Reply #11: Everything and More - David Foster Wallace

[Jim__]

The subtitle is A Compact History of ∞.

I've just been reading this for about the past half hour or so, and so far, it's fascinating. Wallace was brilliant and actually had a fair background in mathematics although he claims to have struggled in almost all of his math classes. I think he struggled because he didn't accept pat answers.

On page 6 of the book, he starts talking about Zeno's Paradox - the one about all motion being impossible. To get from point A to point B, you first have to get half-way between them; and before you get to the halfway point, C, you have to get halfway from point A to C, etc. Wallace has had enough calculus to understand convergent series and he knows the "solution" offered in calculus class to this is from the formula a / (1 - r), in this case (1/2) / (1 - (1/2)) giving an answer of 1. But he calls this a solution from an impoverished view. I tend to agree with him. Giving a numerical answer to Zeno's Paradox does not really resolve the problem; I'm sure Zeno was aware that we could move from A to B within a finite amount of time.

Anyway, I'm on page 71 of the book now, and we're still discussing Zeno's Paradox. Along the way we discussed the nature of number, Aristotle's Physics and Metaphysics, Plato's Idealism, etc.

The book doesn't require a math background; but it probably does require a certain curiousity about math.