“After a million years or so, those screens are about to be removed, and once they have gone, then, for the first time, men will really know what it is to be alive.” — Extreme Metaphors: Collected Interviews with J.G. Ballard, 1967-2008, ed. Simon Sellars and Dan O’Hara (2012).
“A fertile imagination is better than any drug.” — Ibid.
Elsewhere other-posted:
• Vermilion Glands — review of The Inner Man: The Life of J.G. Ballard (W&N 2011)
Papyrocentric Performativity Presents:
• World Wide Wings – The Big Book of Flight, Rowland White (Bantam Press 2013)
• Kite Write – The Kite-Making Handbook, compiled by Rossella Guerra and Giuseppe Ferlenga (David & Charles 2004)
• Gun Guide – Small Arms: 1914-45, Michael E. Haskew (Amber Books 2012)
• The Basis of the Beast – Killers: The Origins of Iron Maiden, 1975-1983, Neil Daniels (Soundcheck Books 2014)
Or Read a Review at Random: RaRaR
If primes are like diamonds, powers of 2 are like talc. Primes don’t crumble under division, because they can’t be divided by any number but themselves and one. Powers of 2 crumble more than any other numbers. The contrast is particularly strong when the primes are Mersenne primes, or equal to a power of 2 minus 1:
3 = 4-1 = 2^2 – 1.
4, 2, 1.
7 = 8-1 = 2^3 – 1.
8, 4, 2, 1.
31 = 32-1 = 2^5 – 1.
32, 16, 8, 4, 2, 1.
127 = 2^7 – 1.
128, 64, 32, 16, 8, 4, 2, 1.
8191 = 2^13 – 1.
8192, 4096, 2048, 1024, 512, 256, 128, 64, 32, 16, 8, 4, 2, 1.
131071 = 2^17 – 1.
131072, 65536, 32768, 16384, 8192, 4096, 2048, 1024, 512, 256, 128, 64, 32, 16, 8, 4, 2, 1.
524287 = 2^19 – 1.
524288, 262144, 131072, 65536, 32768, 16384, 8192, 4096, 2048, 1024, 512, 256, 128, 64, 32, 16, 8, 4, 2, 1.
2147483647 = 2^31 – 1.
2147483648, 1073741824, 536870912, 268435456, 134217728, 67108864, 33554432, 16777216, 8388608, 4194304, 2097152, 1048576, 524288, 262144, 131072, 65536, 32768, 16384, 8192, 4096, 2048, 1024, 512, 256, 128, 64, 32, 16, 8, 4, 2, 1.
Are Mersenne primes infinite? If they are, then there will be just as many Mersenne primes as powers of 2, even though very few powers of 2 create a Mersenne prime. That’s one of the paradoxes of infinity: an infinite part is equal to an infinite whole.
But are they infinite? No-one knows, though some of the greatest mathematicians in history have tried to find a proof or disproof of the conjecture. A simpler question about powers of 2 is this: Does every integer appear as part of a power of 2? I can’t find one that doesn’t:
0 is in 1024 = 2^10.
1 is in 16 = 2^4.
2 is in 32 = 2^5.
3 is in 32 = 2^5.
4 = 2^2.
5 is in 256 = 2^8.
6 is in 16 = 2^4.
7 is in 32768 = 2^15.
8 = 2^3.
9 is in 4096 = 2^12.
10 is in 1024 = 2^10.
11 is in 1099511627776 = 2^40.
12 is in 128 = 2^7.
13 is in 131072 = 2^17.
14 is in 262144 = 2^18.
15 is in 2097152 = 2^21.
16 = 2^4.
17 is in 134217728 = 2^27.
18 is in 1073741824 = 2^30.
19 is in 8192 = 2^13.
20 is in 2048 = 2^11.
666 is in 182687704666362864775460604089535377456991567872 = 2^157.
1066 is in 43556142965880123323311949751266331066368 = 2^135.
1492 is in 356811923176489970264571492362373784095686656 = 2^148.
2014 is in 3705346855594118253554271520278013051304639509300498049262642688253220148477952 = 2^261.
I’ve tested much higher than that, but testing is no good: where’s a proof? I don’t have one, though I conjecture that all integers do appear as part or whole of a power of 2. Nor do I have a proof for another conjecture: that all integers appear infinitely often as part or whole of powers of 2. Or indeed, of powers of 3, 4, 5 or any other number except powers of 10.
