vv2

[Don Corathers]

Well, all right then, if the observer is slightly above the orbital plane and the mirror is parallel to the plane of orbit and just below it, it is possible to imagine the planet and its reflection and the two halves of  yo-yo, yes-no?

Don

----------
From: 	jill[SMTP:grladams at teleport.com]
Sent: 	Tuesday, October 17, 2000 12:44 AM
To: 	David Morris; pynchon-l at waste.org
Cc: 	crawdad at one.net
Subject: 	Re: vv2

This reminds me of a book I read, called
  Maxwell's demon : why warmth disperses and time passes / Hans
     Christian von Baeyer

Where he states a point about motion, and perception, trying to explain
entropy to the layperson. He illustrates a situation where there is not
entropy, a fake situation of something like billiard balls that don't ever
slow down. If you filmed such a situation, then ran the film in reverse, it
would not look any different. That makes me wonder, about yo-yo's: Wouldn't
that look about right? Yo yo's, in action, would look about the same in
forward motion, as opposed to reverse motion film?

Just a thought. 




David Morris wrote:
> 
> >From: Don Corathers <crawdad at one.net>
> >
> >On page 35:
> >
> >"If you look from the side at a planet swinging around in its orbit, split
> >the sun with a mirror and imagine a string, it all looks like a yo-yo."
> 
> It's never made sense to me either.  The mirror wold have to be
> perpendicular to the plane of orbit.  What one would see is two planets,
> real & mirror, moving away and then toward each other.  Then both would
> disappear as the real planet crossed the mirror.  I guess Pynchon just had
> to get a mirror in the image somehow, but the picture would have been more
> yo-yo-like w/o it.
> 
> DM
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