limit: The Dream of Sofya Kovalevskaya by Joan Spicci
  7. The Art Student's War by Brad Leithauser
  8. Arcadia by Tom Stoppard
  9. Turbulence by Giles Foden
  10. Too Much Happiness by Alice Munro
Ratings for A Disappearing Number:
RatingsHave you seen/read this work of mathematical fiction? Then click here to enter your own votes on its mathematical content and literary quality or send me comments to post on this Webpage.
Mathematical Content:
4/5 (2 votes)
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Literary Quality:
4.5/5 (2 votes)
..

Categories:
GenreHistorical Fiction,
MotifAcademia, Real Mathematicians, Female Mathematicians,
TopicReal Mathematics,
MediumPlays,

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(Maintained by Alex Kasman, College of Charleston)