recent topics

[David Hosford]

On Tue, 8 Nov 1994, Paul DiFilippo wrote:

> Date: Tue, 8 Nov 1994 15:55:56 -0500
> From: Paul DiFilippo <ac038 at osfn.rhilinet.gov>
> To: pynchon-l at sfu.ca
> Subject: recent topics
> 
> 3)  Discovery time of Pluto.  A bizarre random associational
> thought:  any connection to one of the most famous astronomical
> enigmas in literature, Swift's mention of "two Martian satellites"
> in GULLIVER years before their eventual sighting?
> Wisdom Anticipates Savant's Tendentious Enunciations!
> 
> --
>
	This was an interesting observation by Swift.  He may have
based his predictions on Kepler's even earlier speculation that
Mars should have 2 moons; Kepler based his guess on numerology, saying 
that if Galileo had observed 4 moons around Jupiter, then Mars should 
have 2.  Swift picked this up and attributed it in 1726 to astronomers in 
Laputa.  Kepler and Swift were not proven correct until the observation
by Asaph Hall [a somewhat Pynchonian name? maybe a distant ancestor of 
th-a-a-at Tyrone Slothrop] of Phobos and Deimos in 1877. 
	So perhaps Foppl is equally lucky in his speculations; perhaps the
version is Stencilized; perhaps it somehow fits into the Goddess themes
that may be woven into V.; or perhaps it is still a mistake.  All of these 
possibilities were suggested today.  Thanks to the Zone dwellers who
made each of these entertaining suggestions!
	-David