|
|
| (21 intermediate revisions by 2 users not shown) |
| Line 1: |
Line 1: |
| − | Well known [http://books.google.com/books?ct=title&q=thomas+Pynchon&btnG=Search+Books Author], [http://files.splinder.com/f7cdee4dc9eb635bb8fa51940e388bf1.jpeg Bag Man], and [http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/generalfiction/story/0,,950245,00.html Urban Legend] [http://www.newenglandancestors.org/education/articles/research/special_guests/gary_boyd_roberts/48_659_448.asp Thomas Ruggles Pynchon the Fifth] comes from a long line that begins with [http://www.famousamericans.net/williampynchon/ William Pynchon], founder of the town of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_recurring_characters_from_The_Simpsons#Jebediah_Springfield Springfield], [http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~scanderson/deacon_chapin.HTM Massachusetts]. [http://www.picturehistory.com/product/id/4832 Thomas Ruggles Pynchon the Third] is more than a footnote to [http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract;jsessionid=5FB21F083E60E4CE450B0320759422AF.tomcat1?fromPage=online&aid=8545 Nathaniel Hawthorne's ][http://books.google.com/books?id=wDY99lZWkqoC&dq=nathaniel+hawthorne%27s+house+of+seven+gables&pg=PP1&ots=e4R3vRu0ol&sig=eMvwvRgwViCQcfDtpTD3z0NchWc&prev=http://www.google.com/search%3Fhl%3Den%26q%3DNathaniel%2BHawthorne%27s%2B%255D%255B%2BHouse%2Bof%2BSeven%2BGables%26btnG%3DGoogle%2BSearch&sa=X&oi=print&ct=title&cad=one-book-with-thumbnail#PPA2,M1 House of Seven Gables]. This [http://www.vheissu.info/bio/eng_tijdlijn.htm Pynchon Timetable] comes via the [http://www.vheissu.info/index.htm Vheissu] website:
| + | [[File:Book_GR_sm.jpg|350px|thumb|''Gravity's Rainbow''<br />'''Jacket Art:''' [[Marc_Getter_-_Designer_and_Artist|Marc Getter]]<br />'''Publication date:''' Feb 28, 1973|right]] |
| | | | |
| − | :Nathaniel Hawthorne publishes The House of the Seven Gables. Rev. Thomas Ruggles Pynchon (1823-1904) writes the author a letter, complaining about the 'abuse' of the 'Pyncheon' name. This rev. Thomas Ruggles Pynchon will become the ninth president of Trinity College in Hartford, Conn, where he teaches science and religion. In 1881 he publishes an Introduction to Chemical Physics. His brother William is the great-grandfather of author Thomas Pynchon.
| + | ==Cover Art== |
| | | | |
| − | The use of language in his '[http://books.google.com/books?id=QmdOAAAAMAAJ&pg=RA2-PA16&dq=Thomas+Ruggles+Pynchon+Trinity+college&as_brr=1#PPP1,M1 Introduction to Chemical Physics] is reminiscent of his younger namesake:
| + | '''NOTE:''' You can view the many variations of ''Gravity's Rainbow'' cover art through the years at [http://thomaspynchon.com/pynchon-cover-art/gravitys-rainbow/ ThomasPynchon.com] |
| | | | |
| − | :"The name Chemistry, is said to be derived from the Arabic word Kimia, something hidden or concealed, and from this, to have been converted into Xyueia*, a word first used by the Greeks about the eleventh century, and meaning the art of making gold and silver. Between the fifth century and the taking of Constantinople in the fifteenth century, says Dr. Thomson, in his History of Chemistry, the Greeks believed in the possibility of making god and silver artificially; and the art which professed to teach the processes was called by them, Chemistry. This idea, however, has long since been thoroughly discarded, and is now no longer heard of."
| + | ==Thoughts on the Title== |
| | | | |
| − | Like the author we are discussing, The Thomas Pynchon of [http://www.trincoll.edu/AboutTrinity/leadership/jones/inauguration/past_presidents.htm Trinity College], Hartford Connecticut, was a daunting polymath. If you open '[http://books.google.com/books?id=QmdOAAAAMAAJ&pg=RA2-PA16&dq=Thomas+Ruggles+Pynchon+Trinity+college&as_brr=1#PPP1,M1 Introduction to Chemical Physics]', one of the first things you will see is are [http://www.hawaiipictures.com/pictures/kauai/rainbows1-1.jpg Rainbows], the rainbows from the workings of a Chemical [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectrometer Spectrometer]:
| + | Andrew Graham: |
| | | | |
| − | :When a material is heated to incandescence it emits light that is characteristic of the atomic makeup of the material. Particular light frequencies give rise to sharply defined bands on the scale which can be thought of as fingerprints. For example, the element sodium has a very characteristic double yellow band known as the Sodium D-lines at 588.9950 and 589.5924 nanometers, the colour of which will be familiar to anyone who has seen a low pressure sodium vapor lamp.
| + | Gravity acting on free flying objects tends to make them move in parabolas. A rainbow is a segment of a circle which is a different shape to a parabola. |
| | + | |
| | + | As a rocket takes off under its exhaust power, it will be describing a curve of some sort but likely not yet following a parabola; it would only do so if carefully programmed to do so. Only once the fuel cuts out does it become ballistic, i.e., acted on primarily by gravity. The parabola it's now on carries it on upwards to a curved peak and then back down. Or at least this is an approximation of a parabola, friction necessarily deforming it. Thus a V2 did not follow a parabolic path, certainly not from the ground upwards. There are some details of their flight paths [http://www.v2platform.nl/book/technical.html here]. |
| | | | |
| | + | Thus "Gravity's Rainbow," if we take it to be referring to a V2 flight path, is only approximate to a parabola and can only ever be a deformed arc, or a deformed and de-coloured rainbow. The difference cannot be overcome by wishful thinking nor physics |
| | | | |
| − | Much of the scientific material in Gravity's Rainbow concerns the commercial applications of Chemistry. One of the branches of the Pynchon Clan, George M. Pynchon, ran the Wall Street Investment firm [http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0711&msg=122572&sort=author Pynchon & Company] In Gravity's Rainbow, 'we' start in a train:
| + | Rainbows are also prism-like opening outs of white light. The refraction or bending of light in raindrops acts to different degrees on different colours (that is wavelengths or frequencies), thus creating the spread of colours which we see. |
| | | | |
| − | :"There are no lights inside the cars."
