The Encrypted Book Nobody Can Solve.

I didn't think it was badly written, it's quite readable and the essay structure and content was good - which is the most important thing. The language and sentence structure gets a little convoluted in places but it's hardly deserving of the criticism levied at it early in this thread!


The manuscript is fascinating, is it available on-line at all?
 
JayToukon said:
In the article there is a quote from Prescott Currier saying "The two most important findings that I think I have made are the identification of more than one hand and the identification of more than one ‘language", which seems to be an opinion that's reinforced if you look around online. Not so much of opinion either, more of an 'educated theory'.

I for one thought the language used in the article was pretty effective. The in-depth description of 'how' the words were written formed a sense of knowledge of how much care and precision went into the physical writing of the tome. Which, in my personal opinion, support theories that it's more than just a childs "fun book". Well written i'd say.
Click to expand...



Thanks Jay; and you're totally right about the description of the glyphs and their fluidity being an indication that the author was very much familiar with writing the characters and not making it up as he went along.
 
Mr Jack said:
The language and sentence structure gets a little convoluted in places but it's hardly deserving of the criticism levied at it early in this thread!


The manuscript is fascinating, is it available on-line at all?
Click to expand...

thanks Jack; I welcome criticism but I suspect some people are being a bit OTT and may not have any writing credentials themselves.

Anyway, as far as I know there is a project underway to transfer the entire manuscript onto computer and the net. I think the guy has been doing this since the 90s though, so you may have to wait a while longer!
 
Yes one time pads are the only really unbreakable codes.

I don't think the manuscript is that unbreakable, we just haven't a linguist that understands the language yet. It's not encrypted.
 
It's not OTT language because it's justified, it serves a purpose. I mean it's all a matter of opinion i suppose but i really enjoy descriptive writing and always have done. I have no writing credentials as such but i did EngLang A-Level and have always been interested in it. I am considered a grammar/spelling Nazi though. That's about as accredited as i get ;)

Anyway, job well done and i'm not about halfway through the Wiki entry for the Voynich manuscript. Interesting stuff!
 
Probably the twilight series v1

The book is evil, very very evil. Save the lives of men around the world and burn it! No more emo girls and ponsy vampires do you hear me?!
 
J.B said:
voynich_manuscript.png

XKCD for every occasion!
Click to expand...

Only just saw that, it's awesome!
 
ah, damn it's a necro... was slightly excited as I thought for a second the OP/an OCUK mod was an NLP researcher at Alberta
 
Tefal said:
isn't an unbreakable code relatively simple?

I'm sure there is a an old Greek one.

You have a pad of random numbers (and a duplicate with the recipient) (say picked between 0-1000, duplicates allowed) then you have a pre arranged number for say a word or a phrase, the numbers are added together then sent (original pad destroyed) and the duplicate pad subtracted from the coded message to give the numbers that relate to the word/phrase.

Unless you have either pad or the arranged numbers for the words/phrases there's no way to work it back.


*iirc something similar was made in ww2 for communications between the pm and president.

the machine added a random static/noise to the recorded voice message broadcast it then an identical machine at the other end deducted the exact same noise/static to get the original message back.
Click to expand...

It's called One Time Pad.
Still effective. But slow. Even when automated using random characters generated from radio static and computerised.
 
Flibster said:
It's called One Time Pad.
Still effective. But slow. Even when automated using random characters generated from radio static and computerised.
Click to expand...

the army used to use something similar until only a few years ago - though it wasn't really one time pads but rather each pad would be used for up to 12 hours and could be used for multiple messages in that time
 
The words and letters including repetition are very structured and precise, however the spacing between words, paragraphs and curvature of the text alignment isn't.

My view is as always that the words are irrelevant the content is in the spacing pattern, alignment (up sweep, down sweep etc) and pictures i.e. a geometric map corresponding to a solution.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom