As forewarned, CERN has presser tomorrow on Higgs

[bandwraith at aol.com]

Corrected page numbers: 4th quote, "p.458"  and the fifth, "p. 596"


-----Original Message-----
From: bandwraith <bandwraith at aol.com>
To: pynchon-l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Sun, Jul 8, 2012 1:50 pm
Subject: Re: As forewarned, CERN has presser tomorrow on Higgs


"I believed, for many years- too many- that I might someday learn the
way..... Mathematics once seemed the way-" p.749

"...her hair compared by one of the local balladeers to those mystical
waterfalls that hide the Hidden Worlds of the Tibetan lamas." p. 760

"...as an extra smack of the bamboo stick, 'She' is the world." p.596

And, of course, later, when Yash truly is pregnant and under the
influence of placenta and corpus luteum, she dreams of "a hunter
arrived at last, a trainer of desert eagles, to unmask against her soul
the predatory descent that would seize her, fetch her away, fetch her
back, held fast in talons of communion, blood, destiny..."  My first
thought on reading that passage ran something in the direction of-

 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/08/magazine/the-drone-zone.html?_r=1&hp


" "...I think he called the equation 'pregnant..' " "
" "Jake with me. He also said 'Mystic.' " "
" "Way I figure, all's we need to do's translate this here into
hardware, then solder it all up, and we're in business." "  p.45


"Today she wore an ancient coin, pierced and simply suspended from a
silver chain around that ever-fascinating neck... 'It's an Afghani
dirhan....' "









-----Original Message-----
From: Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>
To: Monte Davis <montedavis at verizon.net>; pynchon -l
<pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Sun, Jul 8, 2012 8:01 am
Subject: Re: As forewarned, CERN has presser tomorrow on Higgs



  So, the smiling truths in Monte's remark sorta adds weight to this
guy's pre-AtD claims?  All effects not
the science itself?
 
  Another thought about what is 'missing' in AtD, given the author's
ambitious focus on World Historical meanings
is the Freudian 'depth-psychology' revolution. Perhaos the indirection
here is in our somehow-Jungian author exploring
all those sex-based relationships in the 900s of AtD?   Freud said it
was Sex, sex sex, I say simplistically. Jung took
that and spun other aspects more, perhaps, than Freud did?
 
 



In a literary periodical essay on Mr. Pynchon I was browsing, which I
will cite if necessary (but it would lose our focus here) writer made
this observation: (I paraphrase)..in our Western world culture, since
the Renaissance, the proven science has,




in general, been proven when the advance guard of scientists and
intellectuals sorta already KNEW what (most of) the new truths
would be. Hard science predicted the discoveries that then started
permaeating the culture.
 
I thought of the Higgs post(s) saying this 'proves' what scientists
have long predicted.
 
Anyway, the Pynchon essayist says THIS is the major perspective that
pynchon has re science, that is
its cultural effects and, with lotsa other thematic perspectives, what
it means re us, human beings (at least we once were. V.)
 
There is GR, permeated by a scientifically-made rocket and Slothrop
fleeing his Pavlovian determinism (and real bombs)
.......(and, since the essay, ATD).....
 
 




From: Prashant Kumar <siva.prashant.kumar at gmail.com>
To: David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com>
Cc: Monte Davis <montedavis at verizon.net>; pynchon -l
<pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Saturday, July 7, 2012 2:12 AM
Subject: Re: As forewarned, CERN has presser tomorrow on Higgs



Well if you/anyone have/has any physics-y questions regarding the above
I'd be happy to oblige...


On 7 July 2012 14:45, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:

This discussion should not end this soon.


Existence, Mass (not RC), Measurement, not meta. 


More please.


On Friday, July 6, 2012, Monte Davis wrote:


Umm… by no means all photons are virtual particles.  
 
 From: owner-pynchon-l at waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l at waste.org] On
Behalf Of Prashant Kumar
Sent: Friday, July 06, 2012 7:37 AM
To: Monte Davis; pynchon -l
Subject: Re: As forewarned, CERN has presser tomorrow on Higgs
 

What I meant is that you have the same debate regarding identity and
individuality, but in the modern debate the object is not souls but
quantum mechanical particles. In fact, the mathematical definition of
photons is what leads to this debate: because they are massless,
photons do not experience proper time they are known as 'virtual
particles' and exist outside of the reality of massive particles, in
some sense. Now since every photon is identical, you have serious
problems defining identity. Think 'spirit world', and you have the
connection to Duns Scotus' haecceities.

 

Prashant

 

On 6 July 2012 18:40, Monte Davis <montedavis at verizon.net> wrote:
In defense of physicists (of whom I am not one):  what distinguishes
massless particles (e.g. photons) from scholastic word-spinning is that
(1)
their properties are unambiguously, mathematically defined; (2) those
p[roperties have led to a century of predictions verified to many
decimal
places; and (3) they are the only properties consistent with such
irrelevant
arcana as stars shining, atoms cohering, and DVD lasers playing.

My apologies to Abelard and Duns Scotus if that's the kind of thing they
were doing and I missed it.


-----Original Message-----
 From: owner-pynchon-l at waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l at waste.org] On
Behalf

Of Paul Mackin
Sent: Thursday, July 05, 2012 12:24 PM
To: pynchon-l at waste.org
Subject: Re: As forewarned, CERN has presser tomorrow on Higgs


On 7/5/2012 11:35 AM, David Morris wrote:
> OK, I stand corrected.  Existence w/o mass.  I expect such existence
> would never become more organized than at the sub-atomic level.  But
> I'm no physicist.

Me neither, but somehow I'm reminded of the Medieval controversy over
the
distinction between essence and existence, if any.

P
>
> On Thu, Jul 5, 2012 at 10:15 AM, Monte Davis <montedavis at verizon.net>
wrote:
>> It bestows mass; they haven't [yet] gotten around to a field/particle
>> that "bestows existence."
>>
>>
>>
>>  From  David Morris
>> Higgs is the new either, a medium that bestows existence.
>>
>>