The Mysterious Voynich Manuscript (APOD)

APOD (Astronomy Picture of the Day) ^

[Jalapeno]

Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

2002 August 26

The Mysterious Voynich Manuscript
Credit: Yale University ; Digital Copyright: B. E. Schaefer (U. Texas)

Explanation: The ancient text has no known title, no known author, and is written in no known language: what does it say and why does it have many astronomy illustrations?

The mysterious book was once bought by an emperor, forgotten on a library shelf, sold for thousands of dollars, and later donated to Yale.

Possibly written in the 15th century, the over 200-page volume is known most recently as the Voynich Manuscript, after its (re-)discoverer in 1912.

Pictured above is an illustration from the book that appears to be somehow related to the Sun.

The book labels some patches of the sky with unfamiliar constellations.

The inability of modern historians of astronomy to understand the origins of these constellations is perhaps dwarfed by the inability of modern code-breakers to understand the book's text.

The book remains in Yale's rare book collection under catalog number "MS 408."

[NukeMan]

I have read about this manuscript in William Poundstone's The Labyrinths of Reason. Researchers showed that the script was not meaningless scribblings; i.e. it had an entropy content similar to Polynesian languages (weird, huh?). His best guess was that it was an enciphered version of an artificial language (a la Esperanto) made up by the unknown author, and for that reason we will probably never crack it. I bet if we did we would be disappointed at its content.

[Jalapeno]

Exploring the links, the consensus seems to be that the contents of the book are most likely nothing Earth shattering, but the fact that the "code" cannot be broken in modern times is the challenge.

Of course, not knowing the language for the code you're breaking makes it difficult....

[twigs]

Also, languages were still being spoken in the 15th century that have since died out. While this could well be an artificial language, it could also, at least theoretically, be from a small group of people that were later assimilated into another, neighboring culture.

[Junior]

Bump.

[Physicist]

Every century has its "medved".

[moyden]

Allow me to translate:

The eleven secret ingredients are salt, pepper, ...

(See page two.)

[I Hired Craig Livingstone]

Every century has its "medved".

And an "f.Christian" to provide the documentation. : )

[js1138]

I bet if we did we would be disappointed at its content.

The easiest thing to encrypt would be a meaningless text -- say an al gore speech -- that has no information content.

[Gumlegs]

Velikovsky via Von Daniken, perhaps?

For those who've been following the Medved story here at FR, I found this report of a debate with Velikovsky himself. Do we notice any similarities in debating techniques between our own beloved Medved and Velikovsky himself?

This is an excerpt from a letter from someone who actually debated Velikovsky. It's printed in the current issue of Skeptic Magazine, and the author notes that a more complete report of the event is printed in At The Fringes of Science. It's signed, "Michael Friedlander, Department of Physics, Washington University, St. Louis, MO.

In my presentation, I gave examples of Velikovsky's distortion of the published scientific literature in quotations that he used to support his theses. For example, he quoted Lyttleton as writing that "the terrestrial planets, Venus included, must have originated from the giant planets ... " Lyttleton did not use the word "must." In another case, Velikovsky cited thermoluminescence studies of Apollo 12 lunar cores, reporting that "disturbances were of a thermal nature." Those measurements were made by some of my colleagues, and Velikovsky's description is, at best, imaginative.

When I gave each example, his response was "Where did I write that?"; when I showed a photo copy of the quoted pages, he simply switched to a different topic.

Of course, we cannot discount the possibility that Friedlander's slavish devotion to the Physics Cult has blinded him to the truth of Velikovsky's quoting techniques. Forced to chose, I'd go with an f-stop of 5.6.

[headsonpikes]

Artificial language by unknown author....

Sounds about right to me. Secret codes and fantastic cosmic art are phenomena not unknown to medical observors. ;^)

[jamaksin]

For those interested see "The Man Who Broke Purple" and "The Codebreakers" - the Voynich Manuscript is discussed in some detail in each.

[Jalapeno]

I missed Codebreakers, heard it was ok. I have not heard of "The Man Who Broke Purple"...see it was in 1977, but have not found a good reference.

[longshadow]

"When I gave each example, his response was "Where did I write that?"; when I showed a photo copy of the quoted pages, he simply switched to a different topic."

Ah, so this must be the inspiration for the legendary Holden Context Switch!

[jamaksin]

This may be helpful:

"The Codebreakers - The Story of Secret Writing"
David Kahn, The MacMillan Company, New York, 1967.
pages 863-73, 953.
[This is the first edition, there is also a paperback, and a later hardcover.]

"The Man Who Broke Purple: The Life of Colonel William F. Friedman, Who Deciphered the Japanese Codes in World War II"
Ronald Clark, Little Brown, Boston, 1977.
[The Japanese Code here is the diplomatic variant - NOT TO THE VARIOUS MILITARY. That is a different story.]

[gcruse]

Forced to chose, I'd go with an f-stop of 5.6.

Not me.  In the first place, 5.6 is too
wide-eyed (naive) when dealing with
poltroons whose loony-box is lit.
Something like f-22 would help.
Additionally, the high f-stop might
induce a little sharpness around
the circles of confusion.

[RightWhale]

Once we finally figure this out we will probably see it is nothing more than chemistry or music theory.

[SunkenCiv]

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