The relationship between science and love in Tom Stoppard’s "Arcadia" Nicolás Oliver College

Tom Stoppard is famous for the wit and intellectual appeal of his creations, and Arcadia perfectly fulfills these characteristics. Stoppard has the capacity to exquisitely present the most simple, yet important things in life. The play is uniquely structured, utilizing complex mathematical theorems and numerous historical references that reveal myriad themes, while juxtaposing the past with the present, the Classical with the Romantic, and the mathematical with the poetic. All of this is done to prove one of the most basic human truths: that — despite all logic — the human being cannot fully live without love. This essay aims to explain the relationship between the mathematical aspects of the play and the way love is portrayed.

Mathematics and science play a starring role in Arcadia. The play does not only feature mathematicians as central characters, but it also uses mathematics and science to endow everyday things — clouds, a leaf, a population of birds — with magnificence and magic. Mathematics is far from being just a collection of simplistic calculating rules; it can provide extremely rich descriptions of our complex world, and of us. The point of using, for example, the second law of thermodynamics, is not to understand...