Publications that discuss this title
Abstract
Kasmana:This play about the interaction between the mathematicians Hardy and Ramanujan
explores the "partitions" that differentiate the men from eachother (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 1994 proof by Wiles and Taylor) has no historical basis
and it therefore somewhat disturbing, but otherwise mathematicians and non-mathematicians
alike seem to like the script.
