Infinite Summer

The defining characteristic of fractals like the Sierpinski Gasket, is that their structure repeats itself on many different scales. Fractal models have been used to describe various natural and social systems, like the ridge of a mountain, the growth of cities, and even the stock market. It's pretty wild how Wallace manages to describe this cycle of addiction and waste at so many levels.

Wow, very perceptive comments. Thanks.

Just one little twist and you have a lemniscate (infinity symbol) that also corresponds to the Moebius strip.

My pet theory is that the whole book is shaped like an infinity symbol (hence the same no. of pages in every edition.)

_________________
------------------------
The dorks are saving the nation, and this book proves it.

There's another post about this that might be interesting:

viewtopic.php?f=13&t=292

I'm trying to unpack the moon/orbit imagery. The person who called into 60 +/- (who btw had a cultured stutter - do any of these characters so far have a cultured stutter?) said that the moon revolves around the earth but doesn't revolve itself, which is why we always see the same side. But that's not true.. the moon does revolve but it is in synchronous rotation with the earth. What this means, I don't know yet. But there sure are a lot of references to moon-like things that never turn away. I've been trying to tie in the moon as symbolic of human/US achievement... maybe it's relevant that we spent so much time and money and even a few human lives to get to the moon, but that achievement was mostly symbolic and didn't really get us anything other than bragging rights. Sorry, this started out being about orbits but ended up here. If anyone else can tie this into orbits and annularity I'd appreciate it.

Only character I can think of so far with a stutter is E.T.A. instructor Corbett Thorp (p. 456): "Thorp's a first-rate tennis mind, but his terrible stutter makes the boys so uncomfortable they have a hard time listening."