ATD 588-614

2007-01-08T08:56:46Z

Mondaugen: /* Page 599 */

:'''<big>Please keep these annotations SPOILER-FREE by not revealing information from later pages in the novel.</big>''' 

==Page 588==

'''tannery''' 
???

'''Gauss's brain''' 
After Carl Friedrich Gauss died in 1855, his brain was preserved for research purposes. To this day, it is in the possession of the University of Göttingen.

'''impervious to the wind''' 
(Attribute of tanned leather?)

'''''"Heiliger Bimbam!"''''' 
A German expression of surprise, translated elsewhere as "Holy Moly!"

'''rim''' 
Kit pretends to think he's referring to monocle as 'chichi' (stylish).

==Page 589==

'''''Noli me tangere''''

Latin for 'don't touch me'

'''''Hausknochen''''' 
???

==Page 590==

'''Hadamard... Poussin... Prime Number Theorem''' 
???

'''patent ''Kühlbox''''' 
???

'''beleaguered subset''' 
???

==Page 591==

'''prats''' 
Literally the buttocks. As a slang term, a 'prat' is an idiot.

'''''Die Nullstellen der [zeta]-Funktion''''' 
german: Null = zero; Stelle = location. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riemann_zeta_function#Zeros_of_the_Riemann_zeta_function Wikipedia] on the "Zeros of the Riemann zeta-function".

'''"Richard Harding Davis"''' 
Popular writer of fiction and drama, journalist/war-correspondent and a major male-role-model of his time (1864 - 1916). He was considered the model for illustrator Charles Dana Gibson's dashing Gibson man, the male equivalent of his famous Gibson Girl. He is also referenced early in Sinclair Lewis's book, ''Dodsworth'' as the example of an exciting, adventure-seeking legitimate hero. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Harding_Davis Wikipedia]

'''seldom, if ever''' 
Cf p559 re Umeki!?

'''tetralatry''' 
made up from greek "tettares" (prefix -tetra) = four and "latreia" = worship

'''C. Howard Hinton''' 
Charles Howard Hinton (1853 – 1907) was a British mathematician and writer of science fiction works titled ''Scientific Romances''. He was interested in higher dimensions, particularly the fourth dimension, and is known for coining the word ''tesseract'' and for his work on methods of visualising the geometry of higher dimensions. He also had a strong interest in theosophy. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Howard_Hinton Wikipedia Entry]

'''Johann K.F. Zöllner''' 
Johann Karl Friedrich Zöllner (1834–1882) was a German astrophysicist. Studied Photometrie and optical illusions. He insisted a fourth dimension should be considered in Physics and tried to scientifically explain spiritist phenomena.

'''vogue... 'vague'''' 
???

==Page 592==

'''upside-down triangles''' 
Also Pléiade p538. In mathematics that would be the operator ''del'' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Del Wikipedia]. Since pre-history and across most cultures the upside-down triangle is a symbol for the female (genitals).

'''metallic banging'

''''metric interval'''' 
???

'''Prinzenstrasse and Weenderstrasse''' 
A street corner at the very center of Göttingen ([http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=g%C3%B6ttingen,+germany&ie=UTF8&om=1&z=17&ll=51.534284,9.935417&spn=0.006107,0.010793&t=h Google Maps]), "known to mathematicians here as the origin of the city of Göttingen's coordinate system".

==Page 593==

'''twenty marks''' 
???

'''''der Pistolenheld''''' 
German: the pistol hero.

'''''das Nichtharmonischestrahlenbündel''''' 
???

'''Latin... Euler''' 
???

'''''Mathematical Theory of the Top''''' 
Published in the U.S. in 1897. Compare Felix Klein and Arnold Sommerfeld, ''Über die Theorie des Kreisels,'' 4 volumes, 1897-1910.

'''Leopold Kronecker''' and '''Cantor''' 
The "monumental quarrel between Kronecker and Cantor" is also referred to as a "religious war," appropriately enough. It's based in a disagreement over the legitimacy of numbers. Kronecker held that "'the positive integers were created by God, and all else is the work of man.'" This is contradicted by "'Cantor with his ''Kontinuum'', professing an equally strong belief in just those regions, infinitely divisible, which lie ''between'' the whole numbers so demanding of all Kronecker's devotion.'"

The disagreement between the two mathematicians is reminiscent of (or does it anticipate?) the rift between Pointsman and Mexico in ''Gravity's Rainbow''. Kronecker's integers "created by God" have become a Pavlovian digital binary for Pointsman, but the two oppositions track faithfully right down to the italicized "between."

