11–20 of 127 posts
Maybe Pemulis gave Hal an obviously wrong derivative, and when uncorrected, drove Pemulis to abruptly end the tutoring. Maybe Pemulis said it right but Hal heard it wrong. Or...
Maybe it's "just" another sign they're in an alternate universe where even the math is different. That's pretty much how I feel about it
I look forward to the day another book makes me feel like IJ - even with the mathematical flaws :)
I look forward to the day another book makes me feel like IJ - even with the mathematical flaws :)
> Again, Mike Pemulis is lecturing Hal, but this time he is helping Hal prepare for the college board exams. Pemulis states that for the function x^n, the derivative is nx + x^(n-1). In fact, the correct expression is nx^(n-1). This, too, may be a typographical error. Another possibility is that Pemulis is simply bad at math :D
So... we can't know for sure, but there's a strong case that any particular little weird error, DFW intended it to be this way. Especially for a "basic calculus" issue like this, for someone who wrote a whole book on the mathematical history of infinity. (Which arguably has its own errors, but those tend to fall more in the category of simplifications for the lay reader, IMO.)
I haven’t read IJ in a while, but I don’t think I agree with the first one. Unless he specifically said that each player has an equal chance of winning, I would not assume that to be the case.
[1] https://ask.metafilter.com/116066/French-language-in-Infinit...
I look forward to the day another book makes me feel like IJ - even with the mathematical flaws :)
I read it again about a decade later after all those games were over for me, just for myself, and loved it even more that time.
For some people, it just really does hit a nerve!
Rudy Rucker wrote a scathing review here: https://www.rudyrucker.com/oldhomepage/wallace_review.pdf
I actually read Everything and More and it's probably even worse than that. Though I'll admit that I'm a little bit biased; I'm a sort of Aristotelian Realist or even a Finitist when it comes to mathematics, and I view Cantor's hierarchy of infinities as... well... schizo at best.
DFW also wrote Everything and More: A Compact History of Infinity -- an uncritical review of Cantor's work, which was absolutely loaded with errors. Rudy Rucker wrote a scathing review here: https://www.rudyrucker.com/oldhomepage/wallace_review.pdf I actually read Everything and More and it's probably even worse than that. Though I'll admit that I'm a little bit biased; I'm a sort of Aristotelian Realist or even a Fi…
The review-writer clearly hates the book before he even gets to the mathematics. The whole book is striking a middle ground between expressing every step of mathematical rigor, and describing in a more literary way how to feel about these concepts. All of these "errors" are just the author passing over a point in less detail than you would want from a text on set theory. I thought it was great, and for anyone who enjoys both set theory and Infinite Jest, I would strongly recommend the book.
I understand that some people don't like it, but it should be viewed as "controversial" rather than "everyone agrees that it's riddled with errors".