Slashdot Mirror
Physicist Explains Cthulhu's "Non-Euclidean Geometry"
An anonymous reader writes "Mathematician Benjamin K. Tippett has written a fascinating and deadpan paper (Pdf) giving insights into Cthulhu. A 'Bubble' of warped Space-Time makes alarmingly consistent sense of the dead God's cyclopean city under the sea. From the paper: 'We calculate the type of matter which would be required to generate such exotic spacetime curvature. Unfortunately, we determine that the required matter is quite unphysical, and possess a nature which is entirely alien to all of the experiences of human science. Indeed, any civilization with mastery over such matter would be able to construct warp drives, cloaking devices, and other exotic geometries required to conveniently travel through the cosmos.'"
Satirical scientific articles are a field of literature ripe for expansion. The only one I know of to have really found a wide readership (at least among those who follow modern literature) is Georges Perec's Cantatrix Sopranica L. . Of course, the Sokal hoax paper is also a brilliant piece of writing.
This is the point where his boss should tell him, "The purpose of science is to serve mankind. You seem to regard science as some kind of dodge... or hustle. Your theories are the worst kind of popular tripe, your methods are sloppy, and your conclusions are highly questionable. You are a poor scientist, Dr. Tippett."
Why the fuck would any self-respecting god need technology? I was always under the impression technology was humanity's attempts at mitigating our shortcomings as NON-Gods.
Cthulhu 2012!
If you truly wish to understand non-Euclidean geometry, simply try putting those damn fitted sheets on a bed. No matter which way you rotate it, you always end up with the short side in your hands.
It is enough to drive a man insane.
Some good SF has some similar roots...
One example that I like is Charles Stross' Laundry series, which starts with this story: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Atrocity_Archives
Regards, your friendly neighbourhood cranq
Many people are born into racist families and when they are old enough to discover the world for themselves, they become disabused of the notions that their parents held.
Lovecraft was 22 years old when he penned this gem.
In Jove’s fair image Man was shaped at birth.
The beasts for lesser parts were next designed;
Yet were they too remote from humankind.
To fill the gap, and join the rest to Man,
Th’Olympian host conceiv’d a clever plan.
A beast they wrought, in semi-human figure,
Filled it with vice, and called the thing a Nigger.
There is a difference between the ignorance born of unfamiliarity and race hatred. Lovecraft practiced the latter. Lovecraft lived in a time of northern migration of a lot of blacks who sought to escape the crushing racism of the south. So I can surmise that he encountered some black people who fit the stereotypes that were common in his day but to accept such as the norm is akin to meeting one stingy Jew and operating as if they're all Shylock.
Lovecraft was a piece of shit racist. I don't care how many people enjoy his writing.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Back in college, a friend and I were trying to figure out what could possibly make people go mad from the mere sight of Cthulhu. We decided it must have uncountably infinitely many tentacles. A mere countable infinity of tentacles could be visually comprehensible, so long as each one is half the size of its predecessor, or if they were arranged in a fractal tree structure of tentacles upon tentacles. But uncountably many tentacles would drive you insane at first sight.
The original Howling Frog is a fictional character and has no UID.
What I find fascinating is the propensity of supposedly intelligent people to judge the past using the morals of the present, without taking into account the prevailing culture of that period they are being so judgemental of.
Equally interesting and rather more worrying is the tendency to want to completely erase a person from history when it is discovered the person has a flaw.
So Lovecraft was a racist. So were many of his era, to the point where not holding those views was unusual at best. Does that really invalidate the literary merit of his work?
No person is defined by a single aspect of their personality, we are far too complex for that. If that were the case, people would not be able to learn and adjust to new viewpoints of any kind, much less moral viewpoints.
We do not change reality by changing the law, says your sig. It's true, we don't. We also don't change the past by denying it. And we can't change the future without learning from our past.
Finally - and this is intended to be thought provoking rather than insulting - how is your prejudice against people because of the views they hold any different from the prejudice against people because of the colour of their skin? You are placing them in a box labelled "arsehole", purely because of the views they hold, in spite of the fact that their racism was culturally normal and was only a single aspect of their humanity, much like a black man's skin. I'd be uncomfortable with that myself.
A.I. Research. The peculiar science in which we know the question and we know the answer, but can't show the working