Back to AtD : Yashmeen

[Paul Mackin]

On 4/29/2012 1:22 PM, Mark Kohut wrote:
> Then a Pynchon-like but curious segue into a discussion of entropy and mathematical infinity.
> p.597 "entropy of a system"
>             Y:   "some sort of..... steam engine word, isn't it?
>
> Entropy, P's early obsession, appears here but with a difference? IDoes this steampunk-like joke
> contain a later P belief that 1) entropy sorta applies to the industrially-created world ...steam engine
> metaphor...or even Tesla's understanding that energy HAD to run out........if man-made from limited
> resources?
>
> And P's different belief in the universe, maybe---how so?---in ATD?
>

Just guessing of course, but Yashmeen's putdown of Boltzmann and entropy 
as merely statistical (producing only probabilities) may reflect an 
earlier age's still somewhat skeptical attitude toward statistics as a 
serious scientific tool. Yashmeen wants the exact answers of pure 
mathematics.

We do know of course that Yashmeen puts too much faith in the efficacy 
of pure math to solve world problems. And she also apparently didn't 
fully appreciate how statistics and probability WERE changing the world.
This is not to minimize the big part eventually played by math as well.

Anyway, the final sentence of section seems to foreshadow Yashmeem's 
later full blown susceptibility to male allure, despite intellectual 
differences.


P