poisson distribution

[David Morris]

--- Terrance <lycidas2 at earthlink.net> wrote:
> 
> Slothrop's love affairs coincide point for point with the rocket strikes in
London. So how do we deal with this? Is there cause-and-effect at work or not?
If so is there some precognition, that is, does Slothrop know (even somewhere
deep in his unconscious) where the rockets will hit?  Is there some
psychokinesis involved, some magic...is Slothrop one of the gifted, the freaks?
Both patterns conform to a Poisson distribution. The poisson distribution, as
Mexico explains it, is a  perfect randomness where  each point is ideally
independent of any other. 

As with so much of GR, Pynchon has constructed a paradox here.  If Slothrop is
somehow causing the rockets to strike in particular locations, then his actions
are somehow perfectly in tune with a random distribution found in nature.  A
more likely possibility is that he's precognitic (not a real word), which may
(or not) have something to do with the penis he thought was his own.  His
affairs also may not have ever happened except in his fanciful imagination.



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