How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
She did gather that there were two distinct kinds of entropy. One having to do with heat-engines, the other to do with communication. The equation for one, back in the '30s, had looked very like the equation for the other. It was a coincidence. The two fields were entirely unconnected, except at one point: Maxwell's Demon. As the Demon sat and sorted his molecules into hot and cold, the system was said to lose entropy. But somehow the loss was offset by the information the Demon gained about what molecules were where. (5.17)
How do entropy and Maxwell's Demon come to function as metaphors in the novel? What do you make of the fact that Pynchon appropriates scientific concepts to act as metaphors in his work? Does it bother you that he might misrepresent them in the process? What is the relationship between science and literature?
Quote #8
"Nearly three weeks it takes him to decide. You now how long it would've taken the IBM 7094? Twelve micro-seconds. No wonder you were replaced." (5.71)
What does this hilarious vignette suggest about how men have come to relate to technology in the middle of the twentieth century? Is it the technology itself that is dehumanizing or simply the way that the efficiency expert treats the ex-executive?
Quote #9
[…] God help this old tattooed man, meant also a time differential, a vanishingly small instant in which change had to be confronted at last for what it was, where it could no longer disguise itself as something innocuous like an average rate; where velocity dwelled in the projectile though the projectile be frozen in midflight, where death dwelled in the cell though the cell be looked in on at its most quick. (5.124)
What connection does Pynchon draw between Delirium Tremens and a time differential in calculus? Is this connection justified? How do scientific and mathematical concepts come to function in Oedipa's imagination?