A Disappearing Number

"The captivating thing about this story is it’s really a mathematical love affair between GH Hardy – Cambridge mathematician, English – and this Indian mathematician, Ramanujan, who had no formal training but somehow had this extraordinary way of thinking about mathematics. And they saw it in such different ways and they came from such different cultures, yet mathematics was this common language which brought them together. It’s a kind of tragic story because Ramanujan comes to Cambridge to work with Hardy but falls very ill, gets very depressed from being away from home and eventually when he goes back to India he dies from a combination of malnutrition and something he probably picked up in India. It’s an extraordinary story of this coming together of the East and the West through mathematics. I worked with Complicite on their play about this relationship, doing some maths workshops with the actors. It was a wonderful opportunity for me because, if I hadn’t been a mathematician, what I wanted to do was to run away and join Complicite. It’s a company I’ve always loved. The chance to combine my mathematics with my love of theatre through working with Complicite was a dream come true. And Complicite was really determined – which is why I like this play – not just to talk about mathematicians as crazy characters but also to embed the ideas of mathematics in the structure of the play, so they worked really hard to understand what Ramanujan and Hardy were obsessed with."