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Archive 1

New Plot Teaser/Summary

http://time-blog.com/nerd_world/2008/03/the_return_of_neal_stephenson.html User:Vanisheduser12a67 (talk) 22:01, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Juicy, but is it reliable? How much of this should we include? Skomorokh 22:10, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, having met him this evening, I think I can safely say that it's largely bollocks. 81.152.201.157 (talk) 20:56, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

  • What's "largely bollocks," the book or the linked article? Please specify. Did NS debunk his own publisher's description of the book? (Not a rhetorical question, since publishers have been known to sex up the jacket copy.) Also, while it's great you got to meet the author, that encounter counts as primary research and is not usable outside of this talk page...unless a professional reporter was nearby and either he or NS has already published an account of your conversation. BTW, I entered a sweepstakes on Harper-Collins' site to get an advance copy of Anathem. I hoped that the "First Look" web page for the book (registration required) would have more information than its public page or its Amazon page, but the plot summary is identical. Identically occulted? Bridgman (talk) 13:47, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Information likely to be uncorroborated

I work at a bookstore and one of the perks is that we get advance copies of all sorts of books. I managed to score Anathem. Am I allowed to post information from the book [not spoilers, but I could correct the plot summary of the guy from Time Magazine] even if the information would likely be uncorroborated until September? Coruscus (talk) 04:43, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

  • Also, I the advance copy says William Morrow (which is an imprint of HarperCollins). I could correct the article but again, I don't have outside information. Coruscus (talk) 04:54, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
There were a few mentions yesterday, eg. http://www.arcanology.com/2008/06/24/anathem-and-music/ via boingboing.
As for what can be added, anything "verifiable" (see WP:V: "Material challenged or likely to be challenged, and all quotations, must be attributed to a reliable, published source."). Anything unlikely to be challenged can be added without a specific referenced source (we can't generally cite blogs, they're not reliable). So yes, add anything true and encyclopedic :) -- Quiddity (talk) 19:06, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

This edit wasn't actually a copyright violation. Each of the requirements fair use laid out in the Fair Use Policy are met. I'll post my rationale if requested, but it's late and I don't want to right now.Coruscus (talk) 06:27, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

The word-for-word text from a work's prologue in the absence of critical commentary on the work is in fact a copyright violation. --EEMIV (talk) 06:34, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Non-free_content#Acceptable_use seems to say it's okay. It wasn't anywhere near excessive length (in my opinion) and establishes context. Coruscus (talk) 20:29, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Most of this is miss leading... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.181.223.229 (talk) 01:08, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Clock of the long now

Why is there a reference to this clock in the article? The foundation has some tangent conceptual similarities to the situation depicted in the book, but how is that one clock project related in any way? 142.103.168.46 (talk) 01:44, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Look at the link please. --Gwern (contribs) 02:36 14 August 2008 (GMT)
So this is the way Wikipedia is organized now? With mystery links that don't reveal their relevance until you read cross search other sources off site tangently related to the mystery link in order to find its connection back to the original? You realize that as of this writing, not one page among the book article, the author profile, the clock article, or the foundation article mentions anything about the author's point of inspiration for his new work?75.153.125.74 (talk) 08:16, 24 August 2008 (UTC)
In an ideal world, I would have read Anathem already, taken detailed notes, gone through all relevant reviews and descriptions of it, parsed all the Stephenson interviews, and pulled everything together into one single section on Influences & inspiration which will stand as the first and final word on the topic, covering in precise detail everything one could want to know about the novel's relation the the Long Now.
But you know what? I haven't. I've made a first stab at it, and I would appreciate it if you would be just a little less hostile. If you don't like it, go edit the article yourself! --Gwern (contribs) 11:16 24 August 2008 (GMT)
Will do. 75.153.125.74 (talk) 04:13, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Date of publication

