Deflating Hyperspace

[Daniel Harper]

On Monday 02 April 2007 07:35, you wrote:
> On Sunday, Apr 1, 2007, at 07:25 US/Central, Monte Davis wrote:
>
> Monte has expressed most of what I have to say about these questions
> better than I would have, but I will add a couple of observations about
> the math in AtD.
>
> > Laura:
> >> I mean, when TRP talks about quaternions, Riemann space, and
> >> zeta functions, is he merely name-dropping?... How
> >> much of the math and science does TRP appear to understand
> >> from what he writes in ATD?
>
> Regarding the zeta function, try as I might I cannot find anything
> about the actual math involved with this that has resonances with of
> the themes of AtD.  (Of course, this may simply be a failure of my
> imagination!)  But the term "zetamaniac" is revealing, I think, of the
> intent.  The zeta function is exactly what an "enthusiast" would have
> been studying at Gottingen at the time in question.  Y. seems to hope
> that she will achieve a transcendence of some sort if she can penetrate
> into the mysteries of the zeta function.  That belief is utter nonsense
>   -- which is, I think, largely the point.
>

The zeta function is highly important in Neal Stephenson's _Cryptonomicon_ 
(one of my personal favorite books), and it's not entirely out of hand that 
Pynchon has read Stephenson's work, given that Stephenson's work seems to 
have grown so fully out of Pynchon's. (Although Stephenson is much more 
accessible than anything of Pynchon's -- he actually _explains_ his math and 
science, for instance.) In _Cryptonomicon_, the zeta function is described in 
some detail -- it is a function that produces nearly random values given an 
initial starting point, and has immense value as an element of unbreakable 
cyphers.This type of mathematics was brand-new at the time of ATD, and any 
mathematics student would have spent no small amount of time thinking about 
it.

> Along similar lines, the quaternion versus vector analysis debate is
> more like a theological argument than a scientific or physical one.
>

As near as I can tell, quaternions and vectors are essentially just different 
ways of expressing the same mathematical truths, and each can be useful in 
different contexts. It's something like Newton vs. Leibniz's alternate 
notations for calculus that caused so much ruckus a few hundred years ago...

Comparing it to a theological debate is probably the right way to think of it.

> > Can he formulate and solve problems in those disciplines? I doubt it;
> > that's
> > a skill that needs steady exercise. Does he understand them at a solid
> > undergraduate level -- say, as well as a good science writer who tests
> > his
> > comprehension in discussions with practitioners? Yes.
>
> I agree with Monte that the evidence is that P. understands the math.
> But the characters do not always understand it as well as he.  The most
> striking example occurs near the end, when Kit reflects on the
> Banach-Tarski paradox, and contemplates its possible physical
> significance.  No one who truly understands the math of the B-T paradox
> could even for a moment imagine that it has the slightest physical
> significance.  Again, as Monte has pointed out, it is the uses to which
> the math is put in the characters dreams/lives that is important, not
> the actual content of the math itself.
>
> Ray

I'm not sure that the content is completely unimportant, but otherwise I 
completley agree with this.

-- 
No reference to the present day is intended or should be inferred.
--Daniel Harper
countermonkey.blogspot.com