Originally published on eve.gd on 19 August 2021, last updated 6 September 2026.
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One of the core plot devices (in so far as there is a plot) in Thomas Pynchon’s 1973 novel, Gravity’s Rainbow, is the S-Gerät: the Schwarzgerät or “black device”, made from the plastic Imipolex G.
While working on another project (on the history of television), I found a curious set of projects from the war, designated Y-Gerät and X-Gerät, which are part of the so-called Battle of the Beams but that, to my knowledge, haven’t been explored in Pynchon scholarship.
“The German air force was operating a directional beam system called “Y-Gerät” aimed at the London area. It sent out two separate transmissions to fix the aircraft’s bearing and range from the beacon.” – Abramson, Albert, The History of Television, 1880 to 1941 (Jefferson N.C.: McFarland & Co., 1987), pp. 268-9.
I don’t know what influence these had on Pynchon, if any. However, it’s always fun to note an unspotted(?) real-world connection to this novel.
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1. projects, Contributors to Wikimedia, ‘Battle of the Beams’, Wikipedia, 6 March 2003 <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Beams>