Galois Meets Doctor Faustus
Galois's theory of mathematical ambiguity (see June 14) —
My principal meditations for some time have been directed towards
the application of the theory of ambiguity to transcendental
analysis. It was a question of seeing a priori in a relation
between quantities or transcendent functions, what exchanges one
could make, which quantities one could substitute for the given
quantities without the original relation ceasing to hold. That
immediately made clear the impossibility of finding many expressions
that one could look for. But I do not have time and my ideas are
not yet well developed on this ground which is immense.
— Evariste Galois, testamentary letter, translated by James Dolan
Thomas Mann on musical ambiguity in his novel Doctor Faustus —
Related material — Some context for the above and some remarks on the German original.
