Quotation
Partitions.
Hardy: P(4) = 5. Now, all that means is there are five ways to add up the number 4. 1 + 1 + 1 + 1, 3 + 1, 2 + 1 + 1, 2 + 2, and 4.
Littlewood: Seems simple enough.
Hardy: Yeah. So it does. But when you raise the number of P(100), there are 204,226 different combinations. Major MacMahon did it by hand. Took him weeks. And now he thinks he can figure out a formula. Plug in the number, any number, and out comes the number of partitions. Like magic.
Littlewood: I take it you have tried to crack this one before?
Hardy: It's considered impossible. Unsolvable. A bloody rabbit hole mystery of the universe.
Littlewood: Until now?