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This week's Final Word comes from a sharp-eyed lawyer:

"With increasing distance our knowledge fades and fades rapidly. Eventually we reach the dim boundary, the utmost limits of our telescope. There we measure shadows, and we search among ghostly errors of measurement for landmarks that are scarcely more substantial. The search will continue. Not until the empirical resources are exhausted need we pass on to the dreamy realm of speculation."

The winner of last week's competition, who correctly identified The Diary of Samuel Pepys , is Brian C. Howlett of the University of Bradford.