It looks like it is being published in the UK by Atlantic Books on the 1st of September: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Nation-Terry-Pratchett/dp/0385613709/ref=sr_1_4/203-2932654-5579969?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1220039061&sr=8-4 http://www.waterstones.com/waterstonesweb/displayProductDetails.do?sku=6197187 Tomgreeny (talk) 19:47, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Already published - bought it today

I just bought this book in sci-fi shop in Stockholm, Sweden. Someone should update the publishing date - it is already out. toxygen (talk) 22:27, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Sources for expansion

The Anathem wiki has a useful list of External Resources which we can use to source and expand the article. the skomorokh 16:52, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

xkcd reference

Is it really necessary? This is supposed to be an encylopedia (no?) - would other encyclopedias include such references. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.145.200.26 (talk) 19:45, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

I think not. It's trivial, and unless Stephenson's use of so many invented words is commented extensively on by serious reviewers, does not belong in the article. the skomorokh 19:50, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
Agreed. I like xkcd, but this is unnecessary. I'm taking it out (sort of expecting a revert war, though...) 12.174.19.210 (talk) 21:13, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
Perhaps it should be moved to a in popular culture section? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.115.7.202 (talk) 13:41, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
Agreed, it's a brief reference (jab), not a notable analysis. (As much as I love xkcd, we simply don't add his link to the article of every subject he mentions!) -- Quiddity (talk) 17:30, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Spoiler Warning

Do we need one? Like way at the beginning? The foreword of the book says to skip the foreword for best experience. We should replicate the same here.

Thanks for the concern, but Wikipedia doesn't do spoilers. the skomorokh 12:13, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

May not need jargon warning

You really can't talk about the characters without using the words that Stephenson created for the novel. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cdurham (talk • contribs) 05:37, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

The Plot summary section seems to do a decent job of it, no? the skomorokh 12:47, 4 October 2008 (UTC)
Couldn't we just precede the plot summary with a terminology summary, or maybe link to the "terran" words, e.g. "Fraa Erasmus", "Suur Ala" etc? Lenborje (talk) 13:54, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

I have to agree with the first point. Jargon is a huge part of the novel - it can't be avoided when discussing the novel. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.236.24.137 (talk) 13:09, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Washington Post Review is suspect

Surely there are other negative/borderline reviews that could be cited instead? I do not disagree with Dirda's ultimate verdict, necessarily, but parts of the review sound like a guy who skimmed the text pretty heavily.

The most glaring mistake Dirda makes is that he gets the name of the planet wrong. As he himself points out, Anathem deals heavily in both semantics and cosmology. How, then, does he manage to confuse the name of the language for the name of the planet? I understand that "Orth" is a false cognate of "Earth." But I don't think you can read 900 pages and still make this kind of mistake. For one thing, "Arbre" and "Orth" are both clearly defined in the foreword. More to the point, this is not a piece of minor trivia; we see major characters struggling to reconcile multiple variants of Orth with each other, "Fluccish," and other languages all throughout the novel.

To be fair, I myself thought that "Orth" was the planet's name for a while, as I did not read the forward (and also because I read the phrase "Middle Orth" like Tolkien's "Middle Earth" rather than "Middle English"). Within 100 pages, though, it is clear that "Arbre" is at least a name of the planet. By 200 pages, "Orth" could only be a language. By 400 pages Stephenson has beaten both of these things into your skull. All of which still leaves 500 pages in which the names are used more often, and even less ambiguously. I don't see how we can take Dirda seriously in light of this. Imagine a film critic reviewing Star Wars who kept referring to "Luke Skywalker, the farm boy from planet Jawa."

Also, Dirda claims "death rays" appear in the novel. They don't. The "rods" that are shot into Arbre from orbit are physical objects--Stephenson makes this utterly unambiguous, and in fact pieces of them are later found and used in the construction of buildings. The only other weapons of note are nuclear bombs and simple firearms.

