bang bang maxwell's silver demon

[jporter]

Delores Haze:

>um, hi.
>has anyone seen the movie "Velvet Goldmine" --
>and if so,
>what to make of the ziggy stardust-like character "maxwell demon?"
>
>--dr. irwin c
>


Dear Dr. Irwin C.,

Did I ever bother you, *ever*, for anything, in your life?

                                                               Yours truly......


Well, at last I find I'm not the only one who connects Maxwell and his
silver hammer with the violation of more than just the law. But McCartney
really doesn't know anything about thermodynamics does he? Maybe it was
just one of those hangers on, back then, in those heady times that slipped
him the lyric. Pask, or one of the others most people haven't heard
of...Who knows?

But now it's strings that are all the fashion, or their higher dimensional
equivalents, the p-branes, etc...What is most interesting is the opening of
the eleventh dimension, by Witten, and the incorporation of Supergravity
along with the five other versions of string theory to make six approaches
to the central, but as yet uncharted, M Theory.

I am reminded of M&D, ch. 11...The double gallows, and what seemed, in the
pellucid light of St. Helena, to symbolize the *Double Slit* in the Western
Wall...Is it a wave or a particle? History: a random walk, or,
predetermined? Depends on how you hang it, I guess. Feynman would have
appreciated the subtlety of ch. 11.

I am reminded, also, of p's playing with symmetry in M&D, not just
Boatswain Higgs, but down to the physical structure of the book. The text
begins on unnumbered (and hence, pre-logos) on page five. Snow, in the form
of a ball (so the six-sided symmetry of each individual flake, each
completely unique, is hidden by the higher order aggregation of the
snow-ball) is the first word.

Through-out the text, there is a competitive play between five and six fold
symmetry, and this of course mirrors the developement of Western
Civilization, especially the American Version, with it's Jewish based
morality and it's essentially Greek based philosophy. But there is no
question, whether p is toying with musical intervals, or puncturing the
five starred Washington's balloon with the semitic wit of Gershom, that p
is focused primarily on the symmetry which underlies existence on the most
fundamental level.

And then there are the eleven steps of The Mystical Ladder, but that's
another story...

jody