Mind-Bending Science In Thomas Pynchon's Mind-Bending Novel Against The Day

[Monte Davis]

Adams did nothing to "hurt" Gibbs among his peers: Gibbs is securely among
the foremost founding fathers of statistical mechanics, thermodynamics and
physical chemistry. Adams' views in that area are every bit as valuable and
noteworthy as, say, Clausius' views on French medieval cathedrals and
American diplomatic history.  

 

 

From: owner-pynchon-l at waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l at waste.org] On Behalf
Of Mark Kohut
Sent: Friday, August 10, 2012 4:16 PM
To: Pynchon- L
Subject: Re: Mind-Bending Science In Thomas Pynchon's Mind-Bending Novel
Against The Day

 

I highlight this:

"The arguments went back and forth for four years with little apparent
progress. Gibbs repeatedly and calmly emphasized that the prime
consideration in a system of analysis should be given to the fundamental
relationships we wish to describe in the physical world."  

 

There is an essay to be written---Monte, Prashant?---on Pynchon rescuing
Gibbs, so to speak, (perhaps, I'm still uncertain) in Against the Day from
what his great admirer Henry Adams did to hurt him. Which was take his
grounded ideas too, too far by airy extension. In Adams' "Degradation of the
Democratic Dogma" there are two now-unreadable essays, stupid as any clever
idiot could be, using Gibbs to explain social and political aspects of
history and the future-A non-scientist singling up all explanations outside
his intellectual remit.   

 Gibbs is cited in another book we know influenced TRP: The Human Use of
Human Beings. 

 

Gibbs is a ground, electricity metaphor half-intended in AtD.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josiah_Willard_Gibbs 

 

 I know now I internalized Monte's terrif insight in the comments back when
I first read this---repeated it in our back-and-forth just days ago as my
own perspective--- P uses the truths of new scientific discoveries tacitly,
as the deep truths to set off the satire and to add to his presentation of
the real world, the physical world, all that beautiful earth and land, all
the mystery of this pendant world..... 

 

THIS science-math understanding I am not challenging in this ATD reread; I
challenge all--most of-- the math(s) (and any 'science' it supposedly
buttresses that is said and talked and supposedly believed in in AtD.)

 

 

 


Mind-Bending Science In Thomas Pynchon's Mind-Bending Novel Against
The Day: Part I

http://www.science20.com/adaptive_complexity/mindbending_science_thomas_pync
hons_mindbending_novel_against_day_part_i-8804

Mind-Bending Science In Thomas Pynchon's Mind-Bending Novel Against
The Day: Part II - The Quaternion Wars

http://www.science20.com/adaptive_complexity/mind_bending_science_in_thomas_
pynchons_mind_bending_novel_against_the_day_part_ii_the_quaternion_wars



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