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Lot 181:

A Rare & Macabre Early 17th Century Anthropodermic Bound Book in carrying box. The book entitiled; 'A True and Perfect Relation of The Whole Proceedings against the Late most barbarous Traitors, Garnet a Jesuit and his Confederats'; Printed London 1606 by Robert Barker, printer to the King and believed to be bound in human skin, possibly that of the aforementioned Jesuit Priest; Father Henry Garnet. The box having a rectangular handle to the centre with the corners having clusters of brass stud flowers, and the front having an iron clasp and lockplate, 11 ins x 7½ ins x 5 ins (28 cms x 19 cms x 13 cms).

BBC News:

Sid Wilkinson, from Wilkinson's Auctioneers, said: "It's a little bit spooky because the front of the book looks like it has the face of a man on it, which is presumed to be the victim's face..."

The lot is considered so unusual there is no reserve price attached to it.

Apropos.

(via BoingBoing)

померять прибором и выразить числом

Читаю любопытную книгу Стивена Стиглера The History of Statistics: The Measurement of Uncertainty before 1900, узнаю много полезных вещей. Например, оказывается, идея о том, что "реально существует только то, что можно померять прибором и выразить числом," на которую часто любит ссылаться уважаемый дед Митя, идет от лорда Кельвина:

... when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind.

Ранее, в 1692-м году, Джон Арбетнот писал:

There are very few things which we know; which are not capable of being reduc'd to a Mathematical Reasoning; and when they cannot, it's a sign our Knowledge of them is very small and confus'd.

P.S. Кстати, большое спасибо vova_dmitrenko за current music.