I conjecture that this would apply in all bases too: In any base b all n appear infinitely often as part or whole of powers of any number except those equal to a power of b.
1 is in 11 = 2^2 in base 3.
2 is in 22 = 2^3 in base 3.
10 is in 1012 = 2^5 in base 3.
11 = 2^2 in base 3.
12 is in 121 = 2^4 in base 3.
20 is in 11202 = 2^7 in base 3.
21 is in 121 = 2^4 in base 3.
22 = 2^3 in base 3.
100 is in 100111 = 2^8 in base 3.
101 is in 1012 = 2^5 in base 3.
102 is in 2210212 = 2^11 in base 3.
110 is in 1101221 = 2^10 in base 3.
111 is in 100111 = 2^8 in base 3.
112 is in 11202 = 2^7 in base 3.
120 is in 11202 = 2^7 in base 3.
121 = 2^4 in base 3.
122 is in 1101221 = 2^10 in base 3.
200 is in 200222 = 2^9 in base 3.
201 is in 12121201 = 2^12 in base 3.
202 is in 11202 = 2^7 in base 3.
1 is in 13 = 2^3 in base 5.
2 is in 112 = 2^5 in base 5.
3 is in 13 = 2^3 in base 5.
4 = 2^2 in base 5.
10 is in 1003 = 2^7 in base 5.
11 is in 112 = 2^5 in base 5.
12 is in 112 = 2^5 in base 5.
13 = 2^3 in base 5.
14 is in 31143 = 2^11 in base 5.
20 is in 2011 = 2^8 in base 5.
21 is in 4044121 = 2^16 in base 5.
22 is in 224 = 2^6 in base 5.
23 is in 112341 = 2^12 in base 5.
24 is in 224 = 2^6 in base 5.
30 is in 13044 = 2^10 in base 5.
31 = 2^4 in base 5.
32 is in 230232 = 2^13 in base 5.
33 is in 2022033 = 2^15 in base 5.
34 is in 112341 = 2^12 in base 5.
40 is in 4022 = 2^9 in base 5.
1 is in 12 = 2^3 in base 6.
2 is in 12 = 2^3 in base 6.
3 is in 332 = 2^7 in base 6.
4 = 2^2 in base 6.
5 is in 52 = 2^5 in base 6.
10 is in 1104 = 2^8 in base 6.
11 is in 1104 = 2^8 in base 6.
12 = 2^3 in base 6.
13 is in 13252 = 2^11 in base 6.
14 is in 144 = 2^6 in base 6.
15 is in 101532 = 2^13 in base 6.
20 is in 203504 = 2^14 in base 6.
21 is in 2212 = 2^9 in base 6.
22 is in 2212 = 2^9 in base 6.
23 is in 1223224 = 2^16 in base 6.
24 = 2^4 in base 6.
25 is in 13252 = 2^11 in base 6.
30 is in 30544 = 2^12 in base 6.
31 is in 15123132 = 2^19 in base 6.
32 is in 332 = 2^7 in base 6.
1 is in 11 = 2^3 in base 7.
2 is in 22 = 2^4 in base 7.
3 is in 1331 = 2^9 in base 7.
4 = 2^2 in base 7.
5 is in 514 = 2^8 in base 7.
6 is in 2662 = 2^10 in base 7.
10 is in 1054064 = 2^17 in base 7.
11 = 2^3 in base 7.
12 is in 121 = 2^6 in base 7.
13 is in 1331 = 2^9 in base 7.
14 is in 514 = 2^8 in base 7.
15 is in 35415440431 = 2^30 in base 7.
16 is in 164351 = 2^15 in base 7.
20 is in 362032 = 2^16 in base 7.
21 is in 121 = 2^6 in base 7.
22 = 2^4 in base 7.
23 is in 4312352 = 2^19 in base 7.
24 is in 242 = 2^7 in base 7.
25 is in 11625034 = 2^20 in base 7.
26 is in 2662 = 2^10 in base 7.
1 is in 17 = 2^4 in base 9.
2 is in 152 = 2^7 in base 9.
3 is in 35 = 2^5 in base 9.
4 = 2^2 in base 9.
5 is in 35 = 2^5 in base 9.
6 is in 628 = 2^9 in base 9.
7 is in 17 = 2^4 in base 9.
8 = 2^3 in base 9.
10 is in 108807 = 2^16 in base 9.
11 is in 34511011 = 2^24 in base 9.