In my opinion, Dave Itzkoff's review for the New York Times[1] is a much more substantial work of criticism than Dirda's, and without the worrying lapses in reading comprehension.
72.129.191.72 (talk) 21:37, 11 December 2008 (UTC)


Removed vocab section

This section was pretty inaccurate so I did away with it. For instance it assumed 'math' and 'mathic' referred to mathematics, which they do not. Perhaps better to link to the few definitions stephenson gives on his website at http://www.nealstephenson.com/anathem/dict.htm , ora (talk) 12:53, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Inaccurate as it may be, the way the article is presently makes it impossible for someone that hasn't read at least a hundred pages of the book to understand. For example:
"Erasmas: The protagonist of Anathem; a Decenarian of the Edharian chapter at the Concent of Saunt Edhar. The son of slines , he was Collected by the Concent of Saunt Edhar at the age of eight."
In this example, everything bolded is an unknown concept to someone who hasn't read the novel. The most someone could get from context is that Erasmas is a member of a group, which belongs to another group, located at a place, named after someone, that his parents were unusual in some manner and that he was inducted into the place at 8. The rest is completely meaningless to the unfamiliar, making the article worthless to the very people that it should educate.
If you feel a definition is inaccurate, please attempt to fix it. Dispensing with the section essentially ruins the article to people that want to find out more about the novel. EvilCouch (talk) 12:21, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
Exchanged the word Extramurous for Saecular. The world outside the Concent walls was referred to as Extramurous, Saecular referred to people, technologies, or organizations who did not subscribe to, or fall under the tenets of the Cartasian Discipline. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.48.13.94 (talk) 03:07, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Plot summary

I have a temp version here. I would have put it right into the article but I feel like it still needs some serious work. Besides copy-editing and wikifying, I think that it's far too long, but I don't know what to cut. Anathem has a lot of weighty concepts that I think we should include, although I know we can't include them all. So:

  • What do we cut, if anything?
  • What do we add, if anything?
  • If it looks bad, let me know or edit it mercilessly.
  • If it looks good (doubtful!), be bold and add it to the article.

Ideas? Wyatt Riot (talk) 03:04, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Added. Wyatt Riot (talk) 09:45, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

A majority of the external links were recently removed. While I agree with a few of them, I believe some of the links should stay.

I agree with the others, but I believe those io9 blog entries reference other notable articles that people may want to investigate. I'll see if I can get to that if I have the time. Wyatt Riot (talk) 20:10, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm fine with valuable links being added back, but not all of what you listed:
  • The video on myspace is available directly from the Author's website. The myspace link is unnecessary.
  • With the Nature book review site being linked and the amount of interviews (written and video) available on the author's website, it would be excessive to relink the other interviews.
  • Same thing with the YouTube video.
Linking to valuable and noteworthy sites can be a great resource, but they can also cause an overload of information, mucking up the article. It would be better to use them as citations for what's already in the article, or to improve the actual content of the article. gh5046 (talk) 21:57, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Anathem

How many novels do you think make a book review in nature, that you go and remove the reference in the article as irrelevant? Axel Berger (talk) 00:10, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Please see the previous discussion. I've already conceded that some of the links can be added back. I'm not okay with the article being turned into a link dump. gh5046 (talk) 03:33, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

"Plot summary"?

