Re: 2 Things: One Interesting, One Not

>Matthew Kehrt <matrix14@...> wrote:
>>>>
>On a subject related to the CS, does anyone now any thing about the
>Voynich Manuscript?  It was written in the 15th century in central
>Europe, in a script no one can translate.  It's been at Yale University
>for the past few decades.  Here's a link on it:
>http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/voynich.html
><<<
>another hoax or what?
There are a lot of theories on that manuscript.  Some I've seen on
this mailing list were (unless I saw them elsewhere):

It's a degenerate/redundant cypher.
It's an attempt at writing Chinese alphabetically.
It's total balderdash.
It's a degenerate cypher mixed with total balderdash.

I also came across something that I call the "niium" theory.  It's
based on an observation that, when written in some hands, the letter
"m" can look as if it is "ni", "ui", "iu", "in", etc.  Thus, it is
possible to "add" additional letters into texts that aren't actually
there.  This practice would greatly increase the redundancy of the
text to the point that it would be hard to mathematically distinguish
from random gibberish by somebody who wasn't familiar with the
technique.  There are a few "strings" of "letters" in the Voyinich
that reappear with remarkable frequency and could be theoretically
"condensed" if this is the case.


None of the above theories are my own.

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