From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Tuesday, July 18, 2006 10:00 AM To : vms-list@voynich.net
Subject : RE: VMs: Berj's CREINTIS - Voynich material
Hello Osmar
Thanks for the kind words.
I'm going to try again to post the CREINTIS-Christine-Voynich material here shortly. Sunday when I first posted, I had a hunch it might not make it through the vms-list server, and it didn't, so I emailed it to you and others offlist, so that at least some could see that I kept my promises (1).
The feedback so far has had the one common denominator that I was most hoping for, and am greatly relieved to hear: that the material was so written that it is readable by anyone, despite the foundation of the material being highly mathematical. I struggled very long and hard with that. There was simply no other way to achieve that goal, than to write what turned out to be too long a discussion to make it through the vms-list server. It was a matter of obtaining general reader comprehensibility through a longer plain discussion of the principles.
This is especially important for the newly curious among the Christine study community, because they have quite a challenge in seeing the point; after all, they are used to things like Harley MS 4431, one of the most beautiful and high quality books ever made, and look at the VMS - basically a rag with seemingly bizarre illustrations and text. Only the mathematical view sees the common patterns. It is a challenge to point it out, so that all can see it.
To get it through the vms-list server it's size has to be minimized - the best chance seems to be to paste it all right into the email body, but of course therein lies the greatest risk of distortions to the anagram tables, and that could seriously reduce comprehensiblity. I did some test emailing, and it looks like there is a fair chance to get all the tables and Voynich transcriptions through intact. We'll shortly see how it goes - if again it does not work, then I'll have to try breaking up the writing into separately posted parts.
Well, as I wrote to you and the others offlist, I think it is safe to say, that the case for a deep connection between Christine de Pizan and the Voynich manuscript: is strengthening. Rapidly.
The CREINTIS freeware computer program will be ready in a day or so.
Berj
(1) vms-list posts: Re: VMs: Christine de Pizan and the Voynich Manuscript; Friday, June 23, 2006 2:16 PM
Re: VMs: Christine de Pizan and the Voynich Manuscript; Friday, June 23, 2006 8:24 PM
From: "Osmar Jardim" Reply-To: vms-list@voynich.net To: "Vms-List" <vms-list@voynich.net>
Subject: VMs: Berj's CREINTIS - Voynich material Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2006 13:39:02 -0300
Is Berj's CREINTIS - Voynich material, which I have received off-list, going to be accessible via the
vms-list archives? It has just occurred to me that Berj´s writings could be of interest to some other people.
My best to all!
Osmar Jardim
Vida, prosperidade, saúde "Saúde é energia, entusiasmo, disposição e alegria de viver." (Dr. José Jacyr Leal Junior)
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From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Tuesday, July 18, 2006 1:07 PM To : vms-list@voynich.net
Subject : Re: VMs: Berj's CREINTIS - Voynich material
Elmar Vogt wrote Tue, 18 Jul 2006 18:28:34 +0200: ".....Why don't you try to post the material at some free website or wiki? That'd make it more readily available, also for future use/reference. ......."
Hello Elmar
For the simple reason that as long as I am a member of this forum, I want to give it the respect of priority. It should remain the eminent Voynich forum, I believe, despite its now and then bumps along the road.
I tried reposting a little over an hour ago, with the total bytes size of the email down to 79 kb. It looks like the machine is still saying no. I'll wait a bit longer to see if it is just taking its time on this hot and humid day, and if it still does not post to the list, then I'll break the post up into parts by its sections, and post them separately.
In the meantime I'll email you the material offlist, in the original MS Word 2000 doc form. Have a look at sections X. and IVX. - the developments in them originated with your work, that you posted to this forum a little while back.
Berj
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From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Tuesday, July 18, 2006 4:59 PM To : vms-list@voynich.net
Subject : VMs: part0: CREINTIS, Voynich, prime numbers, ESCRINET, anagrams & Christine de Pizan
18 JUL 2006: posting components of: CREINTIS, Voynich, prime numbers, ESCRINET, anagrams & Christine de Pizan and Table of Contents
part1 Beginning through section II. part2 section III. part3 section IV. - VII. part4 section VIII. - XI.
part5 section XII. - XIII. part6 section IVX. part7 section XV. - XVI. - references through [II-4] part8 references * * * [III-1] - [XVI-1] - end of Corrections Table of Contents from Beginning:
I. Scope II. Introduction to Voynich - Christine de Pizan connections: VMs f80r
III. The Anagrams of Christine de Pizan and the Voynich Manuscript
IV. Forward, Reverse / Retrograde, and Inverse Transformation: Crisogonus receives a secret message from Denassis
V. Fundamental Period versus Apparent Symbolic Period
VI. The Voynich f6r prime numbers - CREINTIS connection
VII. Complimentary transforms: CREINTIS-6 and ESCRINET-12
VIII. Numbers sequences IX. Symbol position-shifting X. The mystery stars of f103r
XI. Generalization of c6 and e12 to source-strings of any length
XII. Transformation stability and those very famous Voynich words, or: dine at 8 o'clock in the morning
XIII. Christine's secret message to posterity with EN ESCRIT
XIV. The mysterious stars of f103r illuminate its text, a little XV. A c6 and e12 attack on Voynich ms page f10v
XVI. Comments
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From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Tuesday, July 18, 2006 5:14 PM To : vms-list@voynich.net
Subject : VMs: part1: CREINTIS, Voynich, prime numbers, ESCRINET, anagrams & Christine de Pizan
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From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Tuesday, July 18, 2006 5:46 PM To : vms-list@voynich.net
Subject : VMs: part2: CREINTIS, Voynich, prime numbers, ESCRINET, anagrams & Christine de Pizan
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From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Tuesday, July 18, 2006 7:01 PM To : vms-list@voynich.net
Subject : VMs: part3: CREINTIS, Voynich, prime numbers, ESCRINET, anagrams & Christine de Pizan
**********************
From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Tuesday, July 18, 2006 7:42 PM To : vms-list@voynich.net
Subject : VMs: part4: CREINTIS, Voynich, prime numbers, ESCRINET, anagrams & Christine de Pizan
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[from archives - I never got the list forward]
Wed Jul 19, 2006 12:43 am subject: part5: CREINTIS, Voynich, prime numbers, ESCRINET, anagrams
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From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Tuesday, July 18, 2006 9:15 PM To : vms-list@voynich.net
Subject : VMs: part6: CREINTIS, Voynich, prime numbers, ESCRINET, anagrams & Christine de Pizan
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From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Tuesday, July 18, 2006 9:41 PM To : vms-list@voynich.net
Subject : VMs: part7: CREINTIS, Voynich, prime numbers, ESCRINET, anagrams & Christine de Pizan
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From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Tuesday, July 18, 2006 10:09 PM To : vms-list@voynich.net
Subject : VMs: part8: CREINTIS, Voynich, prime numbers, ESCRINET, anagrams & Christine de Pizan
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16 JUL / 21 JUN 2006
CREINTIS, Voynich, prime numbers, ESCRINET, anagrams and Christine de Pizan
presented to Voynich vms-list forum by Berj N. Ensanian
Hello to all
who are interested in the investigation of the possibility that Christine de Pizan (d. 1430?), France's first lady of letters, was at least a major influence upon the efforts that precipitated the Voynich manuscript, VMS, a.k.a. the world's most mysterious manuscript. [1]
I have here for your evaluation more data, and as you can tell from the subject-line of this vms-list post, it covers a lot of ground. But, the following is only the minimum information necessary to make the basic point that Christine's anagrams and VMS elements have unmistakable deep connections. I assure you, dear reader, that I have done my best to present what follows, and especially to show the commonalities, in as readable-by-all-truly-interested-regardless-of-mathematical-training a writing, as I can. And it has been a real challenge to write all this up so as to make it generally accessible, including to the much-needed newcomers to Voynich AND Christine studies, despite the material's not-really-elementary mathematical nature.
In the effort to motivate you to have a closer look at Christine AND Voynich, I have here shunted, as much as possible, technical comments into the endnotes, while preserving generally readable continuity in the main text. I hope I have done a good writing job - we'll see.
Also, I offer a freeware computer program, named CREINTIS, so that if you want to do investigations and analysis yourself, conveniently, you can. [2]
I. Scope
II. Introduction to Voynich - Christine de Pizan connections: VMs f80r
III. The Anagrams of Christine de Pizan and the Voynich Manuscript
IV. Forward, Reverse / Retrograde, and Inverse Transformation: Crisogonus receives a secret message from Denassis
V. Fundamental Period versus Apparent Symbolic Period
VI. The Voynich f6r prime numbers - CREINTIS connection
VII. Complimentary transforms: CREINTIS-6 and ESCRINET-12
VIII. Numbers sequences
IX. Symbol position-shifting
X. The mystery stars of f103r
XI. Generalization of c6 and e12 to source-strings of any length
XII. Transformation stability and those very famous Voynich words, or: dine at 8 o'clock in the morning
XIII. Christine's secret message to posterity with EN ESCRIT
XIV. The mysterious stars of f103r illuminate its text, a little
XV. A c6 and e12 attack on Voynich ms page f10v
XVI. Comments
I. Scope
Here following I will address these questions:
1. Why, of the tremendous number of possibilities, did Cristine choose the particular anagrams that she used in her writings?
2. Did Cristine realize, and consciously use, the common mathematical idea from which her anagrams all derive?
3. Are Christine's anagrams more than just cipher signatures of "Cristine" - can they be further deciphered into coherent messages that very well might have been intended by Cristine?
4. Is there a plausible connection between Christine's anagrams and certain highly unusual mathematical material in the Voynich manuscript?
5. Does the particular mathematics underlying Christine's anagrams account for some of the mathematical properties of the VMS "text"?
Once again, I plead patience with my only very recent start in Christine studies, and my extremely marginal French language skills, more so since Christine wrote in what we now call middle French.
II. Introduction to Voynich - Christine de Pizan Connections: VMs f80r
In accordance with the mcP hypothesis of the Voynich manuscript [II-1], we take here the VMS to be copy of a still-lost manuscript P, mcP, the VMS copy done with limited resources, and having as its priority the accurate copying of symbolisms and ciphers, and not the reproduction of fine art.
In references [II-1], you will find previously developed possible Voynich - Christine connections. But, let us briefly develop a new example, so as to show how painlessly, with Christine familiarity, sense can be made of a Voynich page that has heretofore baffled the Voynich study community.
Let us examine VMS page f80r [II-2], containing strange text framed by typically strange VMS graphical material. At top, there is a frame-less cartoon-like sequence with its action appearing to proceed from right to left. At far right we see an apparently male figure chasing a VMS sister: let us label her sister-1. There are then 9 sisters altogether along the top, from right to left.
Familiar with Christine's major themes [II-3], we interpret, in part, the message at the top of f80r as follows:
Seeking to escape bondage to misogynism, a young girl, sister-1, flees to the refuge of the sisterhood. Sister-2 depicts the refugee maturing, albeit still troubled by emotional bondage to the past. Sister-3 is putting on clothes [II-4] symbolizing her transformation into a shielded-against-misogynism new self; this shielding process takes place under the sponsorship of Lady Justice: sister-4 with her vessel.
Sister-5 symbolizes accelerating progress in the transformation of the self. Sister-6, crowned, shows that she has become a lady in the sisterhood. Sister-7 depicts the new lady ready to join her other sisterhood ladies as a full participant in the sisterhood of ladies.
A flow of blue water, symbolizing the truth of the sisterhood's doctrine, connects the other components of f80r's illustration, except the lone VMS sister near bottom left. The tubing, or "plumbing", through which the truth flows, symbolizes that its flow is channeled / directed / controlled, that is, it is a secret doctrine, or a secretly communicated doctrine, of a secret sisterhood.
At middle right we see a sisterhood lady helping a novice lady receive the truth. At middle left we see a lady opening the eyes of a novice lady. The enlightenment cuts right through the secrecy - symbolized by the above and below cipher text.
At bottom RIGHT we see a lone sister, well established in her nice life vessel via connection to the sisterhood - the water in her vessel is blue. At lower LEFT we see a disconnected-from-the-sisterhood sister, in her plain life vessel, which contains a little truth and comfort, but plenty of undesirable life-flow (green fluid); and she is reaching out for the sisterhood's doctrine. She may be better off materially than the connected sister on the RIGHT, but spiritually the RIGHT sister has the superior situation.
III. The Anagrams of Christine de Pizan and the Voynich Manuscript
As far as I have been able to determine, there has not been much analytic attention devoted to her anagrams in the Christine study community. At the international Christine de Pizan Colloquium in Paris later this month, 20-24 July 2006, not a single paper is devoted to the subject [III-1]. From the mathematics-in-poetry perspective this is regrettable, because once the rich and sophisticated nature of Christine's anagrams is realized, it is seen immediately that the subject cannot be disposed of quickly, and it provides fertile ground for long investigation of this perspective in Christine's works. The situation is however perfectly understandable, because it requires a mathematical mind to see its existence in the first place, and Christine students are typically not mathematicians. Fortunately for non-mathematical Christine students, the analytic techniques can be taken advantage of with only the simplest arithmetic, and part of the aim of this section is to make it all accessible: we will ease into things.
Throughout, I have kept in mind that there could be controversy, from both the mathematical and Christine camps, as to what level of mathematics was current in late medieval times, and what level of mathematics Christine was able to handle, and of course what mathematical level is ponder-able for the VMS, which is viewed by many in its study community to originate in the 15th century. Analysis of past mathematical structures may involve advanced "modern" attacks, while keeping the distinction of levels of sophistication clear. Nothing that is presented here as possibly having been employed by Christine and the VMS originator(s), was out of reach to educated medieval thinkers. Note the assumptions that I had to make, and decide for yourself if they were reasonable.
My first awareness that Christine in her writings used unusual devices to refer to herself, came when I read, in one of Willard's books, an excerpt from the Nadia Margolis translation of Christine's Le Livre de la Mutacion de Fortune [III-2]
"My tale permits you now to learn
Whether or not you truly yearn
To know my name, of which part one
Bears the name of Our Lord's Son,
The most perfect man there ever was;
Adding to it I N E does
Provide you with my name,
No extra letters does it claim."
My reaction to this, especially because of its grammar in its first 3 lines, was to take it as a signal from Christine that mathematical considerations play a role in her writing: she takes an entire verse to strongly emphasize a mathematical operation on a fixed field of variables-elements, in order to arrive at a name that she could have given in one word. A mathematically sensitive mind cannot ignore something like this: from a thinker of Christine's caliber there is something more than playful verse composing being exhibited there, it seems to me.
Next, from brief 19th century notes by Roy in his book, I learned that "CREINTIS", at the end of some of Christine's writings, is an anagram of "CRISTINE" [III-3]. This immediately looked interesting, since the mcP hypothesis for the Voynich manuscript, with its first candidate for a mastermind = Christine, was already outlined, and I had by then also seen that Christine's Joan of Arc poem was unmistakably weaving coherent parallel messages via the use of emphasized prime numbers relationships. And, the "text" of the VMS has long been recognized to resemble a product of some sort of anagram technique, and also prime numbers relationships are a cardinal feature of the VMS.
As I analyzed the mathematical properties of the CRISTINE - CREINTIS inter-transformation, I realized that it had the VMS magic number 6 built into its core, a non-prime number with the unique property: 6 = 1 x 2 x 3 = 1 + 2 + 3, that figures heavily in featured numbers throughout the VMS, and on VMS page f6r plays a critical role in the most remarkable mathematical exhibit that has to date been identified in the Voynich manuscript, namely a mathematical statement concerning prime numbers sequences, covertly presented in the form of an illustration of a strange plant. [III-4, III-5]
Searching for more Christine anagram information, and noting the scarceness, both in books available to me, and online, I was finally lucky to find online "Springtime, Solitude, and Society in the Dit de Poissy", by Kittye Delle Robbins-Herring of Mississippi State University, wherein:
"Alone, except for her writing, her readers, and her memories, she names herself as one of those creintis who fear and obey true love's laws (2075). Jacqueline Cerquiglini analyzes the suggestive power of the various anagrams Christine chooses to use to sign her works, cri, Christ, en escrit, escrinet, as well as creintis, and notes that this last wordplay marks both the Epistre au Dieu d'Amours and Poissy." [III-6]
It was this list of Christine's known anagrams, CRI, CHRIST, EN ESCRIT, ESCRINET, and CREINTIS, that turned out to be the goldmine revealing a common mathematical structure that ties them all together: I say that these anagrams were chosen by Christine from among the countless possibilities, not just for their poetic suggestive power, but because they are mathematically mapped members of one and the same special mathematical family, a fact realized and employed by Christine. I will develop evidence toward this assertion.
First, from visual inspection of the elements (the letters), it is clear that CRISTINE AND CREINTIS are inter-transformable, and EN ESCRIT and ESCRINET are inter-transformable, but the two pairs are not cross-transformable unless more elements, like CRI, are brought into the transformation.
Now, there is an infinite number of ways to inter-transform the set of elements CRISTINE and the set of elements CREINTIS. Which particular anagram scheme did Christine employ? Does the scheme start with CRISTINE and transform directly to CREINTIS, or vice versa? What was the basic field-size, that is, 8 side-by-side symbols, or 5, 12, 29 ??? When the chosen scheme proceeds to do its transforming work, does it operate in parallel fashion without regard to left-to-right and right-to-left, or does the formula invite the latter two possibilities? These and many more considerations determine if a common mathematical basis underlying Cristine's various anagram names will be found, and even more remote, will prove to be linked with some of the most unusual mathematics in the VMS.
I assumed a simple transposition scheme. Let us take, instead of "CRISTINE" as the source-string to be transformed, the source-string "12345678". Let us use the notation 0: 12345678 to mean the starting source-string in a transformation process. This source-string is placed upon a linear "symbols field" of 8 symbols-positions. The CRISTINE to CREINTIS transformation scheme that I assumed, can then be written:
Table III-1:
0: 12345678 or 0: CRISTINE
1: 12867534 or 1: CREINTIS
Here "1:" notates the result of the first transformation "cycle".
As you can see, the symbol that in 0: occupied the field-position #4, namely S, moved into field position #8 in 1: . And so on. If you want to follow the details of this discussion, and especially if you want to work with Christine's anagrams, with or without the CREINTIS computer program, then it is extremely important that you see the basic scheme in Table III-1. This anagram business can become very confusing, and right at the beginning, Table III-1, is the place to eliminate confusion possibilities in the foundation of your familiarity with all this. Be sure in Table III-1 to remain clear on the separate ideas of symbol and field-position.
Next, we define the scheme in Table III-1 to be the "left-to-right" transform, LR. By that we mean the basic transform is applied to the source-string by serially transposing symbols, working from #1 to #8.
This LR definition now allows us to define the mirror-transform of Table III-1, the right-to-left transform, RL, based on the same exact transposition scheme, but as it would look in a mirror.
Except that we will retain 12345678 instead of writing 87654321 (for reasons I'll explain later on), the right-to-left mirror transform looks like this:
Table III-2: RL
0: 12345678 or 0: CRISTINE
1: 56423178 or 1: TISRICNE
CREINTIS and TISRICNE are mirror anagrams of CRISTINE, by the basic simple transformation scheme we committed ourselves to in Table III-1. We have denoted them the LR and RL anagram transformations. Again, be sure to see clearly the transpositions scheme in Table III-2. [III-7]
Next we investigate successive transformations, successive cycles, where the last result becomes the new source-string. That is, we see what happens when 1: is operated upon to become 2:, and then 2: is operated upon to become 3:, and so on. Here are the results for what I have named the LR and RL CREINTIS-6 transforms:
Table III-3 CREINTIS-6 (c6) Anagram transformations sequence, w = 6:
LR and RL
0: 12345678 0: CRISTINE 0: 12345678 0: CRISTINE
1: 12867534 1: CREINTIS 1: 56423178 1: TISRICNE
2: 12453786 2: CRSTINEI 2: 31264578 2: ICRISTNE
3: 12678345 3: CRINEIST 3: 45612378 3: STICRINE
4: 12534867 4: CRTISEIN 4: 23156478 4: RICTISNE
5: 12786453 5: CRNEISTI 5: 64531278 5: ISTICRNE
6: 12345678 6: CRISTINE 6: 12345678 6: CRISTINE
7: 12867534 7: CREINTIS 7: 56423178 7: TISRICNE
Note one of the most important facts: the CREINTIS-6 transform is periodic, with a fundamental repetition period of 6 transformation cycles. We will use "w" to denote the fundamental period, therefore for the basic LR and RL c6 transforms, w = 6.
Once more, be sure to be clear on Table III-3. For example, if you start with the source-string CRINEIST, and perform two LR transformations on it, the result will be CRNEISTI. If you start with 12345678 and perform two LR transformations, the result will be 12453786.
Another example: the table shows where the symbol that occupies field-position #5 at 0: , will be at RL 3: ; it will be at field-position #2. Be clear on this - do not confuse symbols with their field-positions.
Resolving a table to follow the movement of just a few, or one symbol in particular, will greatly facilitate learning what happens across transformation sequences:
Table III-4 Single-symbol tracking across a transformation sequence
LR c6 w = 6
0: -------E
1: --E-----
2: ------E-
3: ----E---
4: -----E--
5: ---E----
6: -------E
7: --E-----
In this example, we see that as the transform cycles proceed, the E oscillates, weaving somewhat unevenly, across field-positions #3 - #8 . You can already visualize, that some combinations of 2 symbols tracked in this way, will give the appearance of a braid being weaved. There are lots of braids in Voynich manuscript illustrations.
IV. Forward, Reverse / Retrograde, and Inverse Transformation: Crisogonus receives a secret message from Denassis
We now distinguish between forward transformation FXR, reverse or retrograde transformation RXR, and inverse transformation IXR.
In Table III-3, when the rows are read in order: 0, 1, 2, ... we see tabulated the FXR. When the rows are read in reverse order: 5, 4, 3, ... we see the RXR.
We define the inverse transformation, IXR, to be the process which recovers (deciphers) from a given anagram (enciphered source-string) the original plain source-string.
To show this, let us suppose that friends Crisogonus and Denassis communicate using the c6 system. Denassis wants to send to Crisogonus the name of the new girl he has taken a liking to, even though she, named Cristine, knows nothing of this yet.
On Wednesday Denassis sends to Crisogonus the message: RICTISNE. Because Wednesday is the 4th day of the week, then by their agreed-upon protocol, Crisogonus knows that RICTISNE is a 4th-cycle, RL, FXR of the enciphered name of the lucky lady. To decipher the name CRISTINE, Crisogonus needs to do 4 RXR's on RICTISNE with the RL c6 transform. Or, alternatively, because the c6 is periodic with w = 6, he can decipher just as well with 2 FXR's. In this case, both the 4 RXR's and the 2 FXR's amount to the desired IXR. We can write a simple statement for the general inversion rule:
Inverse Transformation IXR:
nRXR + mFXR = w
where the numbers n and m, must add up to w. In the just given example, n = 4 and m = 2, their sum coming to 6 = w.
Let us suppose that Cristine has intercepted the message, RICTISNE, and she wants to decipher it, of course. The first two most important questions Cristine asks herself are:
a.) what is the anagram transformation system?
b.) what is its fundamental period?
If Cristine suspects a straightforward c6 scheme, and as a result knows that its w = 6, then she knows that she has at most 5 LR transformations to perform on RICTISNE, and 5 RL transformations to perform, altogether at most 10 transformations, and one of the results will be the original source-string. Needless to say, if she also knows that it is RL instead of LR, then her work is cut in half.
V. Fundamental Period versus Apparent Symbolic Period
Suppose you started with 0: 77777777 or 0: bbbbbbbb
Well, you know what will happen - the successive transformations will show the identical "anagram" result every cycle. It will appear as if the period = 1. The fundamental period, w, will still be the same, 6, but the appearance of the symbols-string results will give the impression of what we will call the case-particular "apparent symbolic period", and we will denote it: *w
Lets observe what happens when we take Cristine's anagrams components CRI and CRIST, and combine them as CRICRIST, 8 symbols, and do a c6 RL:
Table V-1 RL c6
0: CRICRIST
1: RICRICST
2: ICRICRST
3: CRICRIST
4: RICRICST
5: ICRICRST
6: CRICRIST
Clever lady that Christine! [V-1]
As you can see, besides the other interesting things, *w = 3. But the real w has not changed, and it is still 6.
It is absolutely critical that always! when working with these transforms, that you establish at the beginning of each series of transformations, what w, and if present, *w, are. Test with a diversified source-string, for example 0: abcdefgh, where all 8 symbols are different, and see how many transformation cycles are required for the result to again be exactly abcdefgh.
We will see that w can also change when more complications are introduced, including longer than 8 symbols source-strings. The range of w, from w = 1, has no limit; in the analysis of Voynich text following later, we will see a case where w = 528, although only the first 7 or 8 cycles will be discussed. With the CREINTIS program, the simple way to find w is to test the field with a diversified source-string, and a simultaneous sub-string key-word search, and let the program alert you when the keyword is detected. Then, if the result matches the original source-string exactly, you have found the w. But do this at least twice with different diversified source-strings, to be sure. Once you have tables of transformation set-ups and their w's compiled, you won't need to wonder about w and *w anymore. Along the way with your experiments you will see some amazing anagrams.
Remember: when in doubt, check w and *w !!
VI. The Voynich f6r prime numbers - CREINTIS connection
An astonishing connection between Christine's c6 anagram transform and the Voynich manuscript comes to light, when we follow the repeating transformations well beyond w, and observe the accumulations of the cycle numbers against their results strings:
Table VI-1 c6 RL w = 6
0: CRISTINE
1: TISRICNE 1, 7, 13, 19, 25, 31, 37, .....
2: ICRISTNE 2, 8, 14, 20, 26, 32, 38, .....
3: STICRINE 3, 9, 15, 21, 27, 33, 39, .....
4: RICTISNE 4, 10, 16, 22, 28, 34, 40, ....
5: ISTICRNE 5, 11, 17, 23, 29, 35, 41, ....
6: CRISTINE 6, 12, 18, 24, 30, 36, 42, ....
The numbers on the right are the cycle numbers; for example, ICRISTNE is the result on the 2nd, 8th, 14th, 20th, 26th, 32nd, 38th transformation cycles. All these numbers are of course w = 6 apart.
As you can see, the prime numbers are accumulating only on 1: TISRICNE and 5: ISTICRNE !
This is immediately reminiscent of the prime numbers wonder of the Voynich manuscript, the plant illustration of f6r already mentioned earlier. There, on page 6 of the VMS, the plant illustration is a representation of a sophisticated statement on prime numbers, one in which the non-prime number 6 plays a central role. At present, the f6r plant mathematics is still only partly decoded, but the known mathematical message is very remarkable for its sequencing of prime numbers. And, the known properties of the f6r math-plant have even been shown to be usable for predicting large prime numbers. [VI-1]
In Table VI-1 we notice that occasionally a non-prime number like 25 and 35 shows up in the 1: and 5: rows - the accumulations are not completely pure, are not exclusively primes. Investigation of this shows that the c6 anagram transformations sequence is in effect only one half of the prime number mathematics in f6r, specifically the portion that in [VI-1] was, for the mathematically trained reader, written as: pi - pj = 6n
VII. Complimentary transforms: CREINTIS-6 and ESCRINET-12
Experimenting with Voynich text "words" in c6 I saw indications that a complimentary transform was missing: it seemed that in order to make Voynich words inter-transform into other Voynich words, the c6 was only half of the requirement. This presented the opportunity to resolve the ESCRINET (an 8 symbols string) and EN ESCRIT (9 symbols counting the space as a symbol) anagrams. Again I chose the simplest route, by investigating the inter-transformation between ESCRINET and ENESCRIT, with the EN and ESCRIT combined to make an 8-symbols string. The result was what I named the ESCRINET-12 (e12) transform:
Table VII-1 ESCRINET-12 (e12) Anagram transformations sequence, w = 12
LR and RL
0: 12345678 0: ENESCRIT 0: 12345678 0: ENESCRIT
1: 18723456 1: ETINESCR 1: 34567218 1: ESCRINET
2: 16587234 2: ERCTINES 2: 56721438 2: CRINESET
3: 14365872 3: ESERCTIN 3: 72143658 3: INESERCT
4: 12743658 4: ENISERCT 4: 14365278 4: ESERCNIT
5: 18527436 5: ETCNISER 5: 36527418 5: ERCNISET
6: 16385274 6: ERETCNIS 6: 52741638 6: CNISERET
7: 14763852 7: ESIRETCN 7: 74163258 7: ISERENCT
8: 12547638 8: ENCSIRET 8: 16325478 8: ERENCSIT
9: 18325476 9: ETENCSIR 9: 32547618 9: ENCSIRET
10:16783254 10:ERITENCS 10:54761238 10:CSIRENET
11:14567832 11:ESCRITEN 11:76123458 11:IRENESCT
12:12345678 12:ENESCRIT 12:12345678 12:ENESCRIT
As you can see, e12 has w = 12. On inspecting Table III-3 and Table VII-1, a mathematician will soon see that these two pairs of transforms, c6 LR and RL, and e12 LR and RL, are complimentary members of the same symmetry group. Said plainly, all four transforms are like close members of one family. Even without the necessary mathematical training to see that, once you've had some experience working with them, you likely will get a feel that these transforms are indeed like different facets of one and the same crystal, and see that they are complimentary.
One good thing to be aware of is the reason why e12 has its w = 12. The reason is that e12 actually contains not one, but two periods, one being 3, the other being 4 - you can see this by studying the numbers columns down the rows (hint: use a highlighter). This double-periodicity greatly affects the anagram results, depending of course on the source-string characteristics, and seems to me of great interest in analyzing the mysterious Voynich text with its many examples of words groups, the members of which differ by only one symbol. Because of e12's sub-fields double-periodicity, the fundamental period for the entire field necessarily comes to 12, from 3 x 4 = 4 x 3 = 12. [VII-1]
VIII. Numbers sequences
In addition to all else, Table III-3 and Table VII-1 generate all kinds of number sequences that can be utilized to signal something, in particular to signal a signature for identifying the particular transform that generated the sequence. For example, if in the LR portion of Table III-3, you follow, in a field-position column, say field-position #2, the absolute difference between successive symbol-numbers, down along the rows, then these differences yield the numbers sequence: 5, 4, 2, 1, 2, 4 which then repeats with continuing transformation cycles. This is in the FXR sense. Note that from the RXR perspective the sequence is the same, but shifted by one row: 4, 2, 1, 2, 4, 5.
Now, all sorts of number sequences appear to be featured in the VMS, such as for example the number of text-lines in its "verses". In a moment we will look at an especially interesting VMS numbers sequence that is displayed by the stars of f103r. But first we must consider an enhancement to anagramming technique: shifting.
IX. Symbol position-shifting
A simple way to complicate anagrams, and thereby increase the enciphering, or novel composing possibilities with them, is to shift the source-string, by some number of symbol-positions, before, or equally well, after a basic transformation cycle. For example, shifting CRISTINE by 1 position to the right, before doing a c6, would mean that c6 would operate not upon CRISTINE, but on ECRISTIN. Note the wrap-around on the basic 8-symbols field, when string symbols are shifted.
A 3-position shift of CRISTINE to the left would result in STINECRI being operated on instead of CRISTINE.
We will denote a 1-position shift to the right as a C1 shift, and a 3-position shift to the left as a C-3 shift, and so on. On an 8-symbol field, the C8 and C-8 shifts would amount to no shift at all, of course.
Because the CREINTIS program has a feature which allows skipping the first shift in a transformations sequence, in other words skipping shifting for the transformation that takes 0: XXXXXXXX to 1: XXXXXXXX, we need a slight change in notation:
A "y" for "yes" will mean "yes, shift before EVERY transform cycle - do not skip the 1st". Therefore:
C-6y denotes shifting left 6 positions before each and every cycle, and C3 means shifting right 3 positions, but omitting the first shift at the beginning of a transformations sequence. Here is an example:
Table IX-1 C-3y LR c6 w = 6
0: CRISTINE
becomes STINECRI as the actual source-string for the 1st FXR, and so forth:
1: STICREIN
2: CRISTNEI
3: STICRINE
4: CRISTEIN
5: STICRNEI
6: CRISTINE
Note that 3: STICRINE also appears as a result in Table III-3.
At the top left of VMS f80v is illustrated a VMS sister holding a strange device over the text. Perhaps that device symbolizes some sort of shifting tool used with cipher tables.
With shifting, the transformations can produce effects that, depending again on source-string, make analytic deciphering attacks on anagrams far more challenging. So, able to handle shifting, let us now look at a particular VMS number sequence that received some attention in this forum recently [IX-1]
X. The mystery stars of f103r
Some VMS pages contain mostly text, but with stars drawn at the margin. Voynich page f103r consists of paragraphs of text, and at the left margin are drawn stars that feature prime numbers in several ways. There are no other illustration elements in f103r. Note that 103 is also a prime number. The stars run down the left margin from top to bottom, and their total number is prime: 19. Some of the stars are colored solid red-brown, and some are just outlined, or very lightly shaded. The last star, the 19th, at the bottom, is the only one that has a "tail". Exactly 1 star, the 4th, has 6 rays. The stars exhibit much more information, for example, some of them have a dot in their center. The last 3 text-lines are the only text-lines group not framed by 2 stars, but just one, the last star.
What do these stars mean? wonders every star-struck thinker in Voynichville. Do these stars give any clues to the text on f103r, or clues to some other part of the VMS? Lots of Voynichvillians believe quite possibly yes, in fact suspect that understanding the mystery of the f103r stars will open a wide door into the secret inner sanctum of the world's most mysterious manuscript. Let us see if, with help from Christine, we can finally breach that door a little bit.
Let us count the stars in their groupings. First, we note that there are 4 groups of 3 close-together stars each. Therefore we expect the numbers 4 and 3 to play some role in the developing analysis. In fact, because 4 is tied to 6 via the 6-rayed star, we expect 3 and 4 and 6 to be intimately associated in any revelation on these 19 stars.
Next, let us count the groupings, of stars-of-the-same-kind in succession. At top, the 1st star is solid, followed by 2 plain stars, followed by 1 solid star, and so on. Counting like this, we obtain the following sequence of integer numbers:
1, 2, 1, 1, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 1, 1, 2, 1, 2
There is obviously a pattern, but it is problematic: as integer sequences go, despite its innocent appearance, this particular integer sequence is not especially easy to generate with mathematical formulas, where by "easy" we mean that there are tons of different equations that will, perhaps with a little adjustment, generate this sequence as an output, when fed with 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, ......... as input.
A sophisticated mathematical mechanism involving arrays (reminiscent of tables of numbers) does generate the above sequence, and this mechanism is related to another similar mechanism that happens to characterize the least number of syllables necessary to communicate certain information, in the French language. This of course is extremely interesting in the present considerations, but we will disregard it for now, as these mathematical mechanisms are from modern times.
But it turns out that Christine's e12 transform, coupled with -6 shifting (i.e. left shifting 6 positions), will generate this sequence, while also relying on the numbers 3 and 4. We start with a source-string that contains 3 numbers, carefully placed into the field along with 5 filler hyphens to make up the full 8-symbols field 0: --12-1--
Table X-1 The mystery stars of Voynich f103r signal to us:
C-6y LR e12 w = 4
0: --12-1--
1: -1----12
2: 1--2-1--
3: -1--1--2
4: --12-1--
Reading normally, from left to right, and down the rows, but ignoring the hyphens, and taking the numbers as single digits as they come, the sequence has been generated, but at the end, after a hyphen, is an extra 1. Perhaps that hyphen-separated extra 1 means the tail on the last star; this is an attractive idea because of the tail's curvature, as if to imply repetition, and indeed 4: is the completion of the w = 4 periodicity, and 5: would result in the same as 1: .
However, I am not satisfied with the present level of this analysis. For one thing, should there not be some acknowledgement-clue on f103r, concerning the specifics of the source-string construction we placed into the 8-positions field? Perhaps there is such a clue, and I am not seeing it yet. I do think this analytic attack is generally on the right track, but it has a long way to go. But at least it can be said, that Christine de Pizan's anagram transforms are undeniably, somehow, related to the mystery of the stars of f103r.
Well alright then, does anything interesting happen when we transform text on page f103r according to C-6y LR e12 ?
The first "word" on f103r consists of 9 Voynich text symbols, starting with one of the tall looped symbols that are commonly known as "gallows" letters in Voynichville. We note that the last 2 symbols, #8 and #9, strongly resemble the Hindu-Arabic numerals 8 and 9 - this pattern appears elsewhere in the VMS. [X-1]
To this point our transformations have been limited to an 8-symbols-field. We have 9 symbols here, and we must first formalize the handling of source-strings with more than 8 symbols.
XI. Generalization of c6 and e12 to source-strings of any length
How do we generalize the c6 and e12 transformations to symbol-fields of any size beyond 8? The possible ways to do it are unlimited. We want the one correct generalization method that was used by whoever originally developed the anagram system that Christine employed. If we get it wrong, then further progress with this promising Voynich analysis is likely to hit a brick wall - the all-too-common experience in Voynichville. Note that we have already assumed that that correct method is focused upon a basic field-size of 8 symbols - we made that assumption when we dealt with EN ESCRIT, contracting it to ENESCRIT to deduce the e12 transform.
I decided that, in general, the c6 and e12 schemes always operate on a total field of multiples of 8-symbol sub-fields, and operate on the sub-fields as independent units. This is the reason for retaining the 1234567812345678 etc. indexing, even when mirror operations are being considered, where 1234567887654321 etc. is initially easier to deal with. Blank spaces in the field are transformed as like any other symbol occupying its field-position. Anagram influences across sub-fields are obtained via shifting - the shifting applies to the total field, and symbols can shift into, or out of specific sub-fields.
This very simple generalization method nevertheless, inherently, permits great complications in anagramming. For example, the transformation direction, LR or RL, can be made to alternate between successive 8-symbol sub-fields. So we could have for example the 1st, 3rd, 5th, 7th, etc. sub-fields transformed RL, while the 2nd, 4th, 6th, etc. subfields are transformed LR. The CREINTIS computer program includes this capability, and other capabilities, such as alternating the transform type, c6 or e12, between successive transformations. Needless to say, a good notation system for keeping track of the details of transformation sequences, is essential.
XII. Transformation stability and those very famous Voynich words, or: dine at 8 o'clock in the morning
Let us have a first look at a 16-positions-field transformation sequence, and illustrate several things at once.
Now, the *w is mathematically related to an important effect: symbol-stability under transformation, with respect to certain field-positions. From Table III-3 we have already seen that for LR c6 the symbols in the #1 and #2 field-positions are stable - they remain in place regardless of transformation cycles, provided there is no shifting. With RL c6 it is #7 and #8 that remain stable - the symbols there, are parked there.
But with shifting, other field-positions host symbol-stability, and in several combinations, depending on transformation set-up, and the size of the field, as you will discover from your experimentation. These stable-under-shifted-transformation conditions are very important when planning an anagram to have a certain appearance - something of great interest to Voynich text students. Lets have a look at one example, pre-calculated to send several little messages simultaneously, one of them perhaps a bit subtle, but I don't want to deprive you of the astonishment upon discovering it for yourself with experimentation, and then see that despite its subtlety, it actually roars a message about the construction of the Voynich text:
Table XII-1 Symbols position-stability under shifted FXR, 16-symbols field
C2y RL e12 w = 4 stable field-positions: 12345, 12345
0: 12345xxx12345xxx
0: priime-2priim---
1: priim--epriim2--
2: priim---priime-2
3: priim2--priim--e
4: priime-2priim---
Voynich-text experts will recognize, that if the letters in the above example source-string are transcribed to certain obvious Voynich text symbols, then every one of the sub-strings, including the single-symbol 2 and e, are found in the Voynich text corpus, either as Voynich word components in longer words, or both as components and words on their own. The word representations priime and epriim2 appear as components of words, and all the others appear as both components and self-standing words. These have been among the most intensely studied of all the words, in the 8000+ Voynich "vocabulary". [XII-1, XII-2]
The planning of anagram sequences can present to the would-be decipherer an extra measure of confusion, by building into the sequence temporary apparent stabilities. If indeed the c6 and e12 transforms were the main generating engines for the Voynich text, then the following two simplified examples may illustrate one reason why the text has been so confusing, despite harboring plenty of obvious structure. In the next 2 tables, the only thing different between the tables is the starting source-string; the operations on those strings are identical, and include alternating the LR and RL transformation directions, between successive transform cycles, with the first transformation operation being LR:
Table XII-2 Temporary apparent stabilities
C-2y LR Ry e12 w = 8
0: ENESCRIT
LR
1: ENESCRIT
RL
2: CRITESEN
LR
3: IRCTESEN
RL
4: ESENITCR
LR
5: ESENITCR
RL
6: ITCRENES
LR
7: CITRENES
RL
8: ENESCRIT
LR
9: ENESCRIT
In the above, the notation Ry means "yes, alternate the transformation direction between successive cycles". The LR to its left means that the transformations sequence starts with LR. As you can see, there are 2 temporary apparent stabilities on the entire 8-symbols field, ENESCRIT and ESENITCR. That they are only apparent, and not universal stabilities, is seen with a different source-string undergoing the same operations:
Table XII-3 Temporary apparent stabilities
C-2y LR Ry e12 w = 8
0: CONFUSED
LR
1: NOCFUSED
RL
2: USEDNFCO
LR
3: ESUDNFCO
RL
4: NFCOEDUS
LR
5: CFNOEDUS
RL
6: EDUSCONF
LR
7: UDESCONF
RL
8: CONFUSED
LR
9: NOCFUSED
The above 2 sequences are enough to figure out what is really going on, for the particular set-up, but it is easiest to see the effect by observing the behavior of the source-string 12345678 or 87654321.
XIII. Christine's secret message to posterity with EN ESCRIT
Before continuing, lets take a brief moment to address computer-helped analysis of medieval era cipher-text, versus the tools available back then to generate that text. During this work I noticed that the computer is mainly an aid for generating code tables quickly. All else is working creatively with the tables, and it is especially the experience and familiarity with the various tables that enables you to generate and decipher anagrams, especially in planning an anagram to have a certain look, as it simultaneously conceals its message(s).
I mentioned that there is a subtlety in the Table XII-1 example: it is far easier to spot it from tables, than from complicated equations that analyze the transformations. I therefore visualize that back in medieval times, the encoders had lots and lots of code tables handy, laboriously copied previously, and their experience in using them was the decisive factor, and not any particular "advanced" mathematics knowledge, although of course better mathematical skills could only help a writer of secret messages be more creative [XIII-1]. I also, especially in the beginning of the CREINTIS work, got the definite feeling, that learning the system of these anagrams would be a delightful experience for a little girl being taught "secrets" by her mathematics competent father.
So lets have a look at another idea that little Christine may have learned from Thomas de Pizan. We recall that CRI, and the 2-parts EN ESCRIT, are anagrams that Christine used to identify herself:
Table XIII-1 Christine's secret message to posterity with EN ESCRIT
C0 LR c6 w = 6 16-field
0: -----EN-ESCRIT--
1: ---EN---ES-T-ICR
2: -----N-EESRIC--T
3: --EN----EST--CRI
4: ------ENESICR-T-
5: --N-E---ES--TRIC
6: -----EN-ESCRIT--
Now, I have already begged your patience with my poor middle French language skills. However nevertheless, I believe I am being reasonable, especially in light of anagramming, when I propose that these 2 lines:
3: --EN----EST--CRI
5: --N-E---ES--TRIC
are perfectly understandable French, and translate to:
3: It is Christine
4: This is not a trick
In other words:
It is I, Christine who is deliberately composing these particular anagrams, and I am communicating to you that my anagrams are not just a simple trick or fortuitous accident, but rather they are part of a serious and sophisticated system, and that I understand that system, and I am, with planning, using it to transmit messages, to those of you in the future who will look for them in my works.
The above deduction can be challenged. Lets address that, upon the given that the 3: and 5: of Table XIII-1 read, in French, about as I have translated. How long did it take me to find them? Just a few minutes. Because: I went looking for them, or more accurately, I went looking for an expansion of Christine's anagrams into coherent phrases.
Very early on in working with c6 and e12, loaded with Christine's anagrams and some other words from her writings, like dame Raison, dame Droitture, and dame Justice, I noticed that during the transformation cycles I would see, among other interesting things, what appeared to me to be bits and pieces of good words, and some of these words, across the cycles, seemed like they might make up coherent phrases. So naturally, I tried to find the particular transformation sequence that would bring these words together in the same cycle, or at least in proper sequence. In the EN ESCRIT investigation that resulted in the above, I intentionally loaded EN ESCRIT asymmetrically into a 16-field, because EN ESCRIT is an asymmetric words group itself - I took that as a possible clue and tried it.
If this were done via formal mathematics, it would be tremendously complicated, although of course that would remove all mystery from the processes. But as I pointed out at the beginning of this section, it is the familiarity and experience working with code tables that makes this kind of thing practical. I visualize Christine sitting at her desk, with sheets of code tables before her, and she having in mind the selection of a good anagram of her name or alter ego, from among the tremendous number of possibilities. And she also wants that anagram to say something more than just her name - she has some phrases in mind.
And so Christine experiments, and soon sees words and pieces of words appearing on her anagram worksheets. She gets an idea for the possibility of a certain phrase, and starts actively pursuing its synthesis via the transformation sequences she is familiar with, and which she has a good feel for, regarding their behavior. And at some point, she achieves a phrase, or as in the above a pair of phrases, that is acceptable to her. And the source-string out of which it all came, having initially been chosen to contain letters that she wanted in the first place, becomes her chosen anagram for her name.
Until you have done some of this kind of experimentation, (and the CREINTIS program will make it convenient for you), it may seem too complicated to be plausible that Christine did this deliberately. But, once you've had some experience, you will see that what is in fact unbelievable, is that Christine would chose the particular anagrams that she did, and be clueless about what was concealed within them.
XIV. The mysterious stars of f103r illuminate its text, a little
In section X. I indicated that I was not yet satisfied with the indications that the text of f103r ought to be attacked via a C-6y LR e12 transformation sequence. It is a lot of work, even with computer help, to attack the mysterious Voynich text, and one would like to be fairly certain that a particular transformation sequence is going to lead somewhere productive.
The Voynich "text" is problematic from several angles, famously its repetitive characteristics that make it hard to believe that it, or most of it anyway, might represent straightforwardly a European language, but one written in a unique alphabet. It is certain that pages in the VMS went missing in the early 20th century, and at least some of them contained text. The text's symbols "alphabet" could, depending on opinions about scribe hand variations, vary in letters count by a factor of two or more. Incognito symbols further complicate the interpretation of the text. [XIV-1] Most of the symbols themselves do have connections to various alphabets and numeration systems available in late medieval times.
There is no punctuation, and it is impossible to know if its "words" are indeed anything like what that idea suggests, especially if they are the logical units of some serially generated information stream. In her book, D'Imperio give a table (Fig. 27) of Tiltman's work, based on his ideas of the Voynich alphabet, showing the structure of common Voynich words in terms of "Roots" and "Suffixes" [1]. Tiltman's observations are the start-point for newcomers to Voynich text analysis, and the first thing they suggest is that, if the words are taken to be logical units, that is, a space between physical words on the VMS parchment actually separates two distinct logical words, then many of the words are glued together from his list of roots and suffixes, with roots 1-3 letters, and suffixes 2-5 letters in length, and with some further letters commonalities among the roots, and among the suffixes.
Regardless of any possible linguistic meaning, on the assumption that the text can, efficiently, be verbally dictated, in any normal language, by a reader to a writer scribe, I have previously shown a simple method that could have been employed to do that. [XIV-2]
It is also uncertain if the physical text-lines are the same as logical text-lines, and the same applies to the apparent paragraphs, in short we do not know where the logical beginnings and endings are in the text, not even for words. And, overriding everything, is the ever-present pattern of featured numbers in the text, just as in so many of the VMS illustrations, especially prime numbers, signaling that whatever else the text is, it is to be regarded as some kind of mathematical object.
And with all that in mind, I tried C-6y LR e12 on the first word on the f103r stars page anyway, to see what would happen. That first word is transcribed by Claston [XII-2] in Voynich 101 as the 6-symbols string:
g1c8ae
and in my mind I pronounce it "gee-one-cetae". But, as detailed in the reference, Claston's transcription alphabet also allows this word to be transcribed in other ways, for example:
gc18ae or gccc8ae or gcC8ae
This word, g1c8ae , appears on only three other VMS pages, always at the beginning of a line: in the star pages f105v and f108v, and on page f83r, which is mysteriously illustrated with VMS sisters, two of whom have between them the one and only star on that page, with the upper sister's head opposite g1c8ae.
As a 6-symbols string, g1c8ae can be loaded into an 8-symbols field in different ways:
0: g1c8ae-- or 0: -g1c8ae- or 0: --g1c8ae
and can be loaded in many more ways into fields of 16, 24, 32 etc. field-positions, for example in a 16-positions field:
0: -----g1c|8ae-----
where the "|" is merely a notational boundary indicator between the end of the first 8-symbols field, and the start of the second 8-symbols field, and plays no role whatsoever in transform calculations and the readings of strings.
This just given 16-field loading of g1c8ae was the first I tried that began to show some curious results. In the VMS there are several pages that show what appear to be code tables, or partial code tables, and in particular the entire f57v circular diagram has long been variously attacked as some kind of code wheel, with the hope of gleaning from it the key to reading the VMS text. The history and results of all this can be read in D'Imperio's book, and by searching the vms-list archives for more recent findings.
Table XIV-1 GC-transcr. g1c8ae loaded on a 16-field operated upon by
C-6y LR e12 w = 8
0: -----g1c8ae-----
1: 1--c8ae--g------
2: e----g---a8-1--c
3: --1--a8--g-ce---
4: 8-e--g-c-a----1-
5: ---c-a--1g--8-e-
6: --8-1g--ea-----c
7: ----ea---g1c--8-
The transformation sequence has generated the following 12 Voynich text elements (in the GC transcription alphabet):
1, g, e, c, 8, a
a8, ce, 1g, ea
g1c
c8ae
The first thing to note is that every one of these is a legitimate text element: no not-found-in-the-VMS-corpus elements have been generated. This should not be taken as an absolute requirement however, since it is known that there are missing pages in the VMS, and some VMS words are unique, appearing only once on a single page, and it is entirely conceivable that generated apparently-illegitimate text elements are actually somewhere on those missing pages. Nevertheless, we are happy that at this very early exploratory stage we do not have to invoke that argument.
Also, so that you will spot these instances in your research: I have seen cases where, when a transformations sequence produces an oddball, an element that does not appear in the VMS corpus at all, like 91yok, it can happen that its mirror, koy19, is in the VMS corpus, even as a rarity: koy19 appears only twice in the entire VMS.
Note that in the FXR sense, Table XIV-1 shows the successive differentiation, or decomposition, of a Voynich word. In the RXR sense, choosing any of the transform results as a starting point, we see from there the integration toward a Voynich word - the elements condensing to become that word.
Now, it is one thing for a generated element, say g1c, to be a word component, that is, it is part of a longer word like g1c8ae, but it is a very different matter for an element, no matter how common it is as a word-component, and no matter how long or short it is, to be found as a self-standing word in the VMS. If we go ahead and examine the 12 generated elements from this point of view, we find some interesting results:
As a self-standing word, the common word-component element GC-c is very rare: it occurs on star pages f58r and f112v, and it occurs several times in the apparent code-table on f49v, a "botanical" page.
Element GC-g, a common Voynich gallows letter, occurs as a word only on code pages f49v and f57v.
Element GC-e is common both as a component, and word, but as a word it is especially common in the f57v apparent code wheel. Also it is found as a word in the apparent codes column on f66r.
A common component, element GC-1 as a word is found only 3 or 4 times in the VMS depending on transcription opinion. The 3 unambiguous occurrences are f75r where a VMS sister's left foot is conspicuously separating it from a word that starts with the symbol GC-8, and it is found once each, on star pages f103v and f108r. Page f75r is familiar to us from a previous possible Christine - VMS connections discussion. [XIV-3]
Common as a component, element GC-a as a word is found only on code page f57v, on star page f104v, and on "medicinal" page f89v1.
Now, we cannot deem these results as anything more than encouraging in the matter of pursuing the basic strategy: finding an interpretation from a Voynich page that gives clues to setting up the c6 and / or e12 transformations, and from there launching an analytic attack on some part of the VMS to see if we can detect something promising. Any number of schemes might have produced the results in Table XIV-1. So, we will next try a more ambitious effort. Before we do it, lets summarize the foregoing:
1. We extracted a mathematically rare integers sequence from star page f103r.
2. We found a way to set up the e12 transform so that it would produce that integer sequence in an 8-positions symbol field, with w = 4.
3. With that same set-up we transformed, or if you prefer, we anagrammed, the first word on page f103r, after first loading it upon a 16-positions symbol field, the overall set-up then having w = 8.
4. The results of the transformations produced no difficulties, and instead produced remarkable correlations between star pages, code pages, and two other Voynich pages, one of them showing an especially rare-in-the-VMS thing: a VMS sister emphasizing a text symbol. With her foot no less!
Now let us try a more ambitious attack, one that will have greater possibility for failure, and therefore will serve as a more severe test for the message written in the stars of f103r. Whereas there are in the VMS, 4 examples of the word g1c8ae , the longer word 9kC19g19 is unique to f103r. As transcribed, it has only 5 unique symbols compared to the 6 different symbols of g1c8ae . Here is what happens:
Table XIV-2 9kC19g19 loaded on a 16-field operated upon by
C-6y LR e12 w = 8
0: ----9kC19g19----
1: C--19g19-k9-----
2: 1--9-k9--g9-C--1
3: 9-C--g9--k-11--9
4: 9-1--k-1-g-99-C-
5: --91-g-9Ck--9-1-
6: --99Ck--1g----91
7: ----1g--9kC1--99
Word 99 occurs exactly once in the VMS, on the 9-rosettes f86v foldout.
Word 19g19 occurs exactly once in the VMS, on f16v, a botanical page strongly featuring the prime number 13.
And of the altogether 15 different elements / words that have been generated, two of them, 9Ck and 99Ck , are not found in the extant VMS. What about their mirrors?
The kC9 mirror of 9Ck is common as both a word-component and word.
The kC99 mirror of 99Ck is not found, EXCEPT it is found in several places in the VMS as the serial end and beginning of adjacent words, for example on page f107r, we have:
.okC9.9h1c9.
where the periods are standard transcript notation for indicating the terminal ends of words.
So we have two unique words as a prize, and offsetting them, apparently, two mystery elements, or failures depending on your point of view, coming out of a unique Voynich word. Are the two mystery elements found on those missing VMS pages? Even more intriguing, could 9Ck and 99Ck be incognito words, or mirror incognito words, meant to be resolved, and then further interpreted? If 9Ck and 99Ck are indicators of a problem with the analysis, is the reason, as first suspected in section X., that the transformation sequence prescription, namely C-6y LR e12, is incomplete?
It is of course easy to say it is a failure, and that's that. It doesn't take any work to say that. It takes a lot of work to tunnel into the VMS and detect the underground streams that lead to its hidden fountain. Let us try a Christine transforms attack on a completely different type of Voynich page and see the results.
XV. A c6 and e12 attack on Voynich ms page f10v
The f10v "botanical" Voynich page is one of those, where its mathematical symbolism is so forceful and obvious at first glance, obvious to a mathematics-sensitive mind, that any notion that the designer of this page was not mathematically oriented, and the page's numerical and geometric composition just came out as it did accidentally, is basically unbelievable. Immediately at first glance is seen that the page forcefully displays the complete sequence of prime numbers from 2 to 11:
2 blue flowers
3 green leaves on the left
5 green leaves on the right
7 text-lines
11 roots
Some other obvious numbers are:
2 paragraphs, 2 distensions behind each flower, 2 long leaf-extensions on both sides of the stalk near the bottom.
3 text-lines in the first paragraph, 3 colors.
11 occurrences of the 4-o symbol (GC-4o) in the text.
A few non-prime numbers are strongly featured as well:
4 text-lines in the 2nd paragraph, 4 long leaf extensions, 4 left-side offshoots from the main stalk. 6 right-side offshoots, 6 petals each on the 2 flowers for a total of 12. 6 is one of the most common and most important non-prime numbers featured in the VMS. 8 leaves altogether.
Conspicuously absent as a strongly featured number, is 9.
The shoots off the main stalk count up to 10, and if the folio numbering is correct ( f10r displays a "10" in Hind-Arabic numerals), then that is an interesting coincidence for f10v, even if the folio numbering was done well later than the making of the book.
And in the 11 roots, going from the 2 close together "legs" on the left, we see the numbers sequence: 2, 1, 2, 3, 3, and their geometry suggests a counterclockwise, or to-the-right rotation.
The geometry of the plant also suggests to us that we interpret the plant as a symbolic representation of a mathematical procedure - the plant illustration seems to invite us to take some specific mathematical steps according to its design.
But what could those mathematical steps be? Geometrically the f10v plant is very different from the f6r prime numbers plant, so the mathematical procedure for it must be quite different. We are in brand new territory here and are nowhere near having mastered the language of the Voynich math-plant.
It does look like the right side of the f10v plant depicts an enciphering process: the extensions of the lower leaf are tangled up, and at the top the flower is touching the top leaf, suggesting a closed-up state. The left side suggests the opposite - the leaf extensions are loose and apart, and at the top, the flower is free - decoded, so to speak. If we assume that the c6 and / or e12 transforms are relevant to f10v, then somehow, the f10v numbers and geometry specify encoding and decoding transformation sequences.
I tried a few transformations on some words from the f10v text, and got mixed results, until I noticed that the results got better with more words loaded onto a larger field - this was very encouraging. Here are the latest results:
Table XV-1 The first 3 words of line 7 on VMS page f10v, 24-field:
C7y LR Ry e12 +y w = 528
0: 4ohoe---19h9----1oe-----
1: o4-e----oh1---oe91-h9---
2: --9-h1-oe-----4o-o-1-he9
3: o-9-1-he-9e-o1-h--o----4
4: ---o--4o-1-he9--1-oe-9h-
5: ---oe-9h---4o-o-11--he9-
6: e9h--1--oe-9h----oo-4--1
7: oe1o-4--9ho--1--e---9h--
8: h-9----oo-4--1e91--o-h-e
The notation +y stands for "yes, alternate the transform type every 8 symbols".
Throughout the first 7 cycles no non-elements are generated, and there even are some rarities. The rarest element is e9h which occurs just once in the VMS, on line 6 of f21r in the word: hoe9h9 . Perhaps the transforming of that word will open yet another path through the VMS, and lead to one of the major goals in this analytic strategy:
Transforming along a complete closed circuit path through the VMS, where everywhere along the way the clues are clearly and unambiguously unified.
One non-element, 1e91 , is generated by the 8th cycle. Now, there is in the VMS on the 1st line of f70r2 the sequence:
.ay.1e9.2ckcae.
in other words a 1e9.2 sequence, and the difference between GC-1 and GC-2 is not very great: GC-2 looks like GC-1 with a diacritic mark over it. However, a more compelling explanation for why everything works smoothly through cycle 7 might be this: the source-words were taken from line 7. Perhaps the clue is that cycle 7, of the 528 possible, is as far as one is to go with line 7.
Once more, note how from the RXR perspective, little pieces of Voynich text elements are condensing to become the first three words, in the correct order, of line 7 of f10v.
I have not yet had time to investigate the entire line 7 transformed all at once. I hope that the CREINTIS program will find some users so that these work-intensive investigations can be distributed, and exciting results will be reported by many. Table XV-1 above, ought to demonstrate that there exists an undeniable connection between Christine's anagrams and the Voynich text. If sequences like those in Table XV-1 were easy to come by, then the VMS long ago would have lost the status of "the world's most mysterious manuscript".
XVI. COMMENTS
In the foregoing we have addressed all of the 5 questions at the beginning of this writing. What we have not done, is to prove that Christine is the mastermind of the hypothetical lost document mcP, from which the VMS derives. Certainly not prove it in the physics laboratory experiment sense. What we have done, is to add to previously developed indications that Christine de Pizan and the Voynich manuscript have a deep connection, if only by way of exhibiting the same special and highly mathematical sources, and we have demonstrated that by studying this connection, mysteries of the world's most mysterious manuscript are becoming less mysterious, and rapidly so. And, everything that led up to the outlining of the mcP hypothesis, and the identification of Christine de Pizan as the first most likely candidate for the MmsP of the hypothesis, that is the mastermind behind the mcP, and everything since through this writing, has followed the one same principle that was explicitly stated back on April 12, 2006 [XVI-1]:
To understand the Voynich manuscript, navigate its prime numbers.
We have made more compelling the case, that Christine and Voynich students ought to be taking a close look at each other's material, to see if they can solve some of their respective mystery concerns.
Thanks for coming along with me this far. And thank you Jim Gillogly for hosting this forum.
Berj / KI3U
[1] vms-list post: Vms: Christine de Pizan and the Voynich Manuscript; Friday, June 16 2006 9:59 PM
The online headquarters of the vms-list is here:
http://www.voynich.net/
The online searchable archives of the vms-list is here:
http://voynich.ms/
The classical philologist Mary D'Imperio wrote c.1976 the one indispensable standard reference work on the Voynich Manuscript:
The Voynich Manuscript - An Elegant Enigma, by M.E. D'Imperio, Aegean Park Press, ISBN 0-89412-038-7
The online Christine de Pizan database is here:
http://www.arts.ed.ac.uk/french/christine/cpstart.htm
[2] During the above work I created an analysis tool, a computer program, that I named CREINTIS. In order to make it easy for others interested to check the above findings, I added user-friendliness features to it (as an after-thought that was a difficult task), resulting in CREINTIS V 1.0. CREINTIS is a self-standing, ready-to-run program; its file-size is appx. 60 Kb. It runs under DOS or Windows. It has built-in only the absolute minimum necessary Help pointers, but its start-up set-up is simple to quickly learn. This writing will have to serve as its reference manual. CREINTIS is specific to the c6 and e12 anagram transforms discussed here, and while it does not include anywhere near all the analytic conveniences one would like to have in one program, it has all those essential ones that were used in the work discussed in this writing.
I am making CREINTIS available as freeware to interested parties, whether or not they are members of the Voynich vms-list forum, although of course I reserve the right to ignore some requests.
To request a copy, email me direct, ki3u athotmail do t c om, and include "CREINTIS program" in the subject line.
* * *
[II-1] vms-list post: VMs: General mcP Hypothesis on the Voynich Manuscript; May 21, 2006 11:41 PM
vms-list thread: VMs: Christine de Pizan and the Voynich Manuscript; Friday, June 16, 2006 9:59 PM
[II-2] The Voynich Manuscript is MS 408 in the Beinecke Library of Yale University:
http://webtext.library.yale.edu/beinflat/pre1600.ms408.htm
[II-3] I have to this point been relying on the following books for information and bibliography:
a.) Christine de Pizan, Her Life and Works, A Biography by Charity Cannon Willard, NY Persea Books, 1984
b.) The Writings of Christine de Pizan, Selected and Edited by Charity Cannon Willard, NY, Persea Books, 1994
c.) Christine de Pizan, The Book of the City of Ladies, Translated and with an introduction and notes by Rosalind Brown-Grant, London, Penguin Books, 1999
[II-4] The dressing-herself sister-3 in f80r is an unusual symbol in the Voynich manuscript. Nearly all of the hundreds of VMS sisters are depicted naked, this apparently being symbolic of the idea that within the sisterhood its members are completely open with one another. Their bulging tummies perhaps serve to remind that woman is the carrier of the womb, without which there is nothing.
* * *
[III-1] http://www.sigu7.jussieu.fr/christine2006/indexE.htm Fortunately, Mary Weitzel Gibbons is presenting a paper "Hands as Signs: Visual Codes in Christine's Manuscripts"; this could be directly relevant to the Voynich - Christine connections analysis - see discussion of the ribbon symbol in [II-1]
[III-2] pg. 116 in [II-3, a.)]
[III-3] http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/18061
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/12812
[III-4] Prime numbers are whole numbers that can not be broken into a product of smaller whole numbers. The prime numbers are to non-primes what the gods are to mere mortals.
Here you can find out if a number up to 9999999 is prime or not, and get tables:
http://www.easycalculation.com/prime-number.php
[III-5] vms-list post: VMs: braided prime number equations in f6r; Tuesday, April 4, 2006 1:39 AM
[III-6] http://tell.fll.purdue.edu/RLA-Archive/1990/French-html/ROBBINS-HERRING,KITTYE.htm
[III-7] And if you are really motivated, verify that Table III-1 and Table III-2 are mirror operations. To do that, it is easier to initially work with 12345678 and its mirror 87654321.
* * *
[V-1] To appreciate one of the subtleties in Table V-1, see for example the glossary entry for Saint Christine in: [II-3, c.)]
* * *
[VI-1] vms-list post: RE: VMs: braided prime number equations in f6r; Tuesday, April 4, 2006 5:30 PM
* * *
[VII-1] In the vms-list post: VMs: prime numbers and quadratic forms; Monday, April 17, 2006 1:30 PM, I used a fictional character, Roger Rudolf the medieval mathematician, to illustrate how in his attempt to factor a certain quadratic, Roger's reasoning had him close to the territory, where centuries later the theory of complex variables would arise. Here above, in the c6 and e12 tables, we have a similar situation. Working with cipher tables like Table III-3 and Table VII-1, Roger Rudolf is highly aware of orthogonal integer sequences, not far removed from the continuous orthogonal coordinates introduced by Descartes in the early 17th century. And even more remarkable, the double-periodicity of e12 already contains the essential idea of multi-periodic mathematical objects that would come to full fruition with doubly-periodic elliptic / theta functions in the complex plane, and also Poincare's ideas, in the 19th century. This all invites a closer look at the historical influence of ciphers and secret communications on the development of mathematics, and especially the question of who knew what level of mathematics when, and was keeping quiet about what they knew. :-)
See also vms-list post: RE: VMs: Mathematical symbols of the beast; Saturday, April 8, 2006 11:42 AM.
* * *
[IX-1] vms-list post: Re: VMs: Transcription of the recipe stars; Tuesday, May 30, 2006 5:09 PM
* * *
[X-1] vms-list post: VMs: f86v clock text; Monday, May 1, 2006 5:07 PM
* * *
[XII-1] I hope that, now seven years later, Table XII-1, and its higher meaning, will make up for my initial answer, back then in an e-mail exchange with Gabriel Landini, when he asked me what my (then-as-Voynich-newcomer) findings were on those referred-to Voynich words.
[XII-2] As with many ancient manuscripts, transcribing their symbols, or apparent symbols-in-their-own-right, from the Voynich manuscript, presents many problems, because one can never know for sure what is an accurate transcription. The famous Voynich "words" referred to are, visually, obviously members of a family of words, but the variations among them are troubling, and it is often uncertain how many separate symbols, 5 or 4 or 3 etc., actually compose an instance of the word.
Historically, several transcription systems have been devised and used in VMS research, and they have their record of performance to accept or reject. Commonly, the goal in devising a transcription alphabet, is to assign to both unambiguous, and apparent Voynich symbols, readily useable symbols, such as those in the Latin alphabet that have ASCII computer codes, so that a block of transcribed Voynich text can be conveniently analyzed.
Perhaps the critical factor in devising a transcription alphabet is what the creator of the alphabet, based on experience with the entire Voynich text corpus, judges to be symbols-in-their-own-right, as intended by the Voynich scribe. The most recent transcription alphabet, released earlier this year, was devised by longtime Voynich researcher Glen Claston. In my writings, when I refer to a single Voynich symbol by Glen's alphabet equivalent, I write, for example: GC-e or GC-101. These refer to the same symbol, because 101 is the ASCII code for "e". The Voynich symbol in this case is the common one that looks like a little ribbon, and is familiar to us in connection with Christine and BL Harley MS 4431. [XII-3]
I also may write longer transcribed-in-Claston-alphabet strings by preceding them with GC- , for example GC-4ok , but if it is understood that we are exclusively using the Claston alphabet, then the GC- can be dispensed with. It is a matter of making sure that newcomers do not get confused.
Glen also released a transcript, using his transcription alphabet, of the entire Voynich manuscript - he named that transcript "Voynich 101". Transcribing more than single symbols, of course greatly multiplies the difficulties. Just one example is: are these two separate words, or one long word, that the scribe wrote with some uneven spacing in the middle? Another example: this illustration component (say a plant stem) is cutting through a paragraph of text - is the stem splitting words in the same text-line, or are the symbol groups on the immediate left and right of the stem, separate words?
In Voynich 101 Glen has transcribed the very first word in the Voynich manuscript, the 5-symbols start-word of the first paragraph of f1r, as:
fal9s
Working with transcriptions, you tend to pronounce them, for efficiency. When I read fal9s I hear myself in my mind saying "falninus". And so on. It can be hilarious reading the VMS this way, while at the same time getting ideas on a possible language underneath the mysterious text.
Glen's transcription alphabet allows several different transcriptions of the same Voynich word. For example, that famous Voynich word can be written with Glen's alphabet as 8am if you judge a particular instance of it to consist of just 3 symbols. But if instead, your judgment has it as say 5 symbols, then you could transcribe it with Glen's alphabet as 8aiiN . And you could transcribe it in several other ways with Glen's alphabet, according to your judgment of what is actually written on the VMS parchment in that instance.
Obviously, Glen's Voynich 101 transcript gives just one possible transcription, of the huge number possible. But it is very easy to tailor Voynich 101 to your judgments, because the real power underneath it all is the transcription alphabet that Glen Claston devised. If for example, on a certain VMS page, Voynich 101 shows a word as 8am, and you believe it should be 8aiiN, or 8ain, then the change can easily be done with a document processor's find-and-replace function, operating only upon that relevant portion of Voynich 101.
Claston's VMS transcription alphabet and Voynich 101 transcript seem to be particularly well suited for working with c6 and e12 transformations of Voynich text. Glen is currently also working on a concordance. Glen's alphabet and 101 transcript, as well as other important Voynich material, plus pointers to Glen's own highly developed VMS hypothesis, a hypothesis that is quite different from the mcP hypothesis, are all available online here:
http://internet.cybermesa.com/~galethog/Voynich/
If you are a newcomer to Voynich text analysis, and you find yourself wanting to make use of transcription alphabets designed by other Voynich workers, then it is, in my opinion, extremely, extremely important for you to know the details of the particular transcription alphabet versus what YOU actually see in the world's most mysterious manuscript, before you start using that transcription alphabet and drawing conclusions about the VMS text. Because, a good transcription alphabet can make you see things, that are there in the ms, that otherwise might take you years to see. Years! And another transcription alphabet might actually mask those details. You know the old saying: what comes out (of analysis) can be no better than what goes in (the representation of the source material).
[XII-3] vms-list post: Re: VMs: Christine de Pizan and the Voynich Manuscript; Tuesday, June 20, 2006 9:30 PM
* * *
[XIII-1] Formal mathematical analysis of anagrams transforms can rapidly become advanced mathematics plus computation intensive mathematics. Everything is in principle calculable, for example, one can, after having written the equations that characterize the transformations, choose a desired anagram result for a given starting source-string, and then solve the equations to see if the desired result is possible, and if yes, obtain the transformations-sequence recipe that will produce the desired anagram. Back in medieval times they obviously did not do it that way - they relied on familiarity and experience working with code tables, the more code tables, and the more diverse code tables, the better.
* * *
[XIV-1] vms-list thread: VMs: incognito symbols in the Voynich manuscript; Wednesday, June 7, 2006 1:29 AM
vms-list posts: Re: VMs: Student Project; Meaning in Repetitiveness; Saturday, June 10, 2006 1:17 PM; and Saturday, June 10, 2006 4:16 PM
[XIV-2] vms-list post: Re: VMs: incognito symbols in the Voynich manuscript; Tuesday, June 13, 2006 12:10 AM
[XIV-3] vms-list post: Re: VMs: Christine de Pizan and the Voynich Manuscript; Friday, June 23, 2006 2:16 PM
* * *
[XVI-1]: vms-list post: Vms: f58r prime numbers & zodiac 100, April 12, 2006 2:10 AM
* * * eot KI3U Corrrections:
* Table designations in text of Section XIV corrected. Section XV, "the" added in " Now, there is in the VMS on the 1st line..." Section XV, last sentence, removed the extra "would".
#########################
From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Wednesday, July 19, 2006 2:19 PM To : vms-list@voynich.net
Subject : VMs: Voynich labels as numbers; Alice; CREINTIS & anagramming ideas
Hello Keith and David
I thought I'd answer (1) both of you in the same post.
First, thanks for the kind words. They encourage more work, work which is difficult.
Concerning spreadsheet analysis - sounds like a good idea! Just use the CREINTIS program to generate the tables and save them to disk, and then reload the tables into your favorite spreadsheet. Should work fine.
Concerning the 2 men and 2 women producing the VMS; well, the mcP hypothesis certainly sees a team effort producing the mcP document, with a woman mastermind, MmsP, having a right-hand man, he being younger than she, and most likely being the specializing mathematician working out the details of MmsP's mathematical, and other directives.
I should think that if the basic mcP scenario is correct, then a derivative document like the VMS, could also very well have been prepared by a team. It actually makes sense, because of the different specializations that we see in the VMS, and I sense that you, Keith, are tracking something that I want to look at closer, but I need better explanations for why you think she spoke German, and why she was free to use her own made-up words in such and so labels. I think one possible scenario for that, is that the labels she was responsible for, are numbers - so perhaps, she was free to number, in other words to index, by her own system.
So, does that make sense, that the scribe was free to make up certain of the labels - that those labels are personal index numbers? Labels especially, it seems to me, would make sense as index numbers: looking again at f84r, the bath scene at the top of the page. At left, between VMS sisters 3 and 4, who are facing each other, there looks to be written "789". That is within variation of how the Hindu-Arabic numerals 789 were written 500-600 years ago. The number 7 especially had a lot of variations back then - you have to look at more examples than just the ones in D'Imperio to realize that.
Well, David, I guess the place to start is where I started for developing the results in (3): anagramming ideas (expressed in words and / or numbers), with c6 and e12. Again:
Anagramming IDEAS!
I guess the thing to comprehend, the secret so to speak, is that the results in (3) proceeded not out of transforming strings of symbols randomly, but rather, having ideas in mind for transformation experiments, and seeing which symbol groups seemed to fit those ideas. I tried especially to get this across in Section XIII., where I showed how and why, I think, Christine came up with ESCRINET. She was anagramming ideas, until she got something good that she decided to use.
Anagramming IDEAS!
There are several curiosities given in (3), but Table XV-1 is the ne plus ultra. That result basically seems to suggest, that: either Christine's anagram mathematics was used to generate at least some of the VMS text, or, whatever the actual VMS text generator was (even some sort of language grammar), it and Christine's anagram mathematics are relatives of one another. And all the VMS specific results in (3) suggest what has long been suspected, at least by some, namely that logical divisions of VMS text, and the physical divisions of the text on the parchment, are two different matters. Sure, it's way too soon to say this is universal to the VMS text. But it seems that with the c6 and e12 transforms we've now got an attack instrument for trying some new things with the VMS. We've hardly begun. But like the Rocketeer said in the pond at the end of his first flight: I LIKE it!
At this early stage, it is not even clear what a failed c6 - e12 attack is. For example, it would definitely not suprise me if I were forced to prove mathematically, that no c6 - e12 attack on the first 4 words of line 7 on f10v will succeed. Because, at this point, attack failures can equally well mean outright failure, or the bumping into new logical divisions in the text.
I mentioned in (3) what I thought is one of the first goals: transforming through the VMS a complete closed circuit path where everywhere along the way the clues suggest unification.
But lets suppose for a moment that it does turn out to be universal, and that once the logical text strings, however long or short they are from single-letter words to entire paragraphs, have been identified, they can then be generated with c6 and e12 transformations. Then it would seem, that that strongly suggests, that, as you Keith have been hammering a lot recently, and before you Steve Ekwall has been saying for years, that the text is not readable; not readable in the ordinary sense anyway. That is, we are not going to translate all of the VMS text into something like Christine had a little lamb, blah blah blah. But rather, the PROCESS of generating the text, is the text's message!
Now, I do think that it is even more complicated than that: I think there are logical blocks of VMS text that DO translate into Christine had a little lilly blah blah blah. Because:
It appears to me that built into the mcP, is the challenge of finding, and translating, the few blocks of literal text, that are buried in the mathematical-object text. The mathematical-object text will provide the pointers to the literal text:
2 kinds of text in the VMS:
1. mathematical-object text, pointing to
2. literal, translateable text
If, at this very early stage, all this were clearer to me than it is, I would have tried to present it so in (3). It's all brand new. I first heard of the word CREINTIS exactly one month ago today.
As for Alice in a VMS mirror, I do not know. But why couldn't Lewis Carroll have had some Jesuit friends with whom he discussed strange old books? It's not impossible. I wouldn't in the least worry about what sort of negativity is thrown against the idea. And if turns out that you use c6 and e12 to disprove the mcP hypothesis while proving the linear A hypothesis, the pizza is on you.
VMS history is built on a house of cards anyway it seems to me, the deck provided by Bacon banking Wilfrid Voynich, shuffled now and then and some cards removed, a card treated with acid so as to "discover" a signature, and cards alluding to "Sphinxes" and "all in hieroglyphicks" but not a single card mentioning the 9-rosettes foldout, which, I would think, would be the very first thing stated in even the briefest attempt of a concise description of the VMS:
An old medium-grade parchment codex with a 6-page foldout of a fantasically complex illustration drawn around an array of 9 rosettes / medallions, and surrounded by pages of strange text of mixed alphabets, and drawings of strange plants or plant parts and herbs, strange circular diagrams, and hundreds of naked women in strange scenes with strange accessories, often associated with fluids and baths, and lots of stars on many of the pages.
Berj / KI3U
(1) vms-list thread: VMs: Berj's CREINTIS - Voynich material; Mon, 17 Jul 2006 13:39:02 -0300
(2) vms-list post: Re: VMs: incognito symbols in the Voynich manuscript; Tuesday, June 13, 2006 12:10 AM
(3) vms-list posts-group (part0 - part8): VMs: partx: CREINTIS, Voynich, prime numbers, ESCRINET, anagrams & Christine de Pizan, Tuesday, July 18, 2006
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From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Monday, July 24, 2006 11:56 PM To : vms-list@voynich.net
Subject : RE: VMs: part8: CREINTIS, Voynich, prime numbers, ESCRINET, anagrams & Christine
Steve Ekwall wrote Sunday, July 23, 2006 7:11 PM:
" .......p.s. I also can sense why this (per <ES>) was especially good (for all) woman. "
Hello Steve
Thanks you for the kind words.
Prodded by your post, I looked at some more mirror transformations and saw some new things in the VMS, a couple of which I'll show you now, but first I'll use a Christine word to diagram the transformation process, because it is easier on the eyes, easier to see the mirror attack strategy, than going right away with the transcribed Voynich words.
Lets look at words and their mirror versions, under transformation by Christine's anagram system. We'll start with mirror-carrying Lady Reason (dame Raison):
RAISON and its mirror: NOSIAR
We want to see what happens when we run a transformation sequence on these words. They are 6-letters words; we'll load each into its own 8-field. We'll use the plain-vanilla c6 transform - no shifting, etc., and so the w = 6.
However, we will transform RAISON left-to-right (LR), and NOSIAR we'll transform RL.
In this case, we can do both in one shot with the CREINTIS program - create both tables simultaneously, because:
1.) there are no mutual transformation operations across the two adjacent 8-fields,
2.) we can instruct CREINTIS to transform the 1st 8-field LR, and the 2nd 8-field RL, and
3.) we will consider the LR and RL 8-field results separately, rather than reading the entire 16-field as the result.
Here's what happens, and with experience with Christine's anagrams, we might have expected it:
Table 17-1
C0 LR Iy c6 w = 6
0: --RAISON|NOSIAR--
1: --NSOIRA|ARIOSN--
2: --AIRONS|SNORIA--
3: --SONRAI|IARNOS--
4: --IRANSO|OSNARI--
5: --ONSAIR|RIASNO--
As you can see, in every cycle-row, the results are perfect mirrors of one another.
[ Incidentally, if for the moment 3.) above is disregarded, and the 2: result is read as a 16-field result, then it makes me wonder about how Christine chose to compose the beginning of The Book of the City of Ladies as she did. In particular, Lady Reason's opening address is recalled. Did Christine do some anagram experiments before starting her compositions? But perhaps it's just the cosmic trickster teasing us. ]
Once again, the "|" in the table is merely a marker for showing the boundary between the 1st and 2nd 8-fields, and it plays no role in the transformations.
Note that I loaded the 6-letters words into the 8-fields in a manner so as to avoid the 2 stable-symbol field positions in each 8-field; I wanted all the letters to undergo transformations.
The notation Iy is the instruction to the CREINTIS program to alternate the transform-direction every 8-field. And since we are starting LR, RAISON and its results are transformed LR, and NOSIAR and its results are transformed RL. That's how we save work in this case, and get both tables simultaneously.
Now we're ready to try the above with Voynich mirror words; and we'll again use the GC- transcription alphabet.
For mirror investigation we'll choose a Voynich symbols-sequence, that:
a.) is its own mirror, and
b.) continues from the end of a text-line, as the start of the next text-line. This on the usual assumption that Voynich text was written left-to-right, and top-to-bottom, although nobody knows if that is how it is supposed to be read.
So, first consider the short VMS text-symbols element: 89
which consists of GC-8 and GC-9, and these VMS symbols do in fact look like the Hindu-Arabic numerals 8 and 9.
89 is very common in the VMS, both as a component of longer words, and as a 2-letter word.
But here we are interested more in symbols sequences, than in "words", because we're suspicious about VMS words really being logical symbols-groups. They are physical-on-the-parchment groups, but make for strange looking "spelling" and "grammar".
Have a look at GC's transcript of line 10 on f43r:
<43r.10>j28ay.2c8.o89.4okc89.9u189.4ol89.oj179.8am.4ohc89.898989.4okay
Near the end of the line, the sequence ~c89.898989.4~ is really something, isn't it? If that were based on straightforward phonics, we'd think someone was stammering. f43r is one of the cleaner parchment folios in the VMS, and there is no doubt about GC's transcript - that's what we see written there on the parchment.
98 is another common VMS text element, as a component, and a few times as a word by itself. Now have a look at these 2 consecutive lines:
<51r.2>81co8am.Hco89.Ho8(.1o89-
<51r.3>981o89.Hc9.ok9.Hco7ay.4oh9-
We have, from the end of line 2 to the start of line 3, the sequence 8998 which is its own mirror. It seems to occur only once in the VMS, on f51r.
9889 also is its own mirror, but I could not find this sequence in the VMS. But, per above, I transformed both 8998 and 9889 to see what happens:
Table 17-2 8998 unique mirror sequence
C0 LR Iy c6 w = 6
0: ----8998|8998----
1: --8998--|--8998--
2: ---8-989|989-8---
3: --998--8|8--899--
4: --8--899|998--8--
5: --989-8-|-8-989--
In 2: - 5: are differentiated / generated the symbols-sequences:
8 common as a component and word in the VMS.
899 common as ~89.9~ and that includes .89.9~
989 its own mirror, common component, and also a few times as .989.
998 several occurrences as ~9.98~
Table 17-3 9889 synthetic mirror sequence
C0 LR Iy c6 w = 6
0: ----9889|9889----
1: --9889--|--9889--
2: ---9-898|898-9---
3: --889--9|9--988--
4: --9--988|889--9--
5: --898-9-|-9-898--
9 common component and as .9.
889 several occurrences as component and .889.
898 its own mirror, common component
988 component seen in f19v.9, and 4 occurrences up into f27r as ~98.8~
No non-elements were generated, and both 8998 and 9889 each generated a smaller mirror that exists in the VMS text. The above elements like to appear with other 8's and 9's, for example in f14v.6 there is: ~9.898989.
And Grant's adjutant, rubbing his eyes, asks: So, what do you think you see in all this?
Roger Rudolf replies: Christine's anagrams math seems to have a possibility for investigation of VMS text palindromic sub-sequences, the palindromic source-sequences being either, taken from the text, or even synthesized. Thus there is another avenue for attack on the text, on the premise that it is an interlacing of bicorporal symbol groups: mathematical-object text, pointing to literal translatable text. Before any text can be read in the ordinary sense, it must first be identified and gathered, and the way to do that is to figure out the mathematical-object text that is covering it. These 89 and 98 sequences are common, and 8 and 9 are about as clear-cut symbols in the VMS text as it gets, and therefore they merit early attention in this strategy. We are not merely classifying or sorting here, rather we are differentiating and integrating symbols sequences. We are still at the baby-steps stage.
Grant's adjutant asks for a short, simple explanation.
Roger Rudolf replies that, at least a little, it appears as if big 8-and-9 mirrors and little 8-and-9 mirrors are related, through Christine's anagramming.
And Grant's adjutant nods.
Well Steve, there's mirrors in them thar hills of text. Maybe even the upper left rosette of the f86v 9-rosettes is supposed to suggest a mirror - it's the odd bare one in the foldout.
I'm guessing these days, just guessing on hunches, that roughly 93 percent of the VMS text is mathematical-object text, and the remaining 7 percent will translate into something in some language or languages. Maybe even John Stojko's Ukrainian.
The more I work on the text with this new CREINTIS approach, the more reasonable it seems to me that the strategy was to hide some text of a couple of thousand words or so, by generating a big book-length body of complicated mathematical vectors, that ultimately point to the much fewer scattered literal text elements within. When the transformations more and more show accumulating, two very different piles of text, regardless of similar appearances, then maybe we'll be past these baby-steps. We'll see.
In the meantime, I think I've got an angle on TT folding, but you suggested TTT folding, and I still don't get it.
In The Book of the City of Ladies, Christine strongly lets known her admiration for the creativity involved in inventing an effective alphabet, and also a cipher alphabet. The VMS alphabet is beautiful - seems to me just the kind of alphabet that a brilliant woman with mathematical appreciation could devise. Her husband was a royal secretary, and she was anyway connected into the upper scribal and library world, and she must have known of the various alphabets, notorial, shorthand, cipher, and so forth, from which the gallows letters and all the other VMS text symbols derive.
Get well Steve - we need your ideas and mystery-will-be-solved-optimism to continue coming.
Berj
*********************
From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Sunday, July 30, 2006 12:24 AM To : vms-list@voynich.net
Subject : RE: VMs: Hand signs and question [was part8: CREINTIS etc]
Barbara Barrett wrote Saturday, July 29, 2006 6:40 PM:
" .......is there _anything_ which would be _impossible_ if your notions are correct: ie is there anything which if it
were found in the voynich would be _mutually exclusive_ with your ideas? And, if such a thing exists, have you sought it out? If for no other reason than to reassure yourself that you're not barking up the wrong dead horse? ... "
Hello Barbara,
Thanks for the lead, and the fairness - much appreciated.
On your question, I ask myself that perhaps every few Voynich works sessions, in any case regularly. My ideas have been proceeding on three major premises:
1.) prime numbers
2.) mcP hypothesis
3.) Christine de Pizan = MmsP of the mcP hypothesis
The only thing I am ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN of, is that whoever designed the Voynich manuscript, he or she or they had prime numbers, and some of their relationships in mind, throughout the composition. I think I said
this recently in one of my babblings, that that is the one thing I am certain of.
This conviction rests first and foremost on f6r. The f6r "plant" cannot be interpreted as an ordinary plant in an ordinary herbal, no matter the allowances for recopied herbal illustrations and so forth: there is between the plant's roots and stem, a 3-rings structure that makes it impossible to interpret it as something botanical. It suggests engineering, or geometry as a primary conceptual foundation in the design, and therefore a mathematical interpretation. And my posts this spring on f6r developed the prime numbers messages that I read in f6r. Everything since, that I've worked on, has, to me, reinforced the importance of prime numbers in the VMS, which I've stated as a principle:
To understand the Voynich manuscript, navigate its prime numbers.
I cannot see anything that would convince me that prime numbers are not critical to the VMS - it's the first thing I ever noticed about the VMS, and my initial impression has only been steadily reinforced.
The mcP hypothesis developed from my increasing perception of complexity in the VMS: what could possibly have motivated, back then, designing a document so complex and difficult to figure out? From what I thought I had surmised, including the ever-increasing feeling that a woman had conceived it, altogether it all pointed to a counter-Roman Church, and anti-misogynism doctrine for a secret sisterhood.
And looking around for a mastermind behind it all, the only person that stood out, and still does, is Christine de Pizan.
I still might give up the mcP hypothesis and / or MmsP = Christine, although as of now it seems unlikely to me - everything I look at along those lines seems to provide me, from my point of view, with more understanding of the VMS, than any other approach I've tried. I certainly have, over the years, abandoned approaches that I had dearly clung to and poured great effort into, when they proved undeniably inferior to a new idea.
I am having such a conflict right now: I may have to give up the idea that Athanasius Kircher ever had any involvement at all with the VMS. I really don't want to give up that notion, but I am lately increasingly troubled by the unsatisfatory reconstructed history of the VMS. Increasingly I have the uncomfortable feeling that we've all been had, by Wilfrid Voynich. That is, the hoax, if there is one, is the history of the VMS, which Voynich himself cast, and by his control over the documents, made sure became the dominant track for historical research.
In one of my most recent posts I wrote a first try at what seemed to me a logical concise description of MS 408 in brief; in other words describe the essentials of MS 408 as briefly as possible:
An old medium-grade parchment codex with a 6-page foldout of a fantastically complex illustration drawn around an array of 9 rosettes / medallions, and surrounded by pages of strange text of mixed alphabets, and drawings of strange plants or plant parts and herbs, strange circular diagrams, and hundreds of naked women in strange scenes with strange accessories, often associated with fluids and baths, and lots of stars on many of the pages.
It can be improved upon, but in-brief that well describes Beinecke MS 408 to me: that's what I would tell someone who knew nothing about MS 408, and asked me to describe it. I wouldn't even think of describing MS 408 as containing hieroglyphics, or hinting that it had an ancient Egyptian origin. And above all, it seems to me that the nine rosettes foldout is the central thing about MS 408 - what makes it what it is. And I am increasingly having trouble believing that MS 408 is the document being referred to in the reconstructed VMS history, where Kircher and Rudolphe II's court are major pillars.
And of course I could be wrong about this. I don't concern myself with making a fool of myself in VMS research: the thing is too complex to worry about that, and the relentless pursuit of understanding the mystery requires taking notional chances, and swallowing the consequences when they don't pan out, and going on to the next trail.
But it does seem to me that something is not quite right with our standard VMS history: the uncomfortable feeling that MS 408 is not the same document as the one that Kircher was alerted to.
Berj
*******************
From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Sunday, July 30, 2006 8:01 PM To : vms-list@voynich.net
Subject : Re: VMs: Hand signs and question [was part8: CREINTIS etc]
Elmar Vogt wrote Sunday, July 30, 2006 5:13 AM:
" You have very verbosely avoided Barbara's crucial question: What are the touchstones by which your thesis can be tested; what could possibly convince you that you are wrong? If you don't have any criteria for falsification, it's pretty much impossible to assess its merits. As for the whole prime number thing, yes, there are a lot of prime numbers showing up in the VM. OTOH, about 50% of *all* numbers between 1 and 20 are prime numbers, so any count of a small number of objects would show up with plenty of prime numbers between them.
To me, it just appears that primes are cropping up here and there, but I don't see any system behind them, nor regularity. A sequence of the prime numbers between 1 and 19 would be nice, for example. Did you find anything like this, beyond "there are 3 leaves on the left of the stem in this folio, and 5 to the right"? "
Hello Elmar
I didn't think I avoided Barbara's question. I gave my thoughts as they came. How am I, or anyone else working with a VMS hypothesis, going to know more about a falsifyability test, without knowing exactly what the VMS is?
But let me compensate by verbosely not avoiding, and giving both external, and internal falsifyability views.
If you want to falsify, fairly, the f6r interpretation, then it seems to me you'd first have to find a non-VMS medieval "plant" illustration that incorporates a part that is not only obviously not botanical, but strongly suggests engineering component, or geometry. I don't know of such an illustration, and I've had my eyes on the lookout for one. If you found one, then you could check if it, along with the text on the page, looks like it emphasizes prime numbers. If it seems to, then you have to decide if it is just accidental, or if some mathematical message is in there.
If there is a mathematical message, is it creatively peculiar? And, are there in its book, other such illustrations? Without such a reference, how detailed can a falsifyability test be outlined? If I knew, I would have told Barbara so. What I told her is that I do think about the problem regularly. And I do.
And certainly, all manner of falsifyabilities could be imposed on the f6r primes interpretation, by finding other explanations for f6r, including oh, it's just an nth-generation-copied herbal picture rendered by a half-blind aging copyist. Trouble is, none of the other explanations I can think of are interesting, and above all they do not smack of the level of intelligence that I perceive the author(s) of the VMS to have possessed.
MS 408, overall, gives me a strong mathematical impression, and once that is accepted, it is not so surprising that prime numbers are emphasized here and there throughout it. My primary impression of MS 408 is its f86v 6-page 9-rosettes foldout - to me that's the one thing, that if you remove it from MS 408, would make the rest of it a collection of themes without a climax. And so, in my mind, MS 408 is:
The Nine Rosettes Manuscript
It shows an array of 9 medallions, suggesting mathematics with the "system of nine symbols" in mind. It blasts into your face the prime numbers 7 and 13 with its bottom-central and top-central rosettes. Inbetween, the number 6 is at the heart of the central rosette, it is further emphasized by the 6 folding panels that the entire illustration is drawn on, and 6 is the key non-prime number in the braided prime numbers relations that, according to my readings, are the purpose of the f6r prime-numbers-plant page.
What falsifyability test do you want outline for this? It would have to start right away with denying that mathematics is highly relevant to f86v. I can't do that Elmar - because I can't believe that even slightly. Even falsifyability has to be believable. It would be like looking at a perfectly sensible differential equation and denying that it was a mathematical equation, say because, it was known that a non-mathematical artist just happened to put it down on paper without realizing it was in fact an equation. If it is a real equation, then it is an equation, no matter how it got to the page. If it turns out that it got to the page purely accidentally, then ok, but that also is interesting and calls for investigation.
As for prime numbers being roughly half the numbers below 20, that is true, but alone that's not very useful for analyzing MS 408 or falsifying the hypothetical primes emphasis. Even a first glance at Robert Teague's socalled "Nymph Table" shows the prime number 29 being strongly featured in the so-called "zoodiac" section, where the total number of "cans" adds up to prime number 83.
I suppose one could try falsifying the primality aspect of the fact that f86v's upper-left rosette, the unusual one because it is relatively plain compared with the other 8, has 73p curly petals around the rim of the inner "mirror", or whatever that blank oval is supposed to be. I guess one could fathom that the artist / designer intended, say, LXX, and was shooting for 70 or 72 petals, but couldn't get it right because there was some space left over, and it just accidentally came out as the prime number 73. 67 and 71 are also prime, and above 73 the next prime is 79. So, was it accident that it came out 73, when 70 or 72 was the intent? Does it even matter what the number is? If it doesn't matter, within the context of all that number symbolism in f86v, then why doesn't it matter?
What? is a good reason that one should deny: that the first considerations in understanding MS 408 must be mathematical.
Consider: 7 of the 25 star pages have a prime number, above 20, of text-lines - is that significant, and yes or no, then how so?
Table 1
VMS star page, # of text-lines
f58r, 41p
f58v, 39
f103r, 54
f103v, 46
f104r, 45
f104v, 44
f105r, 37p
f105v, 38
f106r, 47p
f106v, 47p
f107r, 51
f107v, 49
f108r, 50
f108v, 53p
f111r, 54
f111v, 51
f112r, 45
f112v, 47p
f113r, 51
f113v, 49
f114r, 45
f114v, 41p
f115r, 45
f115v, 45
f116r, 50
The number of text-lines ranges 37 - 54. The 18 numbers in that range are:
37p, 38, 39, 40, 41p, 42, 43p, 44, 45, 46, 47p, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53p, 54
and 9 of them are even, and 9 of them are odd numbers. 5 of the numbers are primes, all of them odd numbers of course, and 4 of them, all but the number 43, are represented in Table 1.
The non-primes in that range are: 38, 39, 40, 42, 44, 45, 46, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 54,
altogether there are 13 of them. And 9 of them are represented in Table 1: 38, 39, 44, 45, 46, 49, 50, 51, 54.
Lets consider what the "representation ratios" are:
RRp = 0.8 i.e. 80% of available primes are represented.
RRnp = 0.69 i.e. 69% of available non-primes are represented.
What are the availability ratios? By that I mean there are, in the 37p - 54 range, altogether 18 numbers available; then with 5 available primes, and 13 available non-primes:
ARp = 5 / 18 = 0.278
ARnp = 13 / 18 = 0.722
and of course ARp + ARnp = 1.0 as it must.
Lets now define a falsifyability-test function, FTF, to get a feel or estimate for the un-usual-ness or non-unusualness of the representation ratios, and calculate its values for the primes and non-primes for RELATIVE COMPARISON. There are more or less standard ways to calculate probabilities, but go along with me here, and then see if you can accept the following approach, despite its crudeness - it has the advantage that with one or two read-throughs, the non-mathematical reader can understand it. Lets define:
FTF = (RR) (AR)
The thought with this FTF definition is, that if representation-ratio is high, a low availablility ratio will compensate and pull the FTF value down toward some norm, by relative comparison between primes and non-primes. And vice versa. In other words, if the numbers:
FTFp ~ FTFnp
that is they are more or less equal, then prime numbers counts in these star pages text-lines are not unusual; and we've falsified the notion that they could be.
Calculating:
FTFp = (0.8) (0.278) = 0.2224
FTFnp = (0.69) (.722) = 0.4982
FTFnp / FTFp = 2.24
They are not at all close - they differ by a factor of more than 2! The primes seem to be very under-represented in text-line counts in the star pages.
For a reality-check, lets do it again, but this time instead of primes versus non-primes, lets look at odd versus even numbers in the range 37 - 54. The definition of FTF was not specific to the type of number, say primes, so we are perfectly free to use it again with odds versus evens:
RRo = 8 / 9 = 0.8889
RRe = 5 / 9 = 0.5556
and
ARo = 9 / 18 = 0.5
ARe = 9 / 18 = 0.5
Then:
FTFo = (0.8889) (0.5) = 0.4444
FTFe = (0.5556) (0.5) = 0.2778
FTFo / FTFe = 1.6
They differ considerably, but not nearly as much as the case of primes versus non-primes. Here we are much closer to FTFo ~ FTFe
Cutting through all this mathematical mumbo-jumbo, what are these ratios saying in plain english? They seem to be saying, I think, that it is not quite a random or accidental thing to see prime numbered text-lines under-represented in the star pages. It is as if when a star page has a prime number of text-lines, it is an unusual situation, one to be taken notice of, and looked into further. One could argue that the sample is too small, i.e. too few star pages, but then what's the point of pressing for a falsifyability attack? We've got some data, and we work with it the best we can, and conclude the best we can.
Here then, in this case, an emphasis on primality by conspicuous rarity.
Berj
********************
From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Wednesday, August 2, 2006 12:55 PM To : vms-list@voynich.net [ bcc: to Glen ]
Subject : VMs: GC's Voynich concordance
Hello to all Voynich-research workers,
I received offlist three days ago from GC the first draft of his concordance for the Voynich manuscript text (1). Glen has been mulling over whether or not to make available two versions of it, the versions addressing differently the "half-space" or "soft-space", that is: the not-quite-full-spaces between text symbols groups, or within groups ("words").
I very quickly got used to the format of GC's concordance - it's simple and easy to work with, a good job. I had time to do some checks against the Beinecke VMS images, especially with soft-space examples, and I couldn't find any problems or inconveniences.
I told GC that two different versions would make it easier to attract more users, but as far as I was concerned the concordance was ready for him to release on his website (2).
It's a great new addition to the arsenal of VMS attack weapons.
Well done GC!
Berj
(1) presented in GC's transcription alphabet, see below:
(2) http://internet.cybermesa.com/~galethog/Voynich/
**********************
From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Wednesday, August 2, 2006 4:42 PM To : vms-list@voynich.net
Subject : Re: VMs: Hand signs and question [was part8: CREINTIS etc]
Keith wrote Tuesday, August 1, 2006 4:16 PM:
" ...My view of the rosettes is that the centre is Constantinople, and the surrounding maps are either Outposts of the Hapsburg Empire, or something like the 7 wonders of the ancient world. OK, 8. ..."
Hello Keith
I agree it is a map, but it is not just a map. As I've posted in the past, I'm more inclined to think the center is Jerusalem than Constantinople, but the latter would be fine with me if it turned out correct. It does have something of a Byzantine mosaic flavor.
But I see the map as an overlay on top of a mathematical message that, so far, I read to say: this book speaks about, among other things, the relationships between prime numbers, and the system of nine symbols (Hindu-Arabic numerals).
This f86v 6-panel foldout map is the climax of The Nine Rosettes Manuscript (Beinecke MS 408, a.k.a. Voynich Manuscript). On it, the unmistakable emphasis in the bottom-central, central, and top-central rosettes, on the number triplet 7-6-13, is just too strong to ignore, especially since 6 is featured in the middle between 7 and 13. The 7 + 6 = 13 is thus merely the invitation to look deeper.
And when we look deeper, we see the reason for the 7-6-13 triplet: it is the most efficient / shortest / compact / quickest / and obvious-to-those-in-the-know signature-signal for the braided prime numbers equations that are explicitly discussed in the form of a "plant" illustration on page f6r (1).
I've said that the f6r mathematics "plant" is only partly decoded; similarly the mathematics of the f86v nine rosettes illustration is only partly decoded. And, Christine de Pizan's CREINTIS etc. anagram mathematics, seems so far to be the most productive decoding attack vehicle for the entire MS 408.
As I see it.
Berj
(1) look at column n of Table 1 in the vms-list post:
VMs: braided prime number equations in f6r; Tuesday, April 4, 2006 1:39 AM
********************
From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Wednesday, August 2, 2006 5:48 PM To : vms-list@voynich.net
Subject : Re: VMs: Hand signs and question [was part8: CREINTIS etc]
Michael Davias wrote Tuesday, August 1, 2006 9:16 PM:
" .....Let me echo and reinforce your conviction on this aspect of the VMS ! As I wander over the herbals I am obsessed with the numbering schemas ... and totally at a loss to explain their relationships......"
Hello Michael Thanks for the kind words. And, you remind me that I ought to reglue my copy of D'Imperio that keeps falling apart from heavy use.
Yes I've compared the VMS plants with other medieval plants / herbal illustrations to check myself, to see if I'm just imagining mathematics projections in the VMS plants. But there is a very different look between them. The VMS plants seem more asymmetric to me, and far less concerned with the idea of presenting a nice specimen that's out there in nature to come across.
And anyway, how can one look at the VMS illustrations on pages f2r, f52r, and f65v, and not immediately get the message:
THESE PLANT ILLUSTRATIONS ARE SYMBOLIC EXPRESSIONS!
And so, one tries to read their messages.
Berj
**************************************************************************
From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Saturday, August 19, 2006 11:03 AM To : vms-list@voynich.net
Subject : RE: VMs: If at first you don't succeed
Jeff Haley wrote Saturday, August 19, 2006 7:15 AM:
" ....... Berj I got your utility although will not have any time to use it. It has given me an idea to write an improved windows version. That will not be soon however. I would be interested in any patterns that you have found so far.
What you doing here GC? Man I thought you'd had enough. I'm glad you are interested in Pata's ideas. I am too.
I have been finding static glyphs in the labels, much like those in the alphabets in the main text. There appears to be a type of anagramming going on. Robert Teague first noticed it. I now have very little time to spend on the VMS and I will not be returning to the list on a permanent basis. I may hang around for a short while. "
Hello Jeff
Really good to see you back here! Of anyone in this forum, your ability to explosively come up with new interesting stuff is truly refreshing.
I can't remember which version of SERCHTXT you currently have, but I've written it as far as V1.3 - that version allows adjusting display line-length so that one can instantly see the periodicities of text groups and clusters, as well as follow their inter-symbol-distance oscillations through the text. When you get around to writing a windows GUI version of something similar, let me know if you want to look at source-code to see my approach to the subroutines / procedures.
As a first test of V1.3 I took the text (GC transcript of course) from the 7 pages of the VMS that each contain exactly 7 lines of text, and combined them in order:
f5r, f10v, f11r, f25v, f33r, f41v, f95r
so that I had a continuous Voynich symbols stream - all spaces etc. removed. The experiment asked the question:
What if pages, lines, "word" spaces etc. are irrelevant for this block of 7 sub-blocks of VMS text?
This block of a continuous-symbols-stream is of course defined by the assumption that the prime number 7 invites the recognition of the block as an organized cipher unit in the MS 408 text.
Implicit in this assumption is also the fact that we do not know what the Voynich's logical words, logical lines, logical paragraphs, or even logical pagination are. We can see the physical words, lines etc. on the parchment, but the logical structures are the ones we need. (Forgive my tendency to sound obvious in advanced company, but I am ever interested in sympathizing with newcomers trying to follow these discussions, and you yourself called for such consideration in this forum even before me.)
I loaded this block into V1.3, and set the search-string to "4o", for a simple search, not the complicated balloon search. Then I just viewed the block, with different display-line-lengths:
display-line-length = number of symbols per display-line
I saw that for line lengths of multiples of 3, 35, and 36 there was sudden great clustering (well above average). In other words, in those pages, when considered as a unified block, Voynich text "digraph" GC-4o indicates it has an apparent periodicity (repitition) governed by its appearance at:
multiples of every 3, 35, 36 symbol positions. Since 36 is divisible by 3, the fundamental period there is 3 also.
The 35 I'm not yet sure of - 35 is so close to 36/3 = 12. So it could be a transcription problem, or a block-assembling problem, and it too is also really a fundamental period = 3 indication. Or, it could be a genuine fundamental period = 35, or some indication concerning 35 = 7 x 5. And I'm inclined to believe the 35 is not really 36, because the whole experiment is designed to discover within-symbol-groups periods of the Voynich text from the point of view that the VMS text was generated by the c6 and e12 anagram transforms of Christine de Pizan, and there well could be sudden resets of fundamental period, indicating, say, a new logical line or paragraph, or even new logical symbol alphabet. And I've already seen with the CREINTIS program where c6 and e12 seem to invite resets: at the end of the c6 and / or e12 transformation-cycle periods.
Offlist, inbetween our discussions of topics like the golden era of Cuban cigars and the genuine Shakespeare, I invited GC, who had V1.3, to set up the above, try it, and tell me what he thought about the results.
He came back that it was an indication of the cipher scheme he had identified in the VMS, and supplied me with one of its numerical sequences. That numerical sequence he sent me turned out to be one that falls out of some of the simplest Christine de Pizan anagram transformation sequences when the input is loaded with 123456789.
Needless to say, GC and I both had reason to feel good. We don't agree on a lot of things concerning the VMS, but we seem to be agreeing on some of its text's mathematical structure.
Berj
********************
From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : voynich-de@yahoogroups.de
Sent : Thursday, August 17, 2006 4:13 PM To : voynich-de@yahoogroups.de Subject : RE: [voynich-de] Regelwerk
Nils-Simon Borgwardt schrieb Thursday, August 17, 2006 2:24 PM: " Stimmt, total richtig, aber ich würde behaupten zu 98% ist es nicht ohne, meine Frage: Ist es ein Fehler? Ich weiß kann keiner mit Sicherheit behaupten^^ Aber habt ihr beim Durchstöbern andere Regeln entdeckt wie die quire marks alle 8 Seiten? "
Meine Meinung ist:
a.) Der serioese VMs Forscher faengt an mit D'Imperio's Buch (1). Ohne zuerst dieses eine Buch zu lesen arbeitet mann im Dunkeln, und fragt Fragen die in den letzten 90+ Jahren mehrmals bedenkt sind. Ungluecklicherweise gibt es noch nicht keine Deutsche Uebersetzung von D'Imperio's Buch, aber es ist meoglich das durch diese neue
Deutsche Gruppe etwas in dieser Richtung eventuell passiert.
b.) Mann beschafft sich die besten Bilder des Nine Rosettes Manuscript, MS 408, auch genannt Voynich Manuscript, direkt von der Beinecke (2).
c.) Mann rummelt durch das Archiv der "Englische Liste" (3). Diese Liste ist die aelteste und besitzt das tiefeste Archiv. Die Liste selbst hat manche Leute die gegenueber dieser neuen / jungen Deutschen Vms Gruