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https://www.mboxdrive.com/Library_Of_Babel.mp3
(Originally from the "Let's Read!" YouTube channel, but since deleted: https://www.youtube.com/c/LetsReadOfficial)
I used to joke that I was going to introduce a phone that could remember 10M 7-digit numbers: just enter the 7-digit index of the phone number you want to recall.
One other interesting tidbit that always intrigued me about Borges is that he became completely blind while he was the director of the Argentine National Library. In a strange irony, it became his own "Library of Babel", in the sense that he had so much knowledge within reach, but limited capacity to interpret it.
Many great stories to chose from: I found the Lottery of Babylon to be a great story on randomness in life: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lottery_in_Babylon
Any Fermi Problem-like answers to how large the library would be, based on how the number of permutations of the books and the size of each room? Is it an easy guess to say larger than the size of the universe?
According to the story, each book has: * 410 pages * 40 lines per page * 80 characters per line * Not included: The characters on the front cover, maybe 15 on average? There are 25 symbols. So there are 25^(410*40*80) possible books, which comes out to ~10^1834097 books. Sufficed to say, the library could hold numerous universes.
Someone implemented the Library of Babel into a website, it even has a search feature to find a page with any (valid) content you can give it: https://libraryofbabel.info/
As a HN reader from Argentina, I thank ColinWright to share this with the community. Here in Argentina we are very proud of Borges and his works - and it is always nice to see people from around the world discovering or revisiting him.
Borges and Cortázar taught me anew what literature could be when I thought it was all the same. They are amazing authors and reading them is transformative.
[0] https://www.amazon.com/Short-Stay-Hell-Steven-Peck/dp/098374...