The story, credited fictionally as a quotation from "Suárez Miranda, Viajes de varones prudentes, Libro IV, Cap.
[1] The story was first published in the March 1946 edition of Los Anales de Buenos Aires as part of a piece called "Museo" credited to "B. Lynch Davis", a joint pseudonym of Borges and Adolfo Bioy Casares.
[2] The story is no longer included in current Spanish editions of the Historia universal de la infamia, as since 1961 it has appeared as part of Borges' collection El hacedor.
"It has never been spread out, yet," said Mein Herr: "the farmers objected: they said it would cover the whole country, and shut out the sunlight !
[4][5] French philosopher Jean Baudrillard cited "On Exactitude in Science" as a predecessor to his concept of hyperreality in his 1981 treatise Simulacra and Simulation.