A math joke in Gravity's Rainbow

[Kai Frederik Lorentzen]

It's the verbal pun dimension --- "log[arithm]"/log and "c"/sea --- that
escaped me all those years. Now I know.

Thank you, Monte!

By the by: I don't think that anything in Pynchon - be it science, be it
tarot - is "randomly shoveled in."
The artist will have had his reasons; what these are is --- under debate.


On 14.06.2013 14:33, Monte Davis wrote:

> It¡¯s a mathematical/verbal pun. Take ¡°cabin¡± as a value, a quantity¡­
> could just as well be ¡°x.¡± Read out loud, it¡¯s
>
> ¡°The integral of ((one divided by ¡®cabin¡¯) times (the derivative of
> ¡®cabin¡¯)¡­
>
> ¡°Equals [mathematically] log ¡®cabin¡¯ + c [the logarithm of ¡¯cabin¡¯
> plus a constant]¡­
>
> Then a context switch to ¡°log cabin¡± as an early house style (for
> USAns, young Abe Lincoln¡¯s home)
>
> And ¡°log cabin plus sea¡± = ¡°houseboat¡±. Hilarity ensues.
>
> It¡¯s a dumb joke that might be funny once or twice to a
> secondary/college math student who has just learned the symbols and
> how to interpret them. Sorta like the ¡°Kilroy was here¡±
> <http://knowyourmeme.com/photos/523557-kilroy-was-here> drawing in V:
> the omnipresent WWII
> <http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_gefl%C3%BCgelter_Worte/K#Kilroy_was_here.>
> and 1950s ¡®Kilroy¡¯ sketch of a guy with a big nose peeking over a
> wall, recreated as a band-pass filter [one that allows only certain
> frequencies to get through] from a circuit diagram, which would amuse
> a budding electrical engineer.
>
> Neither is ¡°typical of Pynchon¡¯s take on science¡± ¨C in themselves,
> they¡¯re not likely to be funny or interesting to any
> scientist/engineer past age 21. But **in the full context of his take
> on science and culture and myth and history,** they add threads to a
> tapestry:
>
> -¡°Gravity¡¯s Rainbow¡± reminds us dozens of times of the first rainbow
> in Genesis: God¡¯s promise to Noah and his family on the Ark (a
> houseboat) not to destroy the world again. In 1945 we have a
> nearly-destroyed world, and a rocket¡¯s parabola asking us WTF we¡¯re
> gonna do next time around. We also have a shitboat, the Rucksightslos,
> and a deathgod-boat, the Anubis. Oddly enough, both are on courses to
> or near the A4 ¡°rainbow¡¯s¡± starting point.
>
> -
>
> -¡°V.¡±, like CoL49 and GR and everything else to come, has great
> shadowy conspiracies: Trystero, Force/Counterforce,
> Jesuit/Chinese/Native American, etc ¨C that show up in many little
> clues (post-horn drawing, etc.). In WWII, the Kilroy cartoon (UK
> ¡°Chad¡±) became a humorous, pseudo-conspiratorial legend for Western
> Allied troops: how the hell did this little guy show up from Brooklyn
> and Birmingham and Bombay to Berlin? Now¡­ insights into Pynchon
> conspiracies are repeatedly likened to ¡°tuning in¡± ¨C to finding the
> right frequency (Mondaugen and the sferics, the ¡°speaking flame¡± at
> the s¨¦ance early in GR). Oddly enough, that¡¯s what a band-pass filter
> does.
>
> If Alice is right ¨C if math and science and technology in Pynchon are
> random buckets of pseudo-erudition randomly shoveled in because
> ¡°that¡¯s what he does¡± ¨C then these nerdy connections aren¡¯t worth
> knowing or thinking about. Your mileage may vary.
>
> *From:*owner-pynchon-l at waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l at waste.org]
> *On Behalf Of *Kai Frederik Lorentzen
> *Sent:* Friday, June 14, 2013 7:22 AM
> *To:* pynchon -l
> *Subject:* A math joke in Gravity's Rainbow
>
>
> Now, having just what Berger/Luckmann call "the sociologist's
> kitchen-statistics", I certainly will not claim any math knowledge
> here. I read /Principia Mathematica/ (to improve my understanding of
> Wittgenstein), and I even read /Laws of Form/ (to improve my
> understanding of Luhmann) several
> times, but felt very dull during those reads. And I do not get the
> math joke on p. 450 of GR at all. I
> simply don't. What's so funny about the houseboat formula and what's
> its function in the overall architecture of /Gravity's Rainbow/? Also
> wonder whether this math joke is typical for Pynchon's take
> on science. Anyone?
>
> "Well, you can¡¯t help but wonder who¡¯s really the more paranoid of the
> two
>
> here. Steve¡¯s sure got a lot of gall badmouthing Charles that way.
> Among the
>
> hilarious graffiti of visiting mathematicians,
>
> ¡Ò ___1 _ d (cabin) = log cabin + c = houseboat,
>
> (cabin)
>
> that sort of thing, they go poking away down the narrow sausage-shaped
>
> latrine now, two young/old men, their feet fade and cease to ring on
> the sloping
>
> steel deck, their forms grow more transparent with distance until it¡¯s
> impossible
>
> to see them any more. Only the empty compartment here, the S-curved
> spokes
>
> on the peep-show machines, the rows of mirrors directly facing,
> reflecting each
>
> other, frame after frame, back in a curve of very great radius. Out to
> the end of
>
> this segment of curve is considered part of the space of the
> /R¨¹cksichtslos. /Making
>
> it a rather fat ship. Carrying its right-of-way along with it. ¡°Crew
> morale,¡±
>
> whispered the foxes at the Ministry meetings, ¡°sailors¡¯ superstitions.
> Mirrors at
>
> high midnight. /We /know, don¡¯t we?¡±"**
>

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