What Pynchon Knew

[Bonnie Surfus (ENG)]

> 
> 
> On Tue, 16 May 1995 grnmt at sover.net wrote:
> 
>                     
> > What Pynchon knew or didn't know when he wrote the text, and what he meant 
> > by it seem highly irrelevant to interpreting the novel. 
> 
> 
> Agreed - and some of the traffic of late regarding fractals, Mandelbrot, and 
> chaos theory has puzzled me. I'm no mathemetician (not even sure I can spell 
> it) but _GR_'s publication date would seem incompatible with an _intended_ 
> connection with chaos theory, no? Or am _I_ out of date?
> 
> 
It was 1967 when Mandelbrot published his essay "How Long is the 
Coastline of Britain?" which was influential and actually a trajectory 
that seem to have lead to the popularization of chaos and its systematic 
study.  His ideas were known (even if he was considered a bit freakish) 
even earlier--as early as 1960, anyway.  But studies of these kind 
pre-date Mandelbrot.  But I'm tired of defending what is really an 
observation that requires such rigorous attention just now.  I'd 
recommend reading Hayles' _The Cosmic Web:  Scientific Field Models and 
20th C. Literary Strategies_, or Paul Davies' _The New Physics_, if 
you're interested in a more comprehensive crash-course.  Sorry I can't be 
more helpful/.

Bonnie