Doesn't a plot summary summarize the plot (rather than just information available in its early exposition)? I skipped it at first, bcz i've still got a couple hundred pages left, but when i saw how short it is, i went back and read it. In fact, there's no plot info at all: just description of the initial setting and the narrator, in the book's cryptic and unencyclopedic jargon. I looks like the aftermath of an edit war where the anti-spoiler-ists admitted losing the battle but not the war.
--Jerzy•t 06:21, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Current plot summary seems excessively long and is not altogether accurate. I've change the first couple of sentences as an example of where it could go. There were a number of collapses mentioned but it never says explicitly what caused them. It is an assumption that because they had nano-neutron bombs they were used nor is it stated they no longer create new newmatter because that type of experimentation caused a collapse. Nitpyck (talk) 07:04, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
I thought it was meant to be clear from the text what caused the three collapses: (1) newmatter, (2) genetic engineering, (3) adjusting the past. Maproom (talk) 08:50, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
I thought it was meant to be unclear - likely but not certain. We both assume nuclear war wasn't a cause for a collapse. Newmatter probably was, or at the least research related to that field was, but why say this in the summary since those with twisted minds like mine are always looking for both unreliable narrators and lost data following any collapse. To me uncertainty is more interesting. And it follows a short summary is more to my liking. However after some sleep and contemplation I'm happy enough with the existing summary, and I'm not going to continue re-inventing that particular wheel.Nitpyck (talk) 19:18, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
Ok – I'll settle for "likely but not certain". But I don't know how to write a plot summary on that basis. Maproom (talk) 20:36, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

yeah exactly I'm feeling pretty bad about starting the whole thing - I mean I know that summary could be better - I just don't know how to do it without putting in more effort than I want to.Nitpyck (talk) 22:46, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Fraa/suur from French words?

Anyone know if Stephenson's fraa and suur have any basis in the French words frère (brother) and soeur (sister)? Seems likely to me, but it's just a guess. 98.212.158.76 (talk) 17:12, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

More likely from the latin (that being the obvious parallel to Old Orth): Frater: Brother Soror: Sister 76.233.233.7 (talk) 16:01, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Ending

Spoiler warning.

I'm wondering if the posted interpretation of the ending is correct. My interpretation was that events actually happened as depicted in Erasmus's first recollection -- i.e., Jad gets aboard, tells the Geometers that the thousanders summoned them and makes peace. However, Jad's ability to change people's views of reality made everyone else believe he had died before even getting on the ship so as to cover up the role the avout had played in bringing about the alien invasion in the first place. It's also not clear to me at all that Jad really died rather than be secreted in some part of the ship.

Granted, I read the ending i a white heat at like 5 in the morning, so I may have missed something. But I'd appreciate some discussion on this point.

I also think the posted ending should make it clearer that the old ways of the avout are ended and a new way of doing things is coming about (notably the avout having children and far fewer restrictions on their activites). This is an important point in explaining why the thousanders brought the aliens to them.

Hal 10000.0 (talk) 07:48, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

I didn't get that ending from the story at all, but looking at it that way it makes a lot of sense. I wonder if it's purposefully vague, that there could be multiple interpretations of what really happened? I would probably edit the ending to include that possibility, that it's unclear precisely because of Jad's powers. I also agree about being clearer on how the old ways are ended. Feel free to add those in. Cheers! Wyatt Riot (talk) 19:43, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

My interpretation of the end is that Jad was simultaneously cycling through multiple possible realities to arrive at an outcome that most benefitted Aubre. This is why at the number pad door lock he just puts in random numbers; tens of thousands of other Jad's in other realities were simultaneously entering random numbers. We just saw the reality where Jad randomly got it right.

All these realities happened and can be considered real, they just each happen in a different but parallel quantum universe. He's able to do this by using his quantum computer; i.e. his brain. This ability is the secret of the thousanders and the reason they are able to live so long. They continually choose the reality they haven't died in yet.

Ultimately the reality Jad decided upon, that benefitted Aubre most, involved him dying on launch. And so that is the reality he chose, and the only reality any non-observer would have any recollection of.

The fact that some, but not all people, retain memories of different realities has to do with the Causal Domain Shear. If the character was there, and witnessed first hand what Jad was doing, they retained the memories. If they were not there (because they were dead in that reality, or because Jad destroyed the link with the ground to remove observation) they would retain no memory.

So it is not unclear which narrative at the end is the real one, they are all the real one.


