A Thermodynamic Reading of The Crying of Lot 49 Exploring thermodynamic entropy and information theory Essay Example For Students

A Thermodynamic Reading of The Crying of Lot 49 Exploring thermodynamic entropy and information theory Essay A Thermodynamic Reading of The Crying of Lot 49 Exploring thermodynamic entropy and information theory clarifies the ambiguous relationship between Oedipa Maas, Maxwells Demon and the Tristero System in The Crying of Lot 49. Through a convoluted, chaotic adventure leading to disorder, Oedipa searches for the truth about Tristero, hoping it will save her from her tower of imprisonment Pynchon, 11. Pynchon dangles this elusive message over Oedipas head until she discovers Tristeros meaning. However, interference from thermodynamic entropy and the entropy of information theory prevent the message from being transmitted from the transmitter to the receiver. Thermodynamics deals with the changes that occur in a system if energy distribution is unbalanced. Thermodynamics can be regarded as governing the direction of all physical changes taking place in the universe. With time, the energy within a system will inevitably tend to become distributed in the most probable pattern, which consists of all the individual particles of the system engaging in random, disordered motion OED. Thermodynamic entropy is the measure of this disorganization in the universe. In a closed, isolated system, the total quantity of energy remains the same, but irreversible transformations within this system cause a loss in the grade of the energy. In The Crying of Lot 49, Oedipa Maas realizes her confinement is similar to the closed system in which entropy thrives Pynchon, 11. If she does not open her system, her energy will degrade until she is an embodiment of random disorder. At some point she went into the bathroom, tried to find her image in the mirror and couldnt. She had a moment of nearly pure terror. Pynchon, 29. An image is created in a mirror when radiation falls upon an object of varying density, causing light to scatter, which composes the reflection. If there were no differences in density, and only random motion, there would be no image to project. Pynchon foreshadows Oedipas fate through the degradation of thermodynamic entropy. Mechanical energy is an example of high-grade energy and heat is an example of low-grade energy. Thus, as entropy increases, negentropy degrades into heat, which is a form of energy arising from randomly moving molecules OED. When a closed system possesses an unstable distribution of densities and gas molecules cluster in different areas, there is a lower probability and higher potential to do mechanical work. The loss of heat in entropy expresses the second law of thermodynamics. Entropy functions at the stagnant maximum of thermodynamic entropy, when energy or ideas cannot be transferred because the universe is at normal human body temperature. Oedipa suffers this loss of heat to some degree, because her embodiment of thermodynamic entropy is an obstacle to her understanding of the message. As if, on some other frequency, or out of the eye of some whirlwind rotating too slow for her heated skin even to feel the centrifugal coolness of, words were being spoken Pynchon, 14. The rate of oscillation or vibration at which that these words are being spoken is unintelligible  to Oedipa, coming at her like a confused, tumultuous process of the exchange of heat from a hot to cold system in exchange for usable energy OED. Thus, Oedipa is incapable of receiving the information whirling around her. She is trapped within the thermodynamic entropy of her system. Information theory is the mathematical theory of communication used to determine speed and quantity of information transmission. It statistically computes redundant information necessary to counteract any distortion or loss that may occur during transmission from one information source to another. Aside from the semantics of information, Claude Shannon asserts that the message is selected from a set of possible messages. A system with certain physical or conceptual entities must be designed to operate for each possible selection; not just the one chosen, because this is unknown at the time of design. If the number of messages in the set is finite, this number is a measure of the information produced when one message is chosen from the set with all choices being equally likely Shannon, 3. Adventures Of Huck Finn Theme EssayThe Demon has the power to reverse thermodynamic entropy, by producing a staggering set of energies through the destruction of a massive complex of information. Pynchon, 84 à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å"85 His actions would violate the second law of thermodynamics, because entropy is an irreversible transformation. In this situation, the human sensitive supplies information the Demon needs to convert heat into usable energy. Pynchon, 85 As Brillouin concludes, every type of experiment represents a transformation of negentropy into information Brillouin, 12. For the demon to separate gas molecules, he must be able to see them, so he expends a high negentropy, radiation or light, to see the molecules varying densities. However, the quantity of negentropy produced from this information overcompensates for the loss in the first step. According to Nefastis explanation, the sensitive does all of the work, supplying information for the Demon, by visually concentrating on Maxwells picture. The Demon, however, participates at some deep, psychic level, which might expend energy, but certainly not in a measurable way as Oedipa does. Pynchon, 84 Nefastis tells Oedipa to Leave mind open, receptive to the Demons message Pynchon, 85. She tells him he is not reaching her, so he repeats the message. Yet, Oedipa asks the same thing she  thinks a few pages later amongst the freeway madness Pynchon, 87. She cannot see that the connection Nefastis derives is more than the objective coincidence of the two equations. She tried for many minutes, waiting for the demon to communicate amongst the noise from the high-pitched, comic voices issued from the TV set, but she only perceives a misfired nerve cell Pynchon, 85 86. The unheard message is like a hieroglyphic sense of concealed meaning, of an intent to communicate, but the revelation trembled just past the threshold of understanding Pynchon, 14. Maxwells Demon may be the metaphor that connects thermodynamics to information flow, but The act of metaphor then s a thrust at truth and a lie, depending where you were: inside, safe, or outside, lost Pynchon, 85 105. The Demon becomes the channel, which carries the message from the transmitter to the receiver. Whatever information is contained within the channel will be accurate and truthful, but what information leaks out during the transmission will be lost. A lie may be in its place; the lie Oedipa built her life around. Oedipa wondered whethershe too might not be left with only compiled memories of cluesà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦which must always blaze out, destroying its own message irreversiblyà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ Pynchon, 95. The light the Demon uses to identify molecules is too bright for Oedipas system. Truth, like the entropy of information theory, irreversibly destroys the meaning of its own message, just as the Demon destroys knowledge the sensitive passes on to create energy. In this paradoxical state, Oedipas quest for the truth about Tristero and escape her tower are unsuccessful, because they bring her back to the same quantity of heat energy. Oedipa is stuck in a cycle of wasting energy finding information that loses value over time, ending up in the highly probable state of uncertainty over Tristero. Even if she found a central truth, its generated power would destroy the Pynchons ambiguous message. This appeals to science, because the high entropy of the information level at the end of the novel implies high probability and uncertainty. Pynchon would have violated the theory of information had he revealed the encoded message.