"The young statistician [Mexico] is devoted to number and to method, not table-rapping or wishful thinking. But in the domain of zero to one, not-something to something, Pointsman can only possess the zero and the one. He cannot, like Mexico, survive anyplace in between. Like his master I. P. Pavlov before him, he imagines the cortex of the brain as a mosaic of tiny on/off elements.... But to Mexico belongs the domain ''between'' zero and one." [Page 55]

It should be noted, however, that the continuous number line was a modern innovation. In Greek number theory, a number is a collection of indivisible units. Irrationals, such as the square root of 2 are not numbers but "magnitudes." One is not even a number for it is not a number of units. There are no negative numbers as well. (see Klein's Greek Mathematical Thought and the Origin of Algebra.) So Kronecker's position may be less of a crazy innovation as much as a maintenance of ancient theory.

'''''Kontinuum''''' 
???

==Page 599==

'''''Nervenklinik''''' 
???

'''boundless epsilonic world''' 
???

'''Der Finsterzwerg''' 
???

'''chloral hydrate''' 
A/k/a "knockout drops" a/k/a a "Mickey Finn". Hence the ''Mickifest''. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chloral_hydrate Wikipedia entry].

'''''Kneipe''''' 
???

'''Gauss passing to Weber a remark''' 
???

'''Weierstrass functions''' 
???

==Page 595==

'''That winter, in St. Petersburg''' 
22 Jan 1905 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Revolution_of_1905 Wikipedia]

'''Japanese won''' 
05 September 1905. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Japanese_War Wikipedia]

'''Muslim rebellion''' 
???

'''the year that followed''' 
???

'''Peter and Paul Fortress''' 
???

'''kazatsky''' 
???

'''Waziristan''' 
???

==Page 596==

'''as-ever transcendentally interesting hair''' 
???

''''gen'''' 
Slang term for "genuine" maybe?

'''Afghani dirhan''' 
An Afghani coin, more usually transliterated as "dirham". [http://ghaznavid.ancients.info/ This site] has pictures and more information.

'''Ghaznivid Empire''' 
Usually transliterated as [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghaznavid_Empire Ghaznavid Empire] (Wikipedia)

'''coffee scion''' 
Coffee motif.

'''Günther von Quassel''' 
"quasseln" is a German verb, meaning roughly "to jabber"

'''less than universally respected Ludwig Boltzmann''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Boltzmann Boltzmann] proposed an explanation of thermodynamics based on the statistical behaviour of atoms. Many influential colleagues at the time did not believe in the reality of atoms and thus worked to discredit Boltzmann.

==Page 597==

'''Gymnasium child''' 
A Gymnasium is a German secondary school

'''one measure of the chaos''' 
Cf GR on entropy?

'''Göttingen tradition''' 
???

'''statue''' 
???

'''Rathaus square''' 
The square in front of City Hall.

==Page 598==

'''Axioms of Zermelo''' 
The basic axioms of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zermelo-Frankel_set_theory#The_axioms Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory].

'''Poincaré''' 
Henri Poincaré ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Poincar%C3%A9 Wikipedia])

'''Cauchy''' 
Augustin Louis Cauchy ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augustin_Louis_Cauchy Wikipedia])

'''Whittaker and Watson''' 
A standard mathematics textbook of the time ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whittaker_and_Watson Wikipedia])

'''two point one''' 
(Cf Sondheim lyric.)

==Page 599==

'''dueling-society cap''' 
Probably student corporation insignia.

'''''Liebchen''''' 
German, "sweetheart"

'''''Egal was, meine Schatze''''' 
German, "No matter what, my darling" - though "meine Schatze" is an improper femininization, which ought to be "mein Schatz".

'''''Schläger''''' 
A specialized weapon for student duels. See Wikipedia's [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_fencing Academic fencing] article.

'''Krummsäbel''' 
German, "scimitar".

'''Korbrapier''' 
A rapier with a basket ("Korb" in German) like protection hilt.

'''épée''' 
A sharp-pointed duelling sword.

==Page 600==

'''Colt six-shooters''' 
I guess Kit's luggage beat him to Gottingen.

'''''Verbindung''''' 
???

'''restoring moment, elastic constants''' 
???

'''Geheimrat Hilbert''' 
???

