| According to Ken Ribet's review of the San Francisco production in the Notices of the AMS, this play about the interaction between the mathematicians Hardy and Ramanujan explores the "partitions" that differentiate the men from each other (Hardy's mathematical rigor versus Ramanujan's intuitive sense, the differences between British and Indian culture, etc.) as well as "partitions" in the mathematical sense. Included in the story as characters are Fermat and the goddess Namagiri (who literally writes mathematics on the tongue of the young Indian genius). The suggestion in the play that prior to his death, Ramanujan was close to discovering a proof of Fermat's Last Theorem based on modular forms (like the 1995 proof by Wiles and Taylor) has no historical basis and is therefore somewhat disturbing, but otherwise mathematicians and non-mathematicians alike seem to like the script.
In an interview (published in the Contra Costa Times), playwright Hauptman is quoted as saying "I think writing about people in science and math is a way we can pay homage to genius and people we admire. And it's a way of saying, 'You may be smarter, but I have the last word, I control you.' And, beyond that, I think there is a connection between science and math and playwrights; we're all creating imaginary universes."
(Many thanks to Apostolos Doxiadis for pointing out this play to me.)
| Contributed by
Carter Donaghy
Powerful play.
Unfortunate that it came in the wake of several other math plays.
If there is a god in heaven, there will be a NY production.
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| Contributed by
Angelica Adams
I saw Parition in Cambridge and was struck by its inspriation and imagination. I am a mystic and a poet. [This] play brings to life and light the delicate balance between the intutive mind and the rational. |
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