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Sunday, August 30, 2015

Brilliant Short Story By Jorge Luis Borges: "Del Rigor En La Ciencia" ("On Exactitude In Science")

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In March, 1946, Jorge Luis Borges co-authored with Adolfo Casares a very short story, ""Del Rigor en la Ciencia," or "On Exactitude in Science," about a perfect map.
Here is the first half of the story, as translated by Andrew Hurley.
In that Empire, the Art of Cartography attained such Perfection that the map of a single Province occupied the entirety of a City, and the map of the Empire, the entirety of a Province. In time, those Unconscionable Maps no longer satisfied, and the Cartographers Guilds struck a Map of the Empire whose size was that of the Empire, and which coincided point for point with it. The following Generations, who were not so fond of the Study of Cartography as their Forebears had been, saw that that vast Map was Useless...
Here is The Guardian's sponsorship of the entire story, read by Will Self.
http://www.theguardian.com/books/audio/2013/jan/04/will-self-jorge-luis-borges


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