"Just what people have been noticing ever since the first sunburn," Roswell shrugged, "which is that light makes things change color. The professors call it 'photochemistry.'"
* * * * * * * * * *
I adore this bit from Roswell Bounce. Some writers might choose to make Roswell an expert on all things photography rather than just a kind of ignorant conspiracy theorist who understands the idea of how science gets to where it is by building upon the perceptions and discoveries of those who have come before while also being completely wrong about his facts. The idea that sunburn was noticed as light being able to make things change color is obviously laughable. It's like discovering that the first property of fire mankind noticed, which led them to experiment with it, was how it changes meat from pink to brown and black. "Oh hey! This fire over here makes things change color! Maybe we can someday use it in photography!" Sure, Roswell. A sunburn causes a Caucasian arm to turn pink or red. But nobody thought, "Hey! Light makes things change color! I've just discovered photochemistry!" Or, should I be more specific, and say, "Some really dumb scientists made really stupid initial conclusions but after a couple of experiments where half of them died of skin cancer, they realized the whole 'color changing bit' was a red herring!"
Look, maybe I'm wrong! Maybe people did assume light caused sunburns because it had color changing properties! I'm a modern man living in the 21st century and I'm incapable of believing that even men of the 19th Century believed stupid nonsense! But I trust Pynchon's just deep in the character of Roswell Bounce here, acting the expert when really he's just a regular guy who knows how to process photographs. Why should he care about the history of it all? He's just trying to sound smart to his new apprentice! We all know that sunburns aren't caused by light's ability to change the color of things! It's because of the tiny homunculi riding the particles along the UV rays that dig into your flesh like alien spirochetes. Duh!
"photochemistry"
At the time Roswell makes this statement, the scientific world only had one law of Photochemistry: light makes things change color. No, no! That was a joke! Ha ha! The law was Grotthuss-Draper Law, first proposed by Grotthuss in 1817 and later by Draper in 1842, totally independently and not at all in a plagiarized manner. I mean, how the hell do you get partial credit for coming up with a scientific law 25 years after somebody else came up with it? I'm sure he added some cool spin to it or something.
The Grotthuss-Draper Law posits that systems can only be changed by light if the light is absorbed into the system. I guess in 1817 (and 1842!), that was a revelatory statement. People were probably trying to tan their mirrors and Grotthuss was all, "No, no! Mirrors don't absorb light, you idiot! You need, like, a plant or a person or, um, water? I don't know! Wait until 1842 and it'll all get worked out a little better!"
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