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 That if Blinky were ever caught, there would also turn out to be no Æther.

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Being that I'm writing this in 2025, I can say that Merle was correct. Blinky was caught (and hanged) and there was no Æther. Now, that doesn't mean he was correct that these two events were somehow entangled. But was he?

Within the reality of Pynchon's novel, Æther currently exists. Reality actually changes as scientists discover more and more secrets of the physical universe. There's an almost magical realist air to the book, as in Mason & Dixon. I don't know if this is a general theme in Pynchon's work or not. Gravity's Rainbow feels like it's more grounded and the weird, fantastical bits all make sense in the perception of the characters or simply Pynchon's use of other medium through his text (like scenes devolving into musicals or spinning newspapers to shout headlines or comic books). But Gravity's Rainbow also deals quite a bit with the investigation of the supernatural so maybe? One thing I'm really noticing on my current re-read of Gravity's Rainbow (as well as Mason & Dixon. Don't forget that book!) is how much he alludes to predestination (the Elect vs the Preterite, in particular) versus free will.

But back to this sentence, Merle sees these two events as entangled so perhaps they are? Perhaps Merle's belief actually destroys Æther when Blinky Morgan is captured and hanged. The experiment itself doesn't prove the existence of Ætheric drift which begins the decline in people's belief in it. But what if that wasn't what killed it? What if Merle did?

Chapter 1: Section 7: Page 61: Line 92 (1074)

 Somehow Merle got the idea in his head that the Michelson-Morley experiment and the Blinky Morgan manhunt were connected.

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Merriam-Webster defines synchronicity is defined as "the coincidental occurrence of events and especially psychic events (such as similar thoughts in widely separated persons or a mental image of an unexpected event before it happens) that seem related but are not explained by conventional mechanisms of causality —used especially in the psychology of Carl Gustav Jung". If I were an editor at Merriam-Webster, I don't think I'd have allowed the "especially psychic events" addition to the definition. It only confuses a thing with the paranormal. It feels like projecting Biblical reasoning into scientific theories. It feels like they're leading their audience to view it in a supernatural way.
    One of my all-time favorite songs is "Synchronicity II" by The Police, a song that really helped me to come to terms with the idea of synchronicity being two events that weren't related. For a long time, I simply felt that the events that cause the synchronicity had to be tied together somehow. But The Police song does it right: two entirely separate but eerily similar events happening at the same time. The song contains two narratives: the main narrative of an angry man waking, heading to work, and coming back home; and the rising of a monster from the bottom of a lake, surfacing, and approaching the door of a cabin on the shore. Each event explains the other. I particularly like the middle verse where the man walks unhindered through the picket line and doesn't stop to wonder why. It's because he's seething and angry and everybody sees he's about to explode. And also how he's become impotent from the anger and frustration and humiliation of his work and home life.
    Anyway, I bring all this up because Merle's having one of those moments between the experiment and Blinky Morgan. The two events are not connected but they're both creating quite the hullabaloo in Cleveland. Merle can't help but feel that they're entangled in some way (quantumly, perhaps?).
    I wonder if I should understand quaternions by now? Is it time to read some massive scientific essays until my brains leak out of my butthole? I hope not!

I'm not going to speculate why Merle thinks this because I couldn't come up with anything and also we'll probably find out in a line or two!

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 By which point uniformed guards were approaching at a clip you could call moderate.

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"uniformed guards were approaching"
The guards of the Newburgh asylum. Ed Addle might know how light travels through the Æther but he apparently has no understanding of how sound travels through the air. Some employees at the asylum might not care about losing a patient or two but I've seen One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest so I know the guards would rather have one more patient to beat on than less work.

"at a clip you could call moderate"
This is a pace chosen to indicate that the guards aren't curiously investigating the sounds but excitedly moving toward a victim of their future violence. They're excited for what's about to come! One might argue with my characterization of the "uniformed guards" as overly critical but have you read Pynchon's other novels? Pynchon agrees with me: cops and guards are violent bastards who love violence for the sake of violence.

Proof that Asylum staff love to beat the shit out of inmates courtesy of another fictional source, Batman: Shadow of the Bat #3 (by Alan Grant and Norm Breyfogle).

Chapter 1: Section 7: Page 61: Lines 89-90 (1071-1072)

 "Shh! Will you just—"

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"Shh!"
Instead of mocking the amount of time this project would take me, why couldn't Redditors have simply said, "What a dumb project. You know one of the lines you'll have to explicate is simply 'Shh!'?" They could have saved me so much time by simply pointing out that Pynchon couldn't have possibly meant for the reader to think critically about each line both in and out of the context of the entire text if some of his lines were just one word responses to other characters. Fucking jerks.
    Although this line could mean something on its own if I stretch the limits of my academic imagination! When somebody shushes you, they want you to listen. They want you to hear what's being said. This is just a reminder to shut out all the noise and really listen deeply to the words Pynchon is saying. Like, say, each word individually, maybe! Is that where I went wrong?! Should this blog be One Word at a Time?!
    Ha ha! I was just kidding! I might be stupid but I'm not "your mom" stupid!

"Will you just—"
Merle's simply trying to get Ed Addle to shut the fuck up for once in his stinking life. Which is maybe a good time to ignore this line and talk about Ed Addle. He's Pynchon's prime example of the Æther fandom. One of the non-academic Everymen who come to their theories through non-scientific means. While speaking, they're the smartest guy in the saloon and they can't stand a guy like Roswell Bounce who pipes up to ask them to show their work. These kinds of losers proliferate in Tech Bro and have turned Twitter into a rancid mess (not that I'm on Twitter anymore but I hear things). They're now the sort of guys who spend hours every day discussing their genius with ChatGPT because ChatGPT's number one line of programming is to fellate the user. They're the kind of person who make society better when they're tossed into an insane asylum because most of their "genius" is delusional thinking. But, when you get right down to it, they shouldn't be locked away. They should be hanged.
    Ha ha! I was just kidding! I might be violent but I'm not "your mom" violent!