As for the avout calling the aliens, I do not believe that was intended to be understood as intentional. If I remember correctly not only were the aliens contacted further down the wick, and therefore less atunned to the HTW, but they only received vague images from Aubre. This communication was in fact merely an artifact of the Aubre Causal Domain being higher up the wick and therefore influential in some way on all downwick Causal Domains.

199.133.19.254 (talk) 17:14, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

"Invented"?

Many of the "invented" terms seem just barely "invented", in that they're just minor corruptions of standard words. Obvious cases include "concent", "fraa", "extramuros" (Is that a Spanish word? It's obviously from either Latin or one of the languages that evolved from Latin, and it means about the same thing as you'd expect if Neal Stephenson had never existed.), "convox", "evocation" (that's exactly the standard spelling used in English; the meaning is only a slight variant—more specialized—than the standard meaning), "Saecular Power" (only a slight spelling variation of "secular power", comparable to temporal power, and I think that term is often used to mean the authority of a bishop in non-religious matters; the "ae" in place of "e" is used in Latin, I think); and finally of course the word "anathem" itself is just a standard word with the final vowel dropped (but what it means within the novel is not explained here and I haven't read it). And "burger", meaning a member of the upper class outside the convent, is a standard word.

So the word "invented" seems exaggerated. Michael Hardy (talk) 00:47, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

...one of the definitions says:
Thrown back: Expelled from a Concent by the aut of Anathem.
(I changed "kicked out" to "expelled".) Nowhere in the list does it say what "Anathem" means in this book. Usually "anathema" is pronounced against heretics, so it seems like a somewhat similar thing. Michael Hardy (talk) 01:30, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

First, Anathem is just the ritual of someone getting expelled from the concent. It is important however since it almost never happens, and in the case of the book it happens to the main characters teacher, and at the time no one knows why.

Second, while your point seems applicable to the article, when you read through the book you really do feel like you are learning a new language. The problem is that many of those terms are just the base vocabulary and it would be a bad idea to fill the article with essentially random slang and terminology.

That said, a lot of the vocabulary is just appropriated for a different porpoise (like "to plane" someone is to crush someone in an argument)173.48.134.192 (talk) 03:29, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

I don't understand the part about random slang and terminology. It may well be true that in the course of reading the novel, one learns an invented language, but that doesn't mean the actual words are invented; it appears to be only the ways of using them that are invented, and the meanings are still closely related to standard meanings of standard words (including of course the word anathem itself, now that you've told us what it means in the book). I think maybe one should call the words "adapted" or the like, rather than "invented". Michael Hardy (talk) 21:30, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
In fact this is true of almost all of the "new" vocabulary- it is conspicuously similar to actual English or Latin/Greek/etc. vocabulary. There is actually a reason for this, revealed in the plot of the book. I agree that these aren't invented words in the traditional sense. Stephenson purposefully modified existing words and gave them specific meanings that are almost always related to the existing meaning. Staecker (talk) 22:24, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

.....which brings to the question: What's the right way to modify the article in light of these facts? Would just replacing the word "invented" with some suitable alternative term be enough? Michael Hardy (talk) 22:36, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Interesting etymologies at http://www.nealstephenson.com/anathem/dict.htm. Although the author clearly combined the words "anthem" and "anathema", in his novel the two words "anthem" and "anathema" evolved from the ancient word "anathem". Michael Hardy (talk) 23:03, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

....and FWIW, the term directed acyclic graph, listed in the book's glossary, means exactly the same thing in the book that it means in standard usage. So not all terms in the glossary are products of Stephenson's imagination. Michael Hardy (talk) 01:21, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Portuguese? ...and the word aut seems like an adaptation of a Portuguese word, as in auto de fé. Michael Hardy (talk) 18:31, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm almost done on my second time through...

...and a couple things caught my eye:

  • Jules Verne Durand's planet of Laterre/Antarct is called "Earth" on pages 829 and 830. (Stephenson hints at this throughout the novel but I didn't catch the explicit reference the first time. The fact that "Earth" is mentioned on only 2 pages makes me wonder if it was a mistake, because it really seemed like he wanted that question left unanswered.) Should this be mentioned in the Plot summary or elsewhere?
  • On page 858, Erasmus and Cord are referred to as "brother and sister" by a reporter.

