Atlas Decrypted: Breaking Ayn Rand's Embedded Equation

By Christiane Munkholm

Who is John Galt?

It is the question that has intrigued readers since Atlas Shrugged was published in 1957, when author Ayn Rand revealed her highly anticipated final novel. This question and others have driven scientist Christiane Munkholm to dig deeper into the pages of this masterpiece and unearth a metaphor—a buried equation—crucial to solving one of the greatest literary mysteries of all time.

In Atlas Decrypted, Christiane takes you on a journey through her forensic investigation of Rand's novel, sharing key clues and insightful conclusions from decades of research and analysis. You will understand essential concepts behind the plotline and learn never-before-shared details about the novel's protagonists who have fascinated readers for years. Nearly seven decades after publication, Atlas Shrugged maintains an international readership with millions of admirers, proving its permanent relevance in the modern discourse. Now, Atlas Decrypted offers a breakthrough interpretation of Rand's timeless classic.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Nov 16, 2021
• ISBN: 9781544522562

Book preview

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Copyright © 2021 Christiane Munkholm

All rights reserved. This is a work of literary interpretation and commentary.

ISBN: 978-1-5445-2256-2

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To Don-Roger Parkinson, PhD

1952–2018

Chemist, spectroscopist, musician, true friend, and co-author of Intramolecular fluorescence self-quenching of fluoresceinamine. JACS, 1990, 112, 7, 2608.

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Contents

Introduction

I: The Elements

1. Calm Before the Clue

2. Who Is Dagny Taggart?

3. Ag = Ag

4. Artifact or Authentic Data?

5. Breaking an Encryption of Fiction

6. Breaking an Encryption of Matter

7. The Missing Hypothesis

II: The Equation

8. Atlas What? Who Shrugged?

9. Alchemy

10. The Stone of Atlas

11. Man of Ore

III: The Synthesis

12. The New Alchemy

13. Dissertation II

14. Crucible of Science, Synthesis of Civilization

15. Metaphysical and Man-Made

16. Second Term of the Equation

IV: The Innovators

17. Who Is Slug?

18. Who Is John Gault?

Appendix 1: Historical New Alchemy

Appendix 2: Contemporary New Alchemy

Conclusion

Acknowledgments

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The power of an incomparable mind given shape in a net of wires sparkling peacefully under a summer sky, drawing an incalculable power out of space into the secret interior of a small stone hovel.

Atlas Shrugged, page 730

On the morning of September 2, a copper wire broke in California, between two telephone poles by the track of the Pacific branch line of Taggart Transcontinental.

Atlas Shrugged, page 909

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Introduction

Atlas Shrugged, Redux

Over 10 million copies of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged have been sold since 1957, with the book achieving both infamous and sacred reputations. It may be the only romantic novel about industrial capitalism. It exists in a niche by itself.

A cottage industry of critiques, conferences, newsletters, and organizations have formed to probe the meaning of Atlas Shrugged and its parent, Ayn Rand’s Philosophy of Objectivism. Seldom has a work of fiction produced such enduring activities.

However, this scholarship has been missing an important input.

The current publication, Atlas Decrypted, reveals a key metaphor which unlocks a hidden scaffold of Ayn Rand’s classic novel.

While the novel can be enjoyed for its many brilliant passages and philosophical messages, this new revelation is essential for the deepest interpretation of the scientific themes of Atlas Shrugged.

The origin of this discovery dates to the late 1980s, when I was a graduate student studying chemistry and reading Atlas Shrugged for the first time. My intrigue with the protagonist Dagny Taggart eventually led to the first clue of this reported discovery. Atlas Decrypted, a work of literary interpretation, tells the story of the subsequent thirty years needed to extract and analyze a literary metaphor that Ayn Rand cleverly embedded throughout the novel. It has never been revealed or reported before.

The literary metaphor eventually assumes the form of an equation, one synonymous with the protagonists’ mindsets and methodologies, and the means to building every cubic centimeter of our material civilization.

The reader of Atlas Decrypted will learn that the principle of Reason, so critical to Ayn Rand’s Philosophy of Objectivism, can be understood and executed as a mechanism of action. I reveal an equation as a practical tool, not an abstract philosophy of Reason, and one that readers can use with the same aplomb as do Rand’s rather competent protagonists.

And without fail, Atlas Decrypted addresses the haunting question of the novel: Who is John Galt?

A Tool for Understanding Atlas Shrugged

Loving Atlas Shrugged does not require the same reverence as understanding the work. Rand packed the exceptionally long novel with plots within plots and a large cast of characters forming the heroes and villains of the narrative, and it all rests on a foundation of philosophy. Many analyses of the novel exist, but often the interpretations are reduced to extreme contrasts: capitalism is good; socialism is bad. Entrepreneurs are good, politicians not so much. The private sector is superior to the public sector. Heroic egoism is what? Individualism means? Most of us mortals do not live lives strongly inspired by abstractions of philosophy.

Viewing the novel’s actions through the decrypted equation will sharpen your capacity to see the two opposing tracks in the plot, and why one has a high probability of success and the other can only fail. After reading Atlas Decrypted, the competencies of the protagonists will be understood at a practical level, not as a blend of inborn traits and charisma. Their heroic behavior becomes understood as a method, one that can be mimicked and applied in anyone’s life.

The reader will also see how the principle of Reason, so essential to the Rand school of thought, is much more than an abstract philosophy. It is an adaptive, essential mechanism for all decision-making and execution.

Importantly, this decryption of Atlas Shrugged reveals what the Scientific Revolution represents in the continuum of civilization’s progress.

The reader will also gain three significant findings about Atlas Shrugged, reported now for the first time. Atlas Decrypted provides a breakthrough, perhaps the definitive answer, to the question, Who is John Galt? The reader will learn the Eureka moment when the hidden identity of one of the key figures essentially broke the metaphoric code of the novel. And third, the reader will learn that Ayn Rand solved one of the world’s major mysteries, one that plagued seekers for more than 800 years, and for which she has never received credit.

A Chemistry Advantage

The discovery, leading to the thesis that became Atlas Decrypted, began in graduate school, where I put in the strenuous hours needed to complete a PhD program in chemistry, while raising two sons and relaxing at night with long novels, including my first reading of Atlas Shrugged. Since sensitized to scientific symbols by my academic studies, I began to suspect that a science-based pattern was appearing in the text and names of the protagonists of Atlas Shrugged.

Little did I know that a second dissertation was underway.

It has taken thirty years to decipher the code. During this long stretch of time, I found no prior reportage of this emerging and eventually pervasive metaphor within Atlas Shrugged.

My inquiries to people in the Ayn Rand inner circle of scholars and editors were not fruitful. I was told that nothing new remained to be found in the highly analyzed construction of Atlas Shrugged. Someone remarked that Rand would not use scientific symbology as she was not formally educated in science. Others simply expressed skepticism and no interest. My thesis now disputes the status quo view of Atlas Shrugged scholarship.

After retiring from a career in technology development and management in 2019, completing the manuscript for a proposed literary observation in Rand’s opus became my priority project. Written as a first-person narrative, Atlas Decrypted has been crafted to bring the reader into the entire discovery experience. My pursuit of the buried metaphor is chronicled as a literary mystery, which I conduct as a persistent, scientifically astute Nancy Drew. The reader moves along with the different phases of discovery, disbelief, long ponderings, Eureka moments, and the proposed validation of the thesis.

After the discovery phase of this literary investigation is completed, Atlas Decrypted includes the final report, loosely organized as a PhD dissertation, with the classic subsections of original data, background material, theory, proof, and discussion.

The reader will be given every piece of relevant information and can then make his or her own evaluation of the proposed thesis. Although I believe the case is tightly made to claim this discovery as an independent, major literary finding, I fully expect debates will ensue.

Do Not Read Atlas Decrypted If…

Some people should NOT read Atlas Decrypted. First off, it can only be understood by readers who are already familiar with Atlas Shrugged and preferably by those still keen on a deeper comprehension of the novel.

I did not dumb down Atlas Decrypted, so it contains more background and theoretical content than found in your typical detective novel. However, readers will not require a formal education in chemistry or other sciences, even though science factors into the deciphering of the metaphor. I use equation notation throughout Atlas Decrypted as shorthand to transcribe general concepts of production and progress, a convention that should assist readers’ comprehension of the thesis.

Forensic curiosity, enjoyment of literary analysis, and intellectual imagination are useful skills for traversing the labyrinthine journey of Atlas Decrypted. Your reward for completing the immersion will be a deeper understanding of Atlas Shrugged, and why the novel is even more relevant today, given the proliferating technical state of our advanced civilization. You might also learn how to think like Hank Rearden and John Galt.

If you are still in, then let us get started.

Once upon a time a persona innovata appeared in the pages of Atlas Shrugged, and her name was Dagny Taggart…

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I

I: The Elements

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Chapter 1

1. Calm Before the Clue

There once was an Age of Reason, but we’ve progressed beyond it. This is the Age of Love.1

The post-war decade of the 1950s existed in a curious state. People lived the American dream by populating the suburbs, with backyard barbeques and the maiden era of television culture providing the new symbols of a comfortable middle class. Although some citizens viewed the rise of rock ’n’ roll and its subculture as a sign of unrest, American Bandstand hardly bore a national threat. Elvis, perhaps, a little more so. The beatniks’ subculture primarily contained any non-conformity; New York City, particularly the quarter of Greenwich Village and Café Wha?, confined the non-conformity. Most American women chose lives centered on traditional roles and stretched their time around the many activities of the full-time wife and mother.

But, alas, in this apparently bucolic state of American life, when even cigarettes were an innocent habit, one post-war residue added a surreal overhang. As families tuned into Father Knows Best and I Love Lucy, they calmly acquiesced to a culture that included bomb shelters and air raid drills. Lawrence Welk and imminent Armageddon. Leave it to Beaver and the Cold War. The two channels coexisted with few qualms. The children of the suburbs practiced nuclear survival on cue by heading into the grammar school hallways at the sound of a specific siren. Their young imaginations may have wondered if they had a better shot at surviving an attack if not sitting directly across from the classroom’s open door, but they also effortlessly resumed their pre-drill states of mind and eagerness for the next break, recess.

Ferment brewed in the minds of restive artistic souls who could not find identities in a world of sitcoms, rock ’n’ roll, and atomic annihilation. Something had to give.

And indeed, challenges to this pastiche of serenity and fatalism arrived in the form of two novels published toward the end of the decade.

Literary Detonations

Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged and Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, both published in