ATD p. 324

[rich]

during the conversations, there's mention of Tesla's tower being built on
Long Island so it's at least 1901 when construction began.

also the whole Kit and Vibe relationship reminds me a bit of the
Wyatt-Recktall Brown one in The Recognitions

rich

On 11/24/06, Anville Azote <anville.azote at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Does anybody better at untangling chronologies than I have a date for
> when the conversation between Kit Traverse and Heino Vanderjuice on
> pp. 324--25 occurs?
>
> "Well, Mr. Traverse, if you ever considered becoming that 'something
> else,' Germany would seem the logical place for you.  Grassmann's
> Ausdehnungslehre can be extended to any number of spatial dimensions
> you like.  Dr. Hilbert in Goettingen is developing his 'Spectral
> Theory,' which requires a vector space of infinite dimensions.  His
> co-adjutor Minkowski thinks that dimensions will eventually all just
> fade away into a Kontinuum of space and time.  Minkowski and Hilbert,
> in fact, will be holding a joint seminar at Goettingen next year in
> the electrodynamics of moving bodies, not to mention Hilbert's recent
> work on Eigenheit theory---vectors right in the heart and soul of it
> all, mightn't it be, as you lads say, 'just the ticket'?"
>
> The reference to the seminar "next year" would place this conversation
> in 1904, seven years earlier than any reference I've seen for
> Minkowski's famous statement about space and time sinking into mere
> shadows and only a union of the two "preserving an independent
> reality".  (I quoted this in connection with Paul Di Filippo's
> delightful Pynchon-as-protagonist story a few weeks ago; were I a true
> sensitive, I would already be orbiting through the apogee of a true
> paranoia.)
>
> http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Biographies/Minkowski.html
>
> "Eigenheit" translates to "peculiarity", AFAIK.  Of course, "eigen-"
> is a commonly used prefix in mathematics and physics, typically
> interpreted as "own" or "characteristic".
>
>
> http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Mathematics/18-06Spring-2005/VideoLectures/index.htm
>
> -A. A.
>
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