ballistics, etc.

[Paul J. Mackin]

> >  An ordinary mortal could
> >  not do it. But our hero can do it in no other way. It's like having
> >  another presence there at your desk with you, who is in some degree
> >  your equal. Otherwise you are sitting there by yourself. Like
> >  those gas molecules in a closed system. And we all know what happens
> >  to closed systems. There's that e-word cropping up again. 
> 
> I do not quite follow your argument. How is somebody sitting at a 
> desk, with or without somebody there with him, like a closed system?

The writer may be speaking thermodynamically. If Pynchon's molecules
(with all their kinetic energy) are partitioned off from other molecules
of genius, then as a system they will tend to wind down. Farfetched, I 
would say.
				Paul