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Re: Nabokov and Mathematics (fwd)
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From: Brian Boyd <b.boyd@auckland.ac.nz>
So good to have such a fresh question, so let me wink a few tiddles into
Eric Katz's cup (from memory, so forgive imprecisions):
in Speak, Memory, chapter 2, VN talks about his own mathematical precocity
until an illness at 7 robbed him of it and instead as it were virtually
recolonized much of that area his brain for butterflies;
in Speak, Memory ch 14, he talks about the "poetico-mathematical" nature
of chess problem composition, which explains how the remaining area of VN's
mathematical mind was occupied
in the essay "The Art of Literature and Common Sense" at the end of
Lectures on Literature there are amusing comments amidst the flurry of
imagery on the reifying of mathematical concepts
ch 14 of Bend Sinister echoes and alludes to Pythagoras and shows more
than a fleeting interest in ancient maths and comsology and modern physics
in Pnin ch 4 he proudly refers to Lobachevsky, and I think he mentions him
elsewhere--in The Gift?--indirectly but obviously with great admiration for
his achievement (and perhaps also in Strong Opinions?)
in Ada Pt 1 Ch 28 Van as a boy is said to be able to solve an Euler-type
problem in no time flat
Wasn't Ramanujan also still at Cambridge (i.e. not yet dead) when Nabokov
was there (1919-22)? Ramanujan seems a wonderfully Nabokovian figure,
combining the eccentric, self-enclosed genius of a Luzhin, the terminal
loneliness of Pnin in exile, and the creative intensity, but not the luck,
of Nabokov himself. Heartbreaking.
Brian Boyd
>>> Galya Diment <galya@u.washington.edu> 05/06 9:49 am >>>
From Eric Edward Katz (eekatz@pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu)
The discussion of John Nash reminds me of a question I've been meaning to
pose to the list: where in his works does Nabokov make references to
mathematics and what was the extent of his knowledge of math?
There is an excellent description of Luzhin's study of (projective)
geometry in _The Defense_. The narrator of _Ultima Thule_ comments
sarcastically to Falter that his great secret is hidden in the word
"heterologous." This is a reference to the Richard paradox:
Take all words. Call those that describe themselves (like adjectival)
homologous, those that don't, heterologous. Then, how would the word
"heterologous" be classified? Nabokov's facetious use of the paradox is
even appropriate.
Doesn't Nabokov somewhere refer to the "poetry of pure mathematics"?
That leads me to wonder if he read G.H. Hardy's _A Mathematician's
Apology_. In it Hardy expresses a theory of aesthetics ("A
mathematician,
like a painter or a poet, is a maker of patterns") and a disdain for the
practical that Nabokov would have appreciated. Incidentally, Hardy and
Nabokov may have been at Cambridge at the same time (Hardy as a prof),
but it's absurd to ask if they ever met.
Sincerely,
Eric Edward Katz
(Eric Edward Katz is a mathematics major at Ohio State University)
So good to have such a fresh question, so let me wink a few tiddles into
Eric Katz's cup (from memory, so forgive imprecisions):
in Speak, Memory, chapter 2, VN talks about his own mathematical precocity
until an illness at 7 robbed him of it and instead as it were virtually
recolonized much of that area his brain for butterflies;
in Speak, Memory ch 14, he talks about the "poetico-mathematical" nature
of chess problem composition, which explains how the remaining area of VN's
mathematical mind was occupied
in the essay "The Art of Literature and Common Sense" at the end of
Lectures on Literature there are amusing comments amidst the flurry of
imagery on the reifying of mathematical concepts
ch 14 of Bend Sinister echoes and alludes to Pythagoras and shows more
than a fleeting interest in ancient maths and comsology and modern physics
in Pnin ch 4 he proudly refers to Lobachevsky, and I think he mentions him
elsewhere--in The Gift?--indirectly but obviously with great admiration for
his achievement (and perhaps also in Strong Opinions?)
in Ada Pt 1 Ch 28 Van as a boy is said to be able to solve an Euler-type
problem in no time flat
Wasn't Ramanujan also still at Cambridge (i.e. not yet dead) when Nabokov
was there (1919-22)? Ramanujan seems a wonderfully Nabokovian figure,
combining the eccentric, self-enclosed genius of a Luzhin, the terminal
loneliness of Pnin in exile, and the creative intensity, but not the luck,
of Nabokov himself. Heartbreaking.
Brian Boyd
>>> Galya Diment <galya@u.washington.edu> 05/06 9:49 am >>>
From Eric Edward Katz (eekatz@pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu)
The discussion of John Nash reminds me of a question I've been meaning to
pose to the list: where in his works does Nabokov make references to
mathematics and what was the extent of his knowledge of math?
There is an excellent description of Luzhin's study of (projective)
geometry in _The Defense_. The narrator of _Ultima Thule_ comments
sarcastically to Falter that his great secret is hidden in the word
"heterologous." This is a reference to the Richard paradox:
Take all words. Call those that describe themselves (like adjectival)
homologous, those that don't, heterologous. Then, how would the word
"heterologous" be classified? Nabokov's facetious use of the paradox is
even appropriate.
Doesn't Nabokov somewhere refer to the "poetry of pure mathematics"?
That leads me to wonder if he read G.H. Hardy's _A Mathematician's
Apology_. In it Hardy expresses a theory of aesthetics ("A
mathematician,
like a painter or a poet, is a maker of patterns") and a disdain for the
practical that Nabokov would have appreciated. Incidentally, Hardy and
Nabokov may have been at Cambridge at the same time (Hardy as a prof),
but it's absurd to ask if they ever met.
Sincerely,
Eric Edward Katz
(Eric Edward Katz is a mathematics major at Ohio State University)