The Momentum of Pynchon's Secret Formula: &lt;i&gt;Gravity’s Rainbow&lt;/i&gt;’s Second Equation between Archival Sources and Fiction

Nina Engelhardt,Harald Engelhardt

doi:10.16995/orbit.486

Abstract

Thomas Pynchon’s novel Gravity’s Rainbow (1973) sports three equations in mathematical notation, and the second of these has puzzled readers for 45 years: is Pynchon’s Second Equation real or made up? And what role does it have for interpretations of Gravity’s Rainbow? In this paper, we draw on scientific documents and material from the archive of the German Museum, Munich (Deutsches Museum Munchen) to establish the plausibility of the equation and determine its source. Based on our findings, we examine further instances of Pynchon's working with previously unidentified scientific sources, and reconsider the role of the Second Equation in Gravity’s Rainbow in terms of its relations to power and control, the life path of the 'main' character Tyrone Slothrop, and the novel's perspective on the ethical potentials of mathematics and physics.

Highlights

Digital Preservation: The Open Library of Humanities and all its journals are digitally preserved in the CLOCKSS scholarly archive service
Thomas Pynchon’s novel Gravity’s Rainbow (1973) sports three equations in mathematical notation, and the second of these has puzzled readers for 45 years: is Pynchon’s Second Equation real or made up? And what role does it have for interpretations of Gravity’s Rainbow? In this paper, we draw on scientific documents and material from the archive of the German Museum, Munich (Deutsches Museum München) to establish the plausibility of the equation and determine its source
Readers of Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow (1973) cannot afford to discard the explanatory potential of mathematical equations as quickly: to understand the world of Gravity’s Rainbow, readers have to take into account equations as well as discursive explanations and a number of imagined, hallucinated, or dreamed-up models of realities

Summary

Introduction

Digital Preservation: The Open Library of Humanities and all its journals are digitally preserved in the CLOCKSS scholarly archive service. Engelhardt, N and Engelhardt, H 2018 The Momentum of Pynchon’s Secret Formula: Gravity’s Rainbow’s Second Equation Between Archival Sources and Fiction.

Results

Conclusion