There's quite a lot of mathematical mistakes (obvious ones, even) in DFWs work. I'm not sure whether it's intentional or not, but given that he also makes mistakes in his nonfiction it might just be that he's not a great mathematician.
Like in TPK, 0/0 is Infinity and
in IJ, Pemulis explains differentiation completely incorrectly, also that stuff about the mean value theorem is irrelevant?!?
Still one of the greatest authors; deep technical correctness is more of a Pynchon thing.
That makes sense to be honest, I thought it was intentional but then seeing so many other maths errors in other DFW works led me to believe it might very well not be.
Like in TPK, 0/0 is Infinity and in IJ, Pemulis explains differentiation completely incorrectly, also that stuff about the mean value theorem is irrelevant?!?
Still one of the greatest authors; deep technical correctness is more of a Pynchon thing.