AtD p 862 Wilson's Theorem (and its irrelevancy)

[Mark Kohut]

Strongest counterargument to my straightforward (over)assertion................
  Hey, we're talking and figuring here, yes?
   
  Yes, plot foreshadowing earlier but Pynchon must know that the theorem does
  not---as far as I can figure and think---apply to beating roulettte wheel odds.....
  it describes figuring the primes in the 36 number layout.............only the imperfect
  roulette wheels----and THEY ARE ALL IMPERFECT cause physical in the real world
  can be gamed to be beaten........as in many of the real world examples I sent around.
   
  I might argue that is a part of TRPs point----abstract math CANNOT beat the odds ever but
  REAL WORLD insight can...........................

Michael Bailey <michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com> wrote:
  Mark Kohut wrote:

> Wilson's Theorem has nothing to do with overcoming the house odds against
> roulette....

quien sabe? I would agree @ first glance...my take would
be something like "the invisible clockmaker" or something, you
know, the Enlightenment (deist? theist?) God who set everything
in motion according to immutable rules and it proceeds thusly...

the sort of God suggested by Newtonian physics, that is, creating
a spacetime in which, the cliche goes something like "if you knew
enough data at any given moment and applied the rules, you could
both predict and backtrack accurately"

which even Newton probably would hesitate to apply to
the whole universe, but for a smaller system like a roulette wheel,
you'd think it'd depend on
1) force applied to the wheel
2) resistance to wheel's motion
3) resistance to ball's motion within the wheel
--- all things which would not be easily measurable
(casino personnel probably indoctrinated to deter placement
of ergometers on wrist or wheel, and placement on ball while in motion
not feasible with known current technology - though secret
milspec stuff undoubtedly exists...)

...but, within AtD, this math-system-for-gambling idea
is a thrice-recurrent idea, and by
the rules of fiction ("If they tell ya 3 times, it's a plot (device)")
well worth examining...and as I've just made coffee, I beg
indulgence for so doing...

1) Yashmeen on the Ferris Wheel before leaving England.
Definitely something clicking in her cabeza as that goes on
and some explicit foreshadowing: "she drifted thence into
issues of modular arithmetic, and its relation to the Riemann
problem, and eventually to the beginnings of a roulette system
which would someday see her past landlords and sommeliers
and other kinds of lupine liminality [still love that phrase],
and become the wonder and despair of casino managers
across the Continent." - p503

comment: this reminded me of a similar passage in
a Neal Stephenson book, where the young cryptographer
Woe-to-Hice (Waterhouse pronounced with a British accent)
is riding his bicycle and working out the relation of the motion
of the spokes to the turns of the pedals...
modular arithmetic, and then, primes (Riemann had come
up with the Hypothesis while working on a paper on primes,
good enough connection for me)
-- I got as far as freshman calc, but foolishly took it at 8am,
thus developing an aversion - but still, keep in my memory
the way that math sometimes arrives at results in almost
miraculous ways, like "to measure the area of that sphere"
and it turns out, blip, plug-and-chug, and omigosh,
mirabile dictu...
so maybe it isn't a matter of ergometers, but simply applying
ineffable principles in a hitherto unseen way...

2) Kit and Tubsmith at the Quaternioneers Convention - p536
"...Quaternion Probability. Seems that, as a baccarat game
proceeds, you can describe each coup as a set of, well you'd
call 'em vectors - different lengths, pointing off in different directions..."
Again, but immediately (instead of hundreds of pages later)
the theory does find practical application: they win for
Pleiade 10000 francs.

comment: now this one reminds me of the scene in the
beach movie (Beach Blanket Bingo?) where the professor
uses calculus (does it in his head, of course, or maybe - like
Jesus - writes in the sand) to instantly
become a great surfer. Well, he leaves out a variable on his
first attempt, but then after "wiping out" realizes his mistake,
re-calculates and then surfs like mad.
Just so does Tubsmith mention various factors: "room temperature,
punter irrationality index, one or two coefficients in the retro-
version matrix" (538)

3) Yashmeen applies her insight on 862 - and on
863: "it is thus obvious from the foregoing that"
and puts Reef under quite as effectively as Ambien -
or in those days, a mickey.

Comment: note that she continues to whisper to him
after he falls asleep, thus bringing into play the
subconscious, or "sleep-learning" which as Aldous Huxley
noted in _Brave New World_ is better suited to inculcating
attitudes and rote phrases than to conscious understanding.

I would note that Reef - a professional gambler - being drawn
to Yashmeen, somebody who possesses an apparently
working "system" - reminds me a little of the movie,
_The Only Game in Town_ of which all I can remember
is this guy only won when this certain red-headed girl
sat next to him...

Aren't Dalley and "Pinky" both redheads?

I could go on and on - actually, I already have -
but let me conclude by echoing Mark's remark
about the roulette wheel being another instantiation
of the "wheel" motif within the book - a motif that
has begun to resound more and more mightily...


       
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