Other than that, the Plot summary really needs to be expanded. I'll try to get to that soon unless someone beats me to it. Wyatt Riot (talk) 07:14, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Durand is French, and La Terre ("Laterre") is French for Earth. I'm pretty sure the fact that Erasmas and Cord are siblings is no great secret either. Please do expand the plot summary, as no-one seems to be tending to this article lately. Skomorokh 07:18, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, I figured he was French and caught a few other words sprinkled throughout the novel, but Laterre totally passed underneath my radar. Oh well. As for the brother and sister thing goes, I thought there was some dispute and/or edit warring, but I'm probably thinking of another article. Anyways, I'll see what I can do about that plot summary. Wyatt Riot (talk) 19:46, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
Erasmus explains to Jesry that he calls Cord "sib" instead of "sister" because he is unclear on what their exact relation is. It is a close enough relation that he feels ashamed when he thinks he has a crush on her. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.155.209.94 (talk) 17:05, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Pronunciations?

The fact that one may wish someone "bon Apert" makes me suspect that Stephenson intended "apert" to be pronounced as in French, with stress on the second syllable and a silent final t. Can anyone shed any further light on this?

I've been thinking of "Bazian" as pronounced like "Bayesian". "Bayesianism" is the philosophical position holding a degree-of-belief interpretation of probability, following the usual mathematical rules, as opposed to a frequency interpretation. Did Stephenson intend this coincidence? Michael Hardy (talk) 04:00, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

I would bet that he did - but I doubt it's worth mentioning in the article. Maproom (talk) 09:48, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
The words should be pronounced however you feel comfortable, as the foreword makes it clear that most of the terminology is not actual Orth or Fluccish. Whenever a word has a clear Latin or English origin, that is not the actual word but a translation that's supposed to convey whether the word is based on Old Orth or Fluccish. "Bon apert" would be pronounced on Arbre in words similar or identical to Old Orth but understandable to Fluccish speakers, and has no relation to any Earth languages. There's an Orth vocabulary list at http://monastic.org/orth/vocabulary.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.155.209.94 (talk) 17:14, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

connection between ita and eta - a japanese social minority group considered tainted by their occupation ?

The "eta", a derogatory term for a Japanese social minority group Burakumin in Japan, and the 'ita' in Anathem have a lot in common.
In the feudal era, the eta were people with occupations considered "tainted" with death or ritual impurity (such as executioners, undertakers or leather workers), and traditionally lived in their own secluded hamlets and ghettos.
This is is similar to the ita in Anathem who were considered by the protagonist to be tainted by working with noisy information.
Was naming the engineering class in Anathem a reference to the eta?
This is so interesting! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Garnwraly (talk • contribs) 23:59, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

It actually explains in the book that they used to be the IT people a long time ago. I think there may be a double meaning behind it (outcast nerds) and making them sound like the "eta" from Japan. 67.149.249.153 (talk) 01:21, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Additional Sociological Reference

The whole "Mathic" lifestyle seems (at least to me) to be a direct allusion to the "Ivory Tower" of Academia. The academics go into their tower (Universities) and work in the labs doing things that (at least to those not scientifically literate) are stupid and pointless and don't affect them. I believe that this should be added to the introduction, alongside the references to quantum physics and Realism vs formalism. 67.149.249.153 (talk) 01:25, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

I like the idea, but do you have any sources we can use? —Torchiest talkedits 02:23, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Production: Music in Audiobook

On the audiobook of this, each Part of the book leads with a musical selection. Based on my own listening, this music is from IOLET: Music from the World of Anathem (referred to in the Production section of this article), seven tracks of which can be listened to here - for example nearly every Part starts with around 30 seconds of Track 7 (Deriving the Quadratic Equation), though one starts with Track 5 (Quantum Spin Network), and there's one that starts with a women's piece that isn't on that page (it could be from Constructing a Square with Circles, playable here, but I'm not certain). However, I'm unable to find a source directly stating that this is the case, that these are the tracks on the audiobook. Can anyone else find evidence of this so we can include it in the article? --zandperl (talk) 02:40, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

What is required to make Anathem Wiki a good external link?

