AtDTDA: 20 Big, Big pink tab 561

[kelber at mindspring.com]

One Quaternionist says "we are the Jews of mathematics."  Persecuted, outcasts, but with Freud and Einstein (Jews) and quaternions (a tool for electronics calculations), fundamental shapers of the 20th century.  But TRP also seems to imply that its regretable that quaternions are the path not taken.  Would the 20th century have been less bloody had the quaternionists vanquished the vectorists?  The quaternionist time-weapon that Woevre wants to get hold of seems to oppose the benevolent-quaternionist view, but the fact that it was too frightening for a brute like Woevre to handle, might be the source of its benevolence - a weapon that makes it clear to its users the full brunt of its destructive impact on the future.  Something more frightening than even the nuclear destruction scenarios, which seem to have had only a moderate impact on the production of nuclear weapons.

I had an electronics teacher once who decried the digital revolution.  He thought that the decline of analog electronics, the abandonment of the development of analog-based computers and technologies, was a loss to society.  Similar to quaternions vs. vectors?

Laura

-----Original Message-----
>From: Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>
   
>  Q: surely true what you say about the Quaternions, but are they not also in AtD
>  a metaphor for more than what the Vectorists are?.....another example of a 'lost larger range"?.......
>   
>  and even this larger range, mathematics---which lead inevitably to bad things?---is another
>  archangel of death?
>   
>  ????
>
>robinlandseadel at comcast.net wrote:
>  Mark Kohut:
>concept of Pentocost appears.....
>remember C of L49 and Pentocost?
>The Word......
>
>"and it is in this Pentecostal moment that the Quaternions descend, 
>to take their earthly residence among the thoughts of men."
>
>Hamilton recieves Quaternions as a vision, he has a sudden urge to get the 
>message down so he whips out a pocket knife and writes it into stone before he 
>loses the vision.
>
>If nothing else, Quaternions are central to the development of electronics and 
>nuclear physics and by extension the military-industrial complex. And of course, 
>the military-industrial complex and attendant conspiracy theories run rampant in 
>his novels. As do very specific references to the occult. For me, that 
>particular paranoia complex peaks in The Crying of Lot 49. Enochian magic is 
>touched upon in The Crying of Lot 49, Gravity's Rainbow and Against the Day. 
>It's probably in the other books as well, but these novels are brushed by the wings 
>of descending angels of death, leaving a particularly dark stain.
>
>"and it is in this Pentecostal moment that the Quaternions descend, 
>to take their earthly residence among the thoughts of men."
>AtD, 561
>
>Thy pitiless unmanning is most meet, 
>
>Thinks Ercole the zany Paraclete. 
>
>Descended this malign, Unholy Ghost, 
>
>Let us begin thy frightful Pentecost. 
>
>The lights went out, and in the quiet somebody across the arena from 
>Oedipa distinctly said, "Ick." Metzger said, "You want to go?" 
>
>"I want to see about the bones," said Oedipa. 
>CoL49, 52
>
>She heard a lock snap shut; the sound echoed a moment. Passerine 
>spread his arms in a gesture that seemed to belong to the priesthood 
>of some remote culture; perhaps to a descending angel. The auctioneer 
>cleared his throat. Oedipa settled back, to await the crying of lot 
>49. 
>
>The descending Angel in Gravity's Rainbow is the Angel of Rilke, 
>the Angel of Shock and Awe. Here, in Hamilton country, the
>message of that Angel is recieved in the form of an equation.
>
>http://www.auschwitz.dk/Mengele.htm
>
>I wonder what to make of the Tundra ad in the link?
>And, yes, there really is something about I.G. Farben that 
>makes it stand out from the crowd, don't you think?
>
>
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