more on entropy

[Brian Siano]

Bonnie Surfus (ENG) wrote:
> 
> This line on "sloppy science" never ceases to amaze/confound/confuse me.
> For Pynchon's deployment of science in his work seems well-conceived, to
> me.  He does not overwhelm.  Rather, in deference to an audience most
> likely knowledgeable of the principles he "uses" only in the most
> rudimentary ways, he speaks as a human voice calling up what
> oversimplified, overgeneralized versions at his disposal.  Isn't this how
> we "use" science?  Laypeople?  And does it make our talk any less
> provocative and informed?  I think not.  I have students who know
> something of the Second Law of Thermodynamics speaking of it in everyday
> conversation;  they have to make themselves understood and do so.  With
> very much the same kind of limited treatment.  And they make sense.  And
> we comprehend.  Then there's the concept of science itself as socially
> embedded, pointing a finger at us and laughing at our unwillingness to
> consider it as anything but geeks in a vacuum, one of "Two Worlds," etc.
> I appreciate that Pynchon takes complex concepts and uses them
> reasonably, intelligently, and in ways that enrich his stories by merging
> "Two Worlds" (as is the case . . .)

	This touches on one of Pynchon's more distinctive aspects: his
tendency to use scientific concepts and history in his literature. _GR_
is wonderful in this regard, with its invocations of Godel's Incompleteness
proof (still a rareified concept in those pre-Hofstadter days), the story
about James Clerk Maxwell's wife, and much more. I'm still fond of using 
Pynchon's line about "bandwidth" to describe the breadth of an individual's
personality.
	There aren't many writers prior to Pynchon who can use science in the
ways he has. Vonnegut has a certain similarity: both went to science and 
tech-oriented colleges, and worked in the aerospace industry for a while.
But it's only after Pynchon that we get such approaches as Richard
Powers and Don deLillo. 
	Bonnie's line about the merging of the "two worlds" is apt, 
although I've always been suspicious of that particular, science
vs. art dichotomy. One of the best reviews of _GR_ was by 
Philip Morrison in _Scientific American_. And the reason I even 
read the book at all was because, in my college course on Joyce, 
I was also bringing in lots of science fiction novels-- and the 
instructor asked me if I knew enough calculus to "explain' its 
use on _GR_. (I didn't, but I fell in love with the book.)
-- 
Brian Siano   -   siano at cceb.med.upenn.edu

"Agent Scully, Agent Mulder, you're my last hope! These three ghosts 
keep _haunting_ me! The first one brought forth memories of my _losing_
the only woman who ever loved me! The second one tormented me with tales
of how my employees were suffering because of _me_! And the third ghost 
said that if I didn't celebrate Christmas I'd be _dead in a year!_ I'm 
an old man, Agent Mulder. You've got to _help_ me."
-- Charles Dickens, _An X-Mas Carol_