a play that
speaks to many
disciplines (and
to life).
The play Arcadia raises
important questions about

love

the need to search for knowledge

the nature of genius

the differing ways of knowing and
understanding the world
The setting of Arcadia

Sidley Park in
Derbyshire,
England

Home of Lord and
Lady Croom

Mr. and Mrs.
Coverly
The setting of Arcadia
1809, 1811
Present
The characters of Arcadia
1809, 1811
Lady Croom (Coverly)
Thomasina Coverly
Augustus Coverly
Captain Brice (RN)
Ezra Chater
Jellby
Septimus Hodge
Present (1994)
Chloe Coverly
Valentine Coverly
Gus Coverly
Hannah Jarvis
Bernard Nightingale
Like Hamlet,
Arcadia begins
with an
important
question:
Thomasina:
Septimus what is
carnal embrace?
Arcadia is a play that speaks to
many disciplines. . .
 Literature
 History
 Music
 Art
 Physics
 Mathematics
George Gordon, Lord Byron




1788-1824
Attended Cambridge
Left England
mysteriously in 1809
Classmate of
Septimus at
Cambridge—visits
Sidley Park—has
affairs—goes hunting
Literature
Literary terms—pastoral romance,
eclogue, idyll
 Virgil
 Sir Phillip Sidney
 Horace Walpole’s The Castle of
Otranto
 Ann Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of
Udolpho

Two Mathematical Ideas in Arcadia
“I Thomasina Coverly,
have found a truly
wonderful method
whereby all the forms of
nature must give up their
numerical secrets and
draw themselves through
numbers alone. This
margin being too mean for
my purpose, the reader
must look elsewhere for
the New Geometry of
Irregular Forms by
Thomasina Coverly.”
Math in Arcadia

A2 + B2 = C2
An + Bn = Cn
C
A
B

Pythagorean Theorem
1637—French
mathematician Pierre de
Fermat wrote, “To write the
cube of a number as a sum
of two fourth powers, or
any power above 2 as a
sum of two like powers, is
impossible. I have a truly
wonderful proof of this fact,
but the margin is too
narrow to contain it.”
Mathematics in Arcadia
Theory of iterated
algorithms. . .
Thomasina is
interested in the
question of how
numbers can be
used to produce the
true shapes of
nature.
Mathematics in Arcadia
The Sierpinski
Triangle is an
example of a
fractal—a visual
object which results
from iterated
algorithms.
Mathematics in Arcadia
A fern leaf after 5,000, 10,000, and
50,000 iterations.
History in Arcadia
Age of Enlightenment





reason
logic
geometry
formality
discretion
Romanticism





imagination
emotion
nature
spontaneity
valour
Physics in Arcadia
Sir
Isaac Newton
Laws of Motion
Septimus: If
everything from the
furthest planet to the
smallest atom of our
brain acts according to
Newton’s law of motion,
what becomes of free
will?
Determinism
Deterministic vs. Chaotic
The Second Law of Thermodynamics



1st Law—energy is
conserved
2nd Law—heat
flows from a hot
object to a cold
object
Entropy
Art in Arcadia
Poussin—“Arcadia”
et in arcadia ego
“Bandetti” by Salvator Rosa
. . .painted landscapes that expressed a
romantic state of mind—influenced Sir
Humphrey Repton
before
Harelston House
Sir Humphrey Repton
after
Arcadia is a play that speaks
to life!

What is the point
in our trying to
make sense of
clues that have
been left behind?

How far can
science and
mathematics take
us in explaining
what life is all
about?
Arcadia is a play that speaks
to life!

Rational, logical science
and irrational, passionate
love have something in
common: both are
unpredictable.

Although the world is
unpredictable, patterns
emerge and re-emerge
as time marches on.