ATDTDA (1): Professor Gibbs (p. 29: 31)

[Monte Davis]

Keep Gibbs in mind when we get to Merle's discovery of photography. Before
his "all-night illumination" [is that you, Thelonious?], his view is 
 
"As a mechanic he respected any straightforward chain of 
cause and effect you could see or handle, but chemical reactions like this 
went on down in some region too far out of anyone's control, they were 
something you had to stand around and just let happen, which was about as 
interesting as waiting for corn to grow." (p. 64)
 
This is a good description of a lot of chemistry before Gibbs whose ideas
did for the discipline very much what the next two pages do for Merle. Gibbs
transformed large areas that had been cookbookery and rules of thumb  --
what Rutherford would denigrate in physics as "stamp collecting" -- into a
genuine mechanics. Mixing stuff together, manipulating heat and pressure,
and having it turn into other kinds of stuff could now be analyzed to first
principles and engineered with as much clarity and elegance and
predictability as any combination of wheels and belts and gears.    
 
That Gibbs remains off-stage was one of the very few let-downs of AtD for
me. I understand how the overarching metaphor of light pulled Pynchon toward
electricity and Tesla and all that, and I love all that too. But he showed
what he could do with 1920s-1930s chemistry in GR -- and trust me, there's
even more potential for rich chocolatey goodness along those lines in Gibbs'
heyday.
 
 
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