Foucault's Pendulum (Eco)

because a point… the central point, I mean, the one right in the middle of all the points you see… it’s a geometric point; you can’t see it because it has no dimension, and if something has no dimension, it can’t move, not right or left, not up or down. So it doesn’t rotate with the earth. You understand? It can’t even rotate around itself. There is no ‘itself.’

Umberto Eco, Foucault’sPendulum

The perceived rotation of the plane in which the pendulum (built by Leon Foucault in 1851) oscillates depends (non-linearly) on its orientation on the ground with respect to either of the poles and equator (Aczel 5, 103). Speed, therefore, as a reliable constant that emerges from the perceived “rotation” of the pendulum within a uniform system, does not exist, but rather undergoes continuous slippage as the ground upon which the pendulum stands “shifts.”[1] This compromised solidity of ground is analogous to the semantic instability posited by proponents of deconstruction, in which meaning continually evades the grip of the sign.

Pierre Menard in Logical Space

In accomplishing the formidable task of assessing the truth of something as complex as a story, a reader has to decide between two alternatives. On the one hand, she may decide that the tale she finds herself listening to, reading, or viewing is being related by a teller who has (or purports to have) firsthand knowledge of the characters and situations, and who consequently relates the tale as fact. On the other hand, she may decide that she is experiencing the weaving of a fantasy, in which case the teller, as author of this fiction, would not have had first-hand knowledge of the story's events.[1]

Everywhere-Nowhere: Weierstrass Meets Borges

A circle whose center is everywhere and circumference nowhere (Borges)

A function that's continuous everywhere and differentiable nowhere (Weierstrass)

I sort of randomly recalled those two objects, noted the similarity of the diction, and decided there had to be a reason both ideas fit so snugly into the same sentence structure. I think I encountered the Borges idea years before Weierstrass's, but I'd been exposed to both concepts for a long time before my mind noticed any connection. And I know this connection is probably spurious, but it's fun to think about. So here goes.