I've tried to include the Anathem Wiki, an external wiki as an external link (my first commit to wikipedia proper). I've tried to reason that I am breaking the rule about not including external wikis, but I got immediately reverted.

I've tried to add some content into Anathem Wiki in the last few weeks; it's true that it will never be as popular as say Memory Alpha, but I feel it might be a useful and extensive source of information in time.

What do you judge are the specific conditions for Anathem Wiki that must be fulfilled before we/I can break the rule about external wikis and include it as an external link? It's clearly impossible that it will have more than a few active editors at a time, for instance, but I can imagine it could still be included as an external link, given some other, more reasonable conditions are met. BöhmMartin (talk) 22:31, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Your improved Wikia subdomain should appeal to readers, with the help of Google and other search engines, even without appearing here. Wikipedia uses reliable sources, and so typically external links refer to expert academics' publications similar reliable sources.
If you find a reliable resource that states that Wikia's relevant page(s) is a wonderful resource, then please suggest adding your link at that time.
is a 22:59, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
In addition, most wikis are overall poor external links. We mostly have to consider WP:ELNO #11—"fansites"—and #12—"substantial history of stability and a substantial number of editors"—but also #2—"unverifiable research" and the possibility of "factually inaccurate material". There's no guarantee that anything on that site has been written by an expert or is based on a reliable source, or that valid content won't be replaced by objectionable material, spam, or even malware. And with such a limited number of editors, that material could remain that way for days or weeks or months. The Wikipedia community wrote WP:EL so that we have a standard about what to include and what not to include for exactly these reasons, so it's not a judgment call by a single editor. I hope this helps. Cheers! Woodroar (talk) 23:08, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Questions....

One of the things worth discussing is the actual reason for segregation of the avout. Nominally, they were placed in concents to prevent repeats of a set of horrors which Stephenson calls "The Terrible Events," presumably to avoid their involvement in the development of new and more terrible technology.

OK - I'll bite.

But it appears that the Saecular Powers which control the non-mathic world continue to use all of the technology - including the bad bits, like nuclear weapons, etc - which the avout or their ancestors developed. Further, the Saeculars all seem to be carrying technology ("jeejahs" (e.g., smartphones) and "cartablas" (GPS devices)) design and construction of which require knowledge of fairly significant physics or other science - knowledge which should be very limited in the Saecular world. I suppose that the technology in the Saecular world could be a holdover from the earlier technically sophisticated periods referenced in the novel, but for a couple of thousand years? It doesn't seem likely.

After the second or third pass through the book, this started becoming a real sticking point for me - what do the Avout have that the technical Saeculars don't, except perhaps a willingness to investigate questions beyond pure practical concerns and a lifestyle conducive to learning? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.192.170.250 (talk) 22:32, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

It's all in the culture: the Avout have the patience to study and learn, and that enables them to create technologies far beyond what the Saeculars can, even when they're limited to chalk and quill pens. Random newborns enter the Mathic world and succeed. Erasmus as a Sline is not particularly intelligent, yet he succeeds. Erasmus tells Jad that the Saeculars have a "primitive trigonometry" which they need to build their buildings. Their primitive knowledge leads to technologies that surprise Erasmus; e.g., Kord's welding machine and speeliecaptors and Kinograms, but they're still primitive. The Avout understand how they work and could make a better one if they had the desire and materials. It's a fictional world so we have to accept their judgment of it. Sluggoster (talk) 08:01, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

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