Abstract: A partition of an integer n is a representation of n as a sum of positive integers where the order of the summands is considered irrelevant. Thus we see that there are five partitions of the integer 4, namely 4, 3+1, 2+2, 2+1+1, 1+1+1+1. The partition function p(n) denotes the number of partitions of n. Thus p(4) = 5. The first exact formula for p(n) was given by Hardy and Ramanujan in 1918. Twenty years later, Hans Rademacher improved the Hardy-Ramanujan formula to give an infinite series that converges to p(n). The Hardy-Ramanujan-Rademacher series is revered as one of the truly great accomplishments in the field of analytic number theory. In 2011, Ken Ono and Jan Bruinier surprised everyone by announcing a new formula which attains p(n) by summing a finite number of complex numbers which arise in connection with the multiset of algebraic numbers that are the union of Galois orbits for the discriminant -24n + 1 ring class field. Thus the known formulas for p(n) involve deep mathematics, and are by no means "combinatorial" in the sense that they involve summing a finite or infinite number of complex numbers to obtain the correct (positive integer) value. In this talk, I will show a new formula for the partition function as a multisum of positive integers, each term of which actually counts a certain class of partitions, and thus appears to be the first truly combinatorial formula for p(n). The idea behind the formula is due to Yuriy Choliy, and the work was completed in collaboration with him. We will further examine a new way to approximate p(n) using a class of polynomials with rational coefficients, and observe this approximation is very close to that of using the initial term of the Rademacher series. The talk will be accessible to students as well as faculty, and anyone interested is encouraged to attend!