==Page 601==

'''''Ehrenkodex''''' 
German, "code of honor"

'''Tyrolean hats''' 
[http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=tirolerhut&btnG=Search+Images Images]

'''''Schnurrbartbinde''''' 
A device to keep one's mustache safe from entanglement when sleeping, like [http://www.volkskrantblog.nl/pub/mm/2006/01/1137360569.70341.gif this].

'''Zeiss "Palmos Panoram"''' 
An early panoramic camera, mentioned in the 1911 Britannica's [http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Photography Photography] article.

'''''"Auf die Mensur!"''''' 
German, "to the duel"

'''Andaman Islands''' 
[http://www.openencyclopedia.net/index.php/Andaman_Islands Here]'s a mention of tattooing practices in the Andaman Islands

'''Stephanie du Motel... group-theory godfather Évariste Galois''' 
Évariste Galois died in a duel at the age of 20. Though much confusion surrounds the affair, it is suspected that he provoked the duel after being rejected by one Stéphanie-Felice du Motel. ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evariste_Galois#Final_days Wikipedia])

==Page 602==

'''young Ouspensky''' 
Peter D. Ouspensky (1878-1947), Russian mystic and philosopher, author of ''The Fourth Dimension'', appropriate to Pynchon's themes in ''ATD''. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Uspensky Wikipedia entry].

'''Chong''' 
???

'''"The what?"''' 
(Precipitous drop in authorial expectations?)

'''Sidney... Kensington Sid''' 
???

'''transtriadic''' 
Beyond the three.

==Page 603==

'''"Spiritual... At Göttingen?"''' 
???

'''Applied Mechanics Institute''' 
An institute of the University of Göttingen

'''Prandtl's recent discovery of the boundary layer''' 
Ludwig Prandtl ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Prandtl Wikipedia]) in 1904 developed the theory of the boundary layer ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boundary%20layer Wikipedia]) in aerodynamics, greatly simplifying aerodynamic calculations.

'''brambled guttie''' 
A proto golf-ball, see [http://www.che.rochester.edu/users/dafoster/ChE243/SciAm%20GolfBall.pdf here].

'''Bürgerstrasse''' 
German, "Citizen's Street", a street in Göttingen.

'''Brauweg''' 
German, "Brewery Way", a street in Göttingen.

'''Zhukovsky's Transformation''' 
The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joukowsky_transform Joukowsky Transform] maps the unit circle in the complex plane to a shape very much like an airfoil.

'''glass of tea''' 
(Why not 'cup'?)because in Europe, as sopposed to in England, tea may be drunk from glassware.

'''''"...according to Spiral Theory, up to infinity." "And beyond, " added Gunther, nodding earnestly.''''' 
Reference to Buzz Lightyear's stock character phrase in 1995's TOY STORY (Pixar/Disney):
"To Infinity... and Beyond!"
--[[User:Btchakir|Btchakir]] 07:43, 19 December 2006 (PST)

==Page 604==

'''nontrivial zeroes''' 
The Riemann zeta function has two classes of zeros, the trivial zeroes being at negative even integers (-2, -4...), the non-trivial complex numbers, believed (but not proven) to have Re(z)=1/2. See [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riemann_hypothesis Wikipedia].

'''much-noted talk''' 
At the 1900 International Congress of Mathematicians in Paris, Hilbert proposed a research programme of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilbert%27s_problems#Tabulated_information 23 problems]. The Riemann hypothesis is number 8 on the list.

'''eigenvalues''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eigenvalue Wikipedia] Dudley Eigenvalue, D.D.S., was a character in ''V.''

'''Hermitian operator''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermitian_operator Wikipedia]

'''spine of reality... ''"Rückgrat von Wirklichkeit"''''' 
Probably a reference to the main diagonal of a Hermitian matrix, which can contain only real numbers. The German phrase is one accurate way to translate the English.

'''Hilbert-Polya Conjecture''' 
The conjecture that the zeroes of the Riemann function would be the eigenvalues of a Hermitian operator, just what Yashmeen is suggesting.

==Page 605==

'''Vance Aychrome''' 
???

'''Full English Breakfast''' 
Bacon, eggs, tomato, toast... otherwise know as a fry-up.

'''Pythagorean dietary''' 
(Possible missing word?)

'''kippers and bloaters''' 
Different words (both Scottish) for smoked herrings

'''baps''' 
soft bread rolls - another Scottish word

'''Spong machine''' 
Appropriate technology. An English-made hand-cranked coffee grinder that doesn't light up, lacks a readout to tell when the beans are ready, and signally fails to function before the user wakes up. Only drawback is that some spouses compare its sound to half a load of cobbles being dumped on the roof.