| + | Gravity bends light but not like a prism as all frequencies are bent equally. However, as shown in the videos on [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_lens this Wikipedia page], gravity does create rainbow like circles when acting as a lens. That is when astronomical objects pass behind other massive ones and the light from the former is bent around the latter. |
| | | | |
| − | . . . .and wind up in a theater, waiting for the end to come, singing an old church hymn from Tyrone Slothrop's [http://www.usgennet.org/usa/ma/county/hampden/spfld/hist1/p49-88.html Pig Farming Ancestor], William Slothrop: | + | Rainbows will also be circular when not restricted by the ground. With luck you can see this, in for example waterfall spray, or more prosaically with [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow#Full-circle_rainbow a garden hose], and a similar effect is created in the aureoles around aircraft shadows when they are cast onto clouds, known as [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glory_(optical_phenomenon) "glories"]. So perhaps the gravity lensing effects are Gravity's Rainbows, created when light-emitting objects pass behind massive ones. |
| | | | |
| − | :And it is just here, just at this dark and silent frame, that the pointed tip of the Rocket, falling nearly a mile a second, absolutely and forever without sound, reaches its last unmeasurable gap above the roof of this old theatre, the last delta-t.
| + | Gravity can also shift light in the red direction as it moves out from centres of gravity, creating (at a stretch perhaps) a not very enticing rainbow-like effect, gravity's rainbow here being linear and tending to the more hellish parts of the spectrum. |
| − | | + | |
| − | :There is time, if you need the comfort, to touch the person next to you, or to reach between your own cold legs . . . or, if song must find you, here's one They never taught anyone to sing, a hymn by William Slothrop, centuries for gotten and out of print, sung to a simple and pleasant air of the period. Follow the bouncing ball:
| + | |
| − | | + | |
| − | : :There is a Hand to turn the time,
| + | |
| − | : :Though thy Glass today be run,
| + | |
| − | : :Till the Light that hath brought the Towers low
| + | |
| − | : :Find the last poor Pret'rite one . . .
| + | |
| − | : :Till the Riders sleep by ev'ry road,
| + | |
| − | : :All through our crippled Zone.
| + | |
| − | : :With a face on ev'ry mountainside,
| + | |
| − | : :And a Soul in ev'ry stone. . . .
| + | |
| − | :Now everybody---
| + | |
| − | | + | |
| − | Pynchon & Company started up with real estate and Railroads, got involved in all sorts of [then] high-tech enterprises like gas and electrical grids, the work of Thomas Alva Edison including Edison/GE's Mazda Lamp Division, with the firm's director George M. Pynchon enjoying a public life as a champion Yacht Racer. Pynchon & Company fell apart in 1931 when film maker and investor William Fox was taken down by a consortium of Banking and Technology interests, including Western Electric, RCA and a number of very large banks. Some of those very large banks infamously invested in the emerging new economy of a re-industrialized Germany, under the bold direction of its new leader, Adolph Hitler. In particular, [http://oilintheirblood.com/synthetics.html I. G. Farben] became a cash nexus for a number of American Investors whose view never went any farther than the bottom line.
| + | |
| − | | + | |
| − | More to come,
| + | |
| − | | + | |
| − | Robin Landseadel
| + | |
Gravity acting on free flying objects tends to make them move in parabolas. A rainbow is a segment of a circle which is a different shape to a parabola.
As a rocket takes off under its exhaust power, it will be describing a curve of some sort but likely not yet following a parabola; it would only do so if carefully programmed to do so. Only once the fuel cuts out does it become ballistic, i.e., acted on primarily by gravity. The parabola it's now on carries it on upwards to a curved peak and then back down. Or at least this is an approximation of a parabola, friction necessarily deforming it. Thus a V2 did not follow a parabolic path, certainly not from the ground upwards. There are some details of their flight paths here.
Thus "Gravity's Rainbow," if we take it to be referring to a V2 flight path, is only approximate to a parabola and can only ever be a deformed arc, or a deformed and de-coloured rainbow. The difference cannot be overcome by wishful thinking nor physics
Rainbows are also prism-like opening outs of white light. The refraction or bending of light in raindrops acts to different degrees on different colours (that is wavelengths or frequencies), thus creating the spread of colours which we see.
Gravity bends light but not like a prism as all frequencies are bent equally. However, as shown in the videos on this Wikipedia page, gravity does create rainbow like circles when acting as a lens. That is when astronomical objects pass behind other massive ones and the light from the former is bent around the latter.
Rainbows will also be circular when not restricted by the ground. With luck you can see this, in for example waterfall spray, or more prosaically with a garden hose, and a similar effect is created in the aureoles around aircraft shadows when they are cast onto clouds, known as "glories". So perhaps the gravity lensing effects are Gravity's Rainbows, created when light-emitting objects pass behind massive ones.
Gravity can also shift light in the red direction as it moves out from centres of gravity, creating (at a stretch perhaps) a not very enticing rainbow-like effect, gravity's rainbow here being linear and tending to the more hellish parts of the spectrum.
