[HN Gopher] Infinite Proofs: The Effects of Mathematics on David...
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Infinite Proofs: The Effects of Mathematics on David Foster Wallace
(2012)
Author : lordleft
Score : 50 points
Date : 2024-08-09 16:55 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (lareviewofbooks.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (lareviewofbooks.org)
| lordleft wrote:
| Here is the book on Infinity DFW penned:
| https://www.amazon.com/Everything-More-Compact-History-Infin...
| jawjay wrote:
| Such a great book. Do you know if he there is any other DFW
| math-ish writings to be found? All my searches thus far have
| turned up naught.
| markgall wrote:
| I'm not aware of any, but maybe somebody else is. A more
| general question is are there any other DFW-ish math-ish
| writings to be found? Against The Day (Pynchon) is not really
| math-ish, but it does have a good bit of math (more than GR
| at least), and a DFW fan would probably like it. Stella Maris
| (McCarthy) is perhaps neither DFW-ish nor math-ish, but it is
| Serious Fiction centered on a mathematician and is probably
| the best work of fiction to feature Alexander Grothendieck. I
| have heard that Solenoid (Cartarescu) has some math in it,
| though I fear it's still sitting on my shelf. Every Arc Bends
| Its Radian (due in a couple months from Sergio De La Pava)
| has a math-ish title but I doubt it will actually contain
| much math.
|
| Michael Harris -- a mathematician who wrote a review of the
| DFW Infinity book -- has a book called "Mathematics Without
| Apologies", which I liked, though it's non-fiction. There is
| also "Birth of a Theorem" by Fields medalist Cedric Villani
| which is an interesting read -- not fiction, but it is
| experimental in many respects and I would say worth a read.
| krelian wrote:
| You'll probably enjoy When We Cease to Understand the World
| by Benjamin Labatut.
| markgall wrote:
| Oh, good idea! I read The Maniac but not that one, and
| the former should be on my list too.
| lukas099 wrote:
| Endnote 123 in Infinite Jest
| JonathanMerklin wrote:
| I want to note for the HN crowd that the book is in the "just
| technical enough to inform yet not scare off the layman, but
| not technical enough for the practitioner" nonfiction subgenre.
| Critically, there are a number of finer details that DFW gets
| wrong; if you're mathematically inclined and intend to read
| this, I suggest pairing it with a printed copy of Prabhakar
| Ragde's errata document hosted by the DFW fansite The Howling
| Fantods ([1]).
|
| [1] https://www.thehowlingfantods.com/dfw/images/enmerrata.pdf
| citizen_friend wrote:
| This. He tries to do a few epsilon delta proofs and
| completely gets the concept wrong. I'm surprised an editor
| did not stop this.
|
| If he can't understand a limit it really puts a question mark
| on whether it's worth reading his insight into the subject.
| markgall wrote:
| This should be read in parallel with the review by Michael
| Harris in the AMS Notices: "A Sometimes Funny Book Supposedly
| about Infinity" https://www.ams.org/notices/200406/rev-
| harris.pdf
|
| As a DFW lover whose day job is as a mathematician... that
| book's a clunker.
| vundercind wrote:
| I feel less-bad about not having finished it now.
|
| I was doing fine until formulas started showing up more than
| very-occasionally. I'm basically dyslexic when equations
| enter the picture.
| will-burner wrote:
| Michael Harris is a great mathematician (number theory, let's
| go!!), but that review to me is pretty rambling and doesn't
| point out many inaccuracies in DFW's book, but takes issue
| with DFW's approach and style or writing. I did just skim the
| review and am a DFW fanboy, but Harris seems to have issues
| with books about infinity and math for lay people, which is
| fine, that's driving his opinions here.
|
| I'd imagine there will also be a gap between what
| mathematician's think of novelists writing and what novelists
| think of real math. So there's that too.
| will-burner wrote:
| I'm surprised by the mathematician's critiques of this book. I
| have a PhD in math and I read this book about 10 years ago now.
| I loved it. I'm sure there are some inaccuracies, but he gets
| the overall story correct. There's enough math in the book to
| be engaging for someone mathematically trained. There's also a
| lot more history than if you read a math book that just has
| proofs. And the book is entertaining in the way that DFW's
| books usually are. As a former mathematician I highly
| recommend.
| otteromkram wrote:
| Love DFW's Kenyon College commencement speech, but he wasn't all
| sunshine and rainbows[0]:
|
| > In the early 1990s, Wallace was in a relationship with writer
| Mary Karr. She later described Wallace as obsessive about her and
| said the relationship was volatile, with Wallace once throwing a
| coffee table at her as well as physically forcing her out of a
| car, leaving her to walk home. Years later, she claimed that
| Wallace's biographer D. T. Max underreported Wallace's abuse. Of
| Max's account of their relationship, she tweeted: "That's about
| 2% of what happened." She said that Wallace kicked her, climbed
| up the side of her house at night, and followed her five-year-old
| son home from school.
|
| Reference: [0]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Foster_Wallace#Abuse_all...
| np_tedious wrote:
| There is another big reason not to call him "sunshine and
| rainbows"
| passion__desire wrote:
| He mostly overdid his psychedelic experience. Then went into
| depression. Then committed suicide
| llamaimperative wrote:
| Wallace had depression and anxiety since adolescence (i.e.
| well before any reported psychedelic use). Pretty
| inappropriate and irresponsible framing you've picked here!
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