Jorge Luis Borges, the Argentine writer, once wrote a short story – a single paragraph – that is perhaps the best guide to the scientific method. In it, he described a distant land where cartography – the science of making maps – was taken to ridiculous extremes.
阿根廷作家博尔赫斯曾经写过一则短故事——只有一段的短故事——也许能作为科学方法的最佳指导。在这个故事里，他描述了一篇遥远的陆地，在那里，地图学达到了荒谬的极端。一个省的地图详细到需要用整整一个市的地盘才能把它展开。帝国全景地图需要整个省的地盘才能展开。