Question about Mathematics from Zamiatin.

Sun Dec 8 15:15:41 UTC 2013

What an enjoyable discussion!

I would dispute the premise that the term "imaginary" is not relevant  
to "We" (it is, after all, the imagination of the citizen-numbers that  
is targeted for amputation in the Great Operation!), but of course I  
agree with the conclusion that Zamyatin mixes up the terminology on  
purpose.  Can we perhaps go further and say that "imagination" and  
"irrationality" are, for D-503, essentially synonymous -- that his  
pathological fear of all that is not strictly "rational" actually  
makes him a bad mathematician?

Lending weight to this theory is that fact that this substitution of  
"irrational" for "imaginary" is not the only time D-503 gets his maths  
wrong.  The equation he uses at the beginning of Zapis' 4 to work out  
the probability of his ending up in the particular auditorium I-330  
predicted is also incorrect.  It should be 1/1500(1500 being the  
number of auditoria), not 1500/10,000,000 (10,000,000 being the total  
number of citizen-numbers to be assigned, which is not relevant to the  
probability question).

As it happens, no fewer than 3 math majors showed up in my 20th-c.  
Russian lit. class a few years ago, and as you can imagine we  
discussed these passages extensively!  We concluded that either (1)  
Zamyatin himself was a bad mathematician (possible), or (2) that he  
was counting on his readers being ignorant of math and thus not  
noticing the mistakes (disappointing), or (3) the most interesting  
possibility, that he was deliberately using D-503 to show the  
limitations of fundamentalist "rationalism."  In fact one needs  
imagination, not just skill with numbers and rules, to be a good  
mathematician or engineer; D-503 is crippled by the ideological  
training of the One State, and in crippling him, they have also  
crippled the technology with which they hoped to secure the future of  
the One State itself.  After seeing D-503's mind at work, does anyone  
believe the Integral will actually fly?

Rebecca S.

Quoting Sasha Spektor <xrenovo at gmail.com>:

> I don't think that he was mixed up.  He was an engineer, as some of you
> mentioned and obviously knew what's what in math more than any of us,
> Slavists.  I think here we have a clear case of the aesthetic lawh
> triumphing over the mathematical ones.  Helena Goscilo's interpretation
> seems correct to me -- in the context of the novel "irrational" is a very
> important concept, "imaginary" is not.  The novel, to paraphrase Nabokov,
> was written for normal people, not for mathematicians.
>
>
> On Sat, Dec 7, 2013 at 1:59 PM, E Wayles Browne <ewb2 at cornell.edu> wrote:
>
>>
>> Right. And then a complex number (kompleksnoe chislo) is what you get when
>> you add a normal sort of positive or negative number (technical term: a
>> real number) to so-and-so many imaginary units (mnimix edinic).
>> An irrational number (irracional'noe chislo) is a real number, nothing
>> imaginary about it, but it's one that you can't express as a fraction (as a
>> whole number divided by another whole number).
>> Really it's all the same terminology in both languages, and Zamiatin was
>> mixed up--or maybe he just liked the connotations of the word irrational.
>> --
>> Wayles Browne, Prof. of Linguistics
>> Department of Linguistics
>> Morrill Hall 220, Cornell University
>> Ithaca, New York 14853, U.S.A.
>>
>> tel. 607-255-0712 (o), 607-273-3009 (h)
>> fax 607-255-2044 (write FOR W. BROWNE)
>> e-mail ewb2 at cornell.edu
>>
>> ________________________________________
>> From: SEELANGS: Slavic & East European Languages and Literatures list <
>> SEELANGS at LISTSERV.UA.EDU> on behalf of Belousova, Vera <belousov at OHIO.EDU>
>> Sent: Saturday, December 7, 2013 2:34 PM
>> To: SEELANGS at LISTSERV.UA.EDU
>> Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] Question about Mathematics from Zamiatin.
>>
>> The correct Russian translation for "imaginary number" is "мнимое число".
>> The square root of -1 (or i) is мнимая единица.
>>
>>
>> ________________________________________
>> From: SEELANGS: Slavic & East European Languages and Literatures list [
>> SEELANGS at LISTSERV.UA.EDU] On Behalf Of Anthony Anemone [
>> AnemoneA at NEWSCHOOL.EDU]
>> Sent: Saturday, December 07, 2013 2:27 PM
>> To: SEELANGS at LISTSERV.UA.EDU
>> Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] Question about Mathematics from Zamiatin.
>>
>> Interesting, but then is Zamiatin's usage of иррациональный an error, or a
>> reflection of different usage in Russian at the beginning of the 19th
>> century?
>>
>> Tony
>>
>>
>> On Sat, Dec 7, 2013 at 2:18 PM, Alina Israeli <aisrael at american.edu
>> <mailto:aisrael at american.edu>> wrote:
>> No, square root of -1, know as i  is called комплéксное число (with a
>> stress on e, unlike the regular use with a stress on o):
>> http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9A%D0%BE%D0%BC%D0%BF%D0%BB%D0%B5%D0%BA%D1%81%D0%BD%D0%BE%D0%B5_%D1%87%D0%B8%D1%81%D0%BB%D0%BE
>> <
>> http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%25D0%259A%25D0%25BE%25D0%25BC%25D0%25BF%25D0%25BB%25D0%25B5%25D0%25BA%25D1%2581%25D0%25BD%25D0%25BE%25D0%25B5_%25D1%2587%25D0%25B8%25D1%2581%25D0%25BB%25D0%25BE
>> >
>>
>> On Dec 7, 2013, at 12:46 PM, Anthony Anemone wrote:
>>
>> Dear colleagues,
>>
>> I'm puzzled about Zamaitin's usage of иррациональный when referring to the
>> square root of -1.  As far as I understand math terminology in English (not
>> that far!), wouldn't that be an imaginary number?  Perhaps terminology in
>> Russian is different?
>>
>> Thanks!
>>
>> Tony
>> --
>> Tony Anemone
>> Associate Professor
>> The New School
>> 72 Fifth Ave, 702
>> New York, NY 10011
>>
>> Alina Israeli
>> Associate Professor of Russian
>> WLC, American University
>> 4400 Massachusetts Ave.
>> Washington DC 20016
>> (202) 885-2387<tel:%28202%29%20885-2387>  fax (202)
>> 885-1076<tel:%28202%29%20885-1076>
>> aisrael at american.edu<mailto:aisrael at american.edu>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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>>
>> --
>> Tony Anemone
>> Associate Professor
>> The New School
>> 72 Fifth Ave, 702
>> New York, NY 10011
>>
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