'''thinned''' 
From full 78. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarot Wikipedia]

'''vegetarian haggis''' 
It exists: [http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22vegetarian+haggis Google search]

==Page 606==

'''Lamont Replevin''' 
"Replevin" is a legal term for a form of civil action to recover possession of property being wrongfully held by another.

'''Elflock Villa''' 
???

'''Stuffed Edge, Herts''' 
An imaginary village in the South-East English county of Hertfordshire

'''kedgeree''' 
A hot breakfast dish of fish, rice, and eggs.

'''Cesare Lombroso''' 
???

'''Trans-Oxanian''' 
???

'''Graeco-Buddhist''' 
???

'''bad hats''' 
A bad hat is a slang term for a rascal

==Page 607==

'''Gas Office''' 
???

'''communication by means of coal-gas''' 
Cf Nabokov's "Ada". Also inverse of Tesla's energy-transmitter. A parallel to the Tristero, too.

'''bombs... Suffragettes''' 
(Did they bomb post offices?!?)

'''Pashto''' 
???

'''Tadjik''' 
???

'''Seven Dials''' 
In Covent Garden, London - a place where 7 roads meet. An unsavory assignment for a policeman.

==Page 608==

'''"Avoid beans"''' 
Pythagoreans follow a proscription against eating beans.

'''spotted dick''' 
A suet pudding with raisins or currants

'''Yarmouth bloater''' 
A cured herring from the port town of Yarmouth.

''''shape'''' 
???

'''blue lamps''' 
Traditionally hung outside police stations in England.

'''lamé surfaces''' 
???

'''yarmulke... high crown... dented Trilby style''' 
???

==Page 609==

'''''Kelly's Suburban Dictionary''''' 
The peerless ''London A to Z'' did not come along until the 1930s.

'''wenlets''' 
Politician and journalist William Cobbett (1763-1835) called London "the great wen." It was not a compliment, because ''wen'' means a sebaceous cyst. Wenlets are small versions of the "great" wen.

==Page 610==

'''daylight oil''' 
???

'''refused to dim''' 
(Nicely vivid.)

'''Vontz's Universal Pick''' 
???

'''alchemized coke''' 
???

'''Lincrusta-Walton''' 
???

'''hipshot''' 
???

'''scalene polygons''' 
Polygons with sides of unequal length.

'''jet''' 
???

'''Apotheosis Sparkless Torch''' 
???

==Page 611==

'''magnalium''' 
An alloy of magnesium and aluminum.

'''''The Slow and the Stupefied''''' 
Daytime soap 'The Young and the Restless'.

'''gas-head''' 
Cf pothead, acidhead, etc.

'''Pike's Peak''' 
Lew's old stompinground.

'''Gus Swallowfield''' 
???

'''most theft policies''' 
(Fact?)

'''pantechnicon''' 
A closed van or carryall. (Is TRP trying to put a burr under S. Weisenburger's saddle by bringing this vehicle back? SW's gloss in the ''GR Companion,'' at page 19 of the Viking edition, is famously wrong.)

'''legitimate bill of sale''' 
???

==Page 612==

'''''Pavonazzetto''''' 
???

'''Phrygian marble''' 
Phrygia is an ancient region of west central Asia Minor, to the south of Bithynia. Marble from there was highly valued.

'''Atys... Agdistis''' 
???

'''''The Mutilation of Atys''''' 
No images: [http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&lr=&q=%22Mutilation%20of%20Atys&btnG=Search&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi Google image search]

'''Arturo Naunt''' 
???

'''shocking the bourgeoisie''' 
A popular pastime for young and not-so-young soi-disant radicals ("Epater le bourgeois").

'''koumiss vessel''' 
???

'''wrathful deities from Tantric Buddhism''' 
???

==Page 613==

'''tiny German hand camera''' 
???

'''raw light''' 
???

'''Gasophilia''' 
???

'''Schwärmer''' 
???

'''Chidambaram''' 
???

'''''Akaša''''' 
???

'''Atman''' 
???

''''''Chaos'''''' 
???

'''van Helmont''' 
???

'''stridently unpopulated''' 
Cf p610.

==Annotation Index==
{{ATD PbP}}

Thomas Pynchon Wiki - User contributions [en]

ATD 588-614