12 is in 12212 = 2^13 in base 9.
13 is in 1357 = 2^10 in base 9.
14 is in 314 = 2^8 in base 9.
15 is in 152 = 2^7 in base 9.
16 is in 878162 = 2^19 in base 9.
17 = 2^4 in base 9.
18 is in 218715 = 2^17 in base 9.
20 is in 70122022 = 2^25 in base 9.
21 is in 12212 = 2^13 in base 9.
22 is in 12212 = 2^13 in base 9.
“Two margarines on the go — it’s a nightmare scenario…” — John Shuttleworth.
Papyrocentric Performativity Presents:
• Colouring the Chameleon – Olivier, Philip Ziegler (MacLehose Press 2013)
• Paper-Deep – Treasure Island (1883) and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1885), Robert Louis Stevenson
• Fins and Fangs – The Fresh and Salt Water Fishes of the World, Edward C. Migdalski and George S. Fichter, illustrated by Norman Weaver (1977) (posted @ Overlord of the Über-Feral)
Or Read a Review at Random: RaRaR
I came across the writings of Simon Whitechapel a year ago after picking up the first twenty or so issues of Headpress, a 1990s ’zine that dealt with the relentlessly grim, the esoteric and prurient. His style was fascinating, coming across as intelligent and well-read and — at least from first reading — subtly ironic.
In fact he must have impressed some other people during this time too as Headpress’ Critical Vision imprint spun his collected articles together for publication under the title Intense Device: A Journey Through Lust, Murder and the Fires of Hell — they have all the typical interests that run through Whitechapel’s work — there is an obsession with numerology, with Whitehouse-style distortion music, with Hitler and de Sade. There are also articles on farting, on Jack Chick and novelisations of TV shows. They are fascinating, written in a scholarly way with footnotes aplenty but never difficult to understand. He also wrote two non-fiction works during the late 1990s and early 2000s that centred around sadism and the murder of women in South America. They are dark.
There are also the works of fiction. To say that Whitechapel is transgressive is an understatement. His writing bleeds. The ‘official’ work The Slaughter King is filled with the detailed descriptions of sadistic murder, beginning with a serial killer murdering a gay prostitute whilst listening to distortion-atrocity music. The plot is schlocky but serviceable, jumping around inconsistently but the images it creates are terrifying. A bourgeois dinner party straight out of Buñuel and Pasolini’s nightmares where guests are served poisons as if they were the finest consommés: they eat bees until their faces swell, dropping dead at the table, finishing with a trifle “made from the berries of the several varieties of belladonna, of cuckoo-pint, and of the flowers of monkshood”. It’s a sinister book, but nothing compared to his second work.
Whitechapel wrote The Eyes. This is clear just from a simple comparison between his texts, the fascination with language, with sadism, with de Sade. The thing is, The Eyes is supposedly written by some guy called Aldapuerta, Spanish apparently. ‘Aldapuerta’ can be written Alda Puerta — ‘at the gate’, a telling description of these short stories, which go past this point many, many times. The tale of ‘Aldapuerta’ himself is too exact to be believed: a young boy with an interest in de Sade, corrupted by the local pornographer, medical-school training that honed his knowledge, then a mysterious death (echoing shades of Pasolini’s own) and finishing with the “and he might be baaaack” closer. But this point isn’t really an issue and it’s understandable that Whitechapel would want to keep his name away from this work. It is also surrealistically brilliant at times: amongst the brutality, the images it creates are unforgettable.
Of course, Whitechapel is a fake name, redolent of Jack the Ripper, and even Simon was taken from elsewhere — a colleague perhaps? He disappeared during the 2000s, no longer writing for Headpress, a few self-published chapbooks pastiching Clark Ashton Smith… where did he go? There are the rumours of prison time — they are convincing to my mind, as they too revolve around different identities, around extremity and anonymity. I wonder though, if true, just how much this individual actually believed in them. His most recent writings, at his tricksy blog, hint at this, as well as make his ‘relationship’ with Aldapuerta clearer but it’s not in my ability to directly connect the personas.
If you want to be fascinated and repulsed, then the non-author Simon Whitechapel is for you.
Elsewhere other-posted:
• It’s The Gweel Thing… — Gweel & Other Alterities, Simon Whitechapel (Ideophasis Books, 2011)
Overlord In Terms of Core Issues Around Maximal Engagement with Key Notions of the Über-Feral 