Math(s) lessons.....Uh...post from the past I "lost" in Drafts foler

[Richard Ryan]

I'm not sure its quite right to call Cantor's work a
source of crisis - rather it expanded the range and
tools that mathematicians had available to work with
infinite quantities.  The perception that certain
kinds of infinite sets could be manipulated
algorithmically, for instance, gave rise to any number
of interesting results in topology and computational
theory.  However, it does seem to me that P., with his
well known suspicions of various kind of technical and
scientific knowledge and their alleged benefits to
humanity, might well regard effort to manipulate
infinite series with a certain existential dread....


--- Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Okay,
> To Discuss (especially by real mathematicians on the
> p-list)....
>  
> [I am just trying to "get" some
> of TRP's themes, japes, metaphors........]
>  
> /The sources where I got my facile math education
> yesterday say:
>  
> The Crisis in Mathematics here in AtD was largely
> caused by
> Cantor--alluded to on p. 625---introducing the
> notion of infinity
> into math.......
>  
> I want to enfold this into these observations 
> 1) that Pynchon scored heavily against
> the promise of future timelessness a few chapters
> back......
> 2) that the Q-bomb 'was compressed time............
> 3) that Byron the Bulb's
> "immortality" is one reason he isn't close to
> human.....
> 4) and now the notion of
> "infinity" is buried in this very anti-math
> section............
>  
> And, just relearned (from p. 111, I think) TRP
> saying that something
> cooking "had an element of time in tis recipe"...
>  
> I sugggest that TRP is very slyly, like Pynchon,
> letting us see and feel more of his
> vision of being human........That is, we live in
> time and we die. Playing with any kind
> of immortality....alienates us from living..... 
>  
> FYI:
>  
> On Russell's Paradox and the famous letter alluded
> to on page 633...
> http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/russell-paradox/
> 
> 
>      
>
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