MDMD(4) p.123 small re-write

[jporter]

>Matthew P Wiener responds to my query re. Eric's mention of Arcadia:
>
>>>>This also made me think of a Tom Stoppard play, Arcadia, in which
>>>>one of the principal characters dreams of a math complex enough to
>>>>explain real-world forms---a tree, a flower, a hillside [....]
>>
>>>Isn't this one of the things those chaos theory people are trying to do?
>>
>>Yes.  Tom Stoppard is quite explicit about this in his play.
>
>True: but is there someone on the list who knows a great deal more about
>this than either I or Tom Stoppard, that's the question.  Because it would
>be nice to have some intelligible light thrown on this topic [intelligible
>to lay people like myself, that is], especially now that we're reading _M&D_
>where "science" seems to come under so much criticism.
>
>Vaska

I think Bonnie Sufus, perhaps under her previous name which escapes me at
the moment, was working on the "fractal structure of Vineland". Her work
may have  appeared in *Pynchon Notes* or have been included in some other
scholarly journal. I remember briefly discussing some references to
fractals with her, off list. This had to be back in '94 or '95. Has anyone
heard from Bonnie?

jody