Rueckgrat von Wirklichkeit
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From: OwlHoot on 23 Jul 2010 12:06 On Jun 17, 10:56 am, Marko Amnell <marko.amn...(a)kolumbus.fi> wrote: > > ... > > "'There is also this ... spine of reality.' Afterward she would > remember she actually said 'Rueckgrat von Wirklichzeit.' I've never read Pynchon, but if he is one of those word play merchants, like James Joyce, then perhaps Rueckgrat is meant as a comical homonym of rugrat, which is an English slang word meaning toddler i.e. a young child who crawls about on carpets getting between peoples' feet. I must say that doesn't sound very convincing even to me. So you probably won't find it too plausible either. But without knowing more of the context, and of Pynchon's style, one can only speculate. Cheers John Ramsden
From: Marko Amnell on 23 Jul 2010 16:47
"OwlHoot" <ravensdean(a)googlemail.com> wrote in message 9e7844e5-808c-4648-aa4a-55fb6159fd51(a)y11g2000yqm.googlegroups.com... > On Jun 17, 10:56 am, Marko Amnell <marko.amn...(a)kolumbus.fi> wrote: >> >> ... >> >> "'There is also this ... spine of reality.' Afterward she would >> remember she actually said 'Rueckgrat von Wirklichzeit.' > > I've never read Pynchon, but if he is one of those word play > merchants, like James Joyce, Not really like Joyce, no, but Pynchon's novels contain multiple layers of meaning, and he likes to use extended scientific metaphors. So it is entirely possible that "Rueckgrat von Wirklichkeit" has more than just the literal meaning. Pynchon has a very '60s or '70s (almost hippie) style, and in some respects, his style and concerns seem old-fashioned now. > then perhaps Rueckgrat is meant > as a comical homonym of rugrat, which is an English slang > word meaning toddler i.e. a young child who crawls about > on carpets getting between peoples' feet. > > I must say that doesn't sound very convincing even to me. > So you probably won't find it too plausible either. No, I don't think that's right. > But without knowing more of the context, and of Pynchon's > style, one can only speculate. Well, given that the only piece of evidence about the origin of the Hilbert-Polya Conjecture is Polya's letter to Odlyzko, it seems impossible that the phrase "Ruckgrat von Wirklichkeit" is a direct quote from either Hilbert or Polya with respect to the Conjecture. There remains the possibility that it was used by someone else about the Conjecture or in some other scientific context. More likely, however, it was just made up by Pynchon. Other people have wondered about the phrase, and have tried to find a scientific metaphor. See, for example: "If Pynchon's protagonists should therefore be seen as postrealistic vectors (defined primarily by movement and directional shifts) rather than as conventional characters, then those traits that remain stable even when the protagonists change direction might be called eigenvalues. The discussion of eigenvalues is part of the raging debate on Riemann's and Hilbert's mathematical theories at Gottingen. Although that debate has nothing to do with the concept of character, the terminology used evidently derives from it--as it, in turn, becomes strangely suggestive of matters beyond mere mathematics. This is especially apparent when Yashmeen Halfcourt--a breathtaking beauty of Russian descent, a mystic of higher mathematics and an agent of T.W.I.T.--asks Professor Hilbert about the zeta function and whether eigenvalues might not be used to solve some of its mysteries. "'There is also this ... spine of reality.' Afterward she would remember she actually said 'Ruckgrat von Wirklichkeit'" (604). But what, one may ask, makes for "self-value" and "reality's spine" in the multidimensional and relative world of space-time?" http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_6750/is_54-55/ai_n31524582/pg_9/ |