'Entropy' Pynchon's Gematria, part 2

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Continued...

t wasn't until 1964 that Penzias and Wilson took the ambient temperature 
of the universe and discovered what is today referred to as the "Microwave
Background Radiation" (MBR), while looking for something else. Eventually
the MBR, which everyone agrees is left over from the Big Bang and very
nearly the same in all directions, was nailed down to be about 2.7 degrees
Kelvin. If ever there were a signifier for the 2nd Law, i.e., a numerical 
value to 
signify the great homogeneous heat death that awaits the universe, it would 
be the MBR, which for us, in our time and place, when we look out, is 2.7
degrees Kelvin. Pretty chilly for a heat bath, but almost perfectly
symmetrical and homogeneous... as in equilibrium, stasis, death.

Furthermore, Kelvin degrees and Celsius degrees are the same magnitude,
except Celsius sets zero at the freezing point of water, while zero degrees
Kelvin is "absolute zero" where all kinetic molecular activity (vibrations,
phonons, etc) ceases, and is only theoretical, because, by the 3rd law of 
thermodynamics, it is unreachable- although an isolated black hole, in
some cases, might get close.

So What? Well, the Intro tells us that the author, in an effort to be cute,
conflates the outside temperature with the Celsius equivalent for "normal"
body temperature- 37 degrees C. But it's really 37 degrees Fahrenheit out
there. The correct Celsius temperature, in D.C., on this chilly day in
February- doing the conversion: F to C- turns out to be: 2.7 degrees C.
Or thereabouts. The value 2.7 lingers around in the background, a
remembrancer of things past- beginnings from which we all came,
and to where we are all inescapably heading, except that knowing
somehow makes it "cute."

Maybe not as cute as Roger and Jess, but cute, none-the-less.
Of course, it could all just be coincidence. The escape hatch, trap-
door #37, the mystical passage, etc. is optional. No one is claiming
that it is the only path, or way of understanding the text. But there is
that familiar mean value theorem left over from college calculus...
(He says, tonguing a cavity, which, ominously, has stopped hurting.)

There is more of this "gematria," but I think I'll stop here for now.
And, although 'Entropy' pre-dates Penzias and Wilson's discovery of the
MBR by about three years, the idea of "relic radiation" left over from
the earliest phase of the universe, was around since 1948, with the
work of George Gamow's students Ralph Alpher and Robert Herman,
and published in Nature of that year.

Beware the symmetrical mask of Fu Manchu and the racist behind it.

Long live asymmetry!

respectfully



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