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In a nutshell: I was idling around the web pages here at Chalmers
University, and somehow stumbled on your site about this strange thing
following a link in Koen's page. I was inmediately fascinated by the
whole stuff and after watching in complete dumbfoundness almost all the
scanned ads, my eyes pop out when I see the "Winter Tour 1990" ad. I
was mumbling to myself for a while and then remembered why all those
formulas were so familiar to me: I browsed over them last year when I
was finishing my MSc thesis! Koen's hint was sort of right, the
equations refer to relations, and they come from the classical
mathematics book "Principia Mathematica" (Vol. 1) by Whitehead and
Russell (originally published in 1910, second edition in 1925). To be
very precise (I'm using the book's numbering for the formulas, and its
page numbers, according to the 2nd edition):

- Ireton's formula: this is proposition *35.412, a property of a
  relation R with limited codomain
- Morphy's formula: this is definition *40.02, of the sum of a class of
  classes
- Alekhine's formula: this is proposition *40.11, a property of the
  sum of a class of classes
- Chemnitz's formula: this is proposition *40.38, a property involving
  a relation and the sum of a class of classes
- Gerhard's formula: this is definition *41.02, of the sum of a class
  of relations
- Fabius Cunctator's formula: this is proposition *35.7, a property of
  a relation R with limited codomain
- Alberich's formula: this is an unnumbered formula mentioned in page
  303, dealing with the product of a class of classes
- Gödel's formula: this is definition *35.03, of a relation R with its
  domain limited to elements in set alpha and its codomain limited to
  elements in set beta
- Melanchton's formula: this is an intermediate formula derived during
  the proof of proposition *40.15, which deals with the product of a
    class of classes
- Winthrop's formula: this is an unnumbered definition mentioned in
  page 303, an alternative approach the the product of a class of
  classes
- Owsley's formula: this is proposition *42.1, a property of the sum of
  a class of classes of classes
- Olof Petersson's formula: yet another unnumbered formula mentioned in
  page 303
- Farragut's formula: this is the definition *35.01, of a relation R
  with its domain limited to elements in set alpha
- Mistah Kurtz's formula: this is definition *41.01, of the product of
  a class of relations
- Schrödinger's formula: the same as Gerhard's, of course
- Kitchener Pasha's formula: this is an intermediate formula derived
  during the proof of proposition *35.12, which deals with a relation
  over limited domain and codomain

I couldn't find Matthias Flacius' formula (too many formulas in this
book!), sorry...

If you ask me, the formulas seem to have been chosen at random by
someone who was browsing "Principia Mathemathica" Volume 1 around
sections D and E. Is the author of these ads a nut. a genial prankster,
or we need Mulder and Scully to uncover the meaning of some conspiracy?
I really don't know what to believe :-)

Carlos, Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden

The map (fragment)s:
1. Chemnitz (in East Germany)
2. Augsburg (in Bavaria, South part of West Germany) - probably appears here because of connection to _Confessio Augustana_ 
(="Augsburg Confession"). The map fragment is from a car driver's map, indicating gas stations and resting places along the 
highway, but I guess that's irrelevant.
3. Lutherstadt Wittenberg (in East Germany) - a clear reference to Martin Luther and the Reformation again (and thus to 
Melanchthon?).
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"Es ruft der Norden" = "The North is calling"
name=Martin W

clue=The Winter Tour 1990 appears to be an extract of the textual criticism apparatus of 
a Greek NT.  I can't make out the chapter or book, but this deals with verses 13 
through 21, and lists textual variants in all the uncials (Roman letters) manuscripts 
(numbers), papyrii (numbers prefixed with a p), foreign language translations 
([sy]riac, [v]ul[g]ate), and patristic citations ([Tert]ullian, [Cypr]ian, [Erasm]us).  
In theory one could find probably dig up the exact verses this refers to in Nestle-Anand, 
but that would be a bit of work ...
name=Chris Ashton

Lutherstadt Wittenberg

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anon 07.04.01

clue:  Add the number of finite integers in the critical apparatus 
and it will give you an aleph--see the footnote.  Its got to be the 
numbers inside the box because aleph is often associated with metric 
spacing.  It also comes up in number theory which ties with the 
cryptography. The appartus has lines around
it like its marked off--same way with metric spacing while the maps 
do not have lines around them in this advertisement.

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near a terminal: 11.16.01

clue:  If I understand this stuff correctly, the Biblical apparatus, I think it is called the critical apparatus, deals with 1)
sources and 2) textual variants.  All the sources are in particular, famous libraries or so I am told.  That gives you not only a
city set of coordinates but even a specific building within that particular city.  The webmaster has pointed out that somebody
who can pay the fee can get Global Positioning down to a few millimeters (maybe it was centimeters--but you get the point). 
Again, this stuff is both more complicated and more sane than it first appears.  Weird as it sounds as I write this, that would
be a sane, sensible way to give a number of coordinates.  Even down to the buildings which are indirectly referred to in the
critical apparatus.  Then something else in the ad could refer to which particular coordinates or it could be in another ad, the
selection process.  As they go along, they make constant reference to older ads which makes no sense unless you need to mine the
information in the previous stuff.

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Hal Lindsay 05.17.2007

Today, I want to talk about the center bit of textual apparatus.

It describes variants in Rev. 22: 13-21. The KJV translators used the variant quoted here: "poiountes tas entolas auotou" ("that keep on doing his commandments") instead of "plunontes tas stolas auton" ("those who wash their robes clean"). The Oxford Study Bible references Rev 7:14 as a cross-check here.

I take it that this passage has created some controversy among the tribulationist sects, which probably explains its presence here. They are also the last verses in the bible.

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Charlie P. 07.13.2007

Ireton was a general during the English Civil War, and friend of Oliver Cromwell.

Johann Gerhard was a German Lutheran theologian.

Quintus-Fabius-Maximus-Cunctator was the Roman consul who harassed Hannibal's army and prevented it from marching on Rome during
the Second Punic War.

Olof Petersson is, apparently, a Swedish economist.
(http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=7713)

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Aktenkundig 12/07/2016

There is this adress-stamp of the information-centre ("Info-Zentrum") of Doerpen. Near Doerpen there is the testing-area of the Transrapid (hence the printing next to the "Winter Tour"-Box).

The Transrapid 07 has been produced from ca. 1988.

Also Doerpen is in the north of Germany. So "Es ruft der Norden" (German for "The north is calling") may refer to that city.

So I would guess that our author may know that city..

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Jana 11/24/2016

I've very recently stumbled upon all this, but it's intrigued me already. I've noticed probably very insignificant things from this ad, 
but one of them is the relation between this and the January 15, 2000 letter. On the page from that letter there is a venn diagram 
comparing April 1, 1990 and December 5, 1990 with the comparison meeting in the middle at April 1, 1999. I couldn't find an ad from 
April 1, 1990, but the date is mentioned multiple times in the December 5 ad. Also, I saw the chemical formula on the bottom of the 
page. I know it's a superconductor, but I'm still looking further into how this could relate. I also notice the d-isomer but only 
because I'm a bio student. All I really know about that is that it's an enantiomer most commonly found in the human body. If you 
have any idea what the symbols on the paper from January 15, 2000 mean, I've been curious about that. Sorry if this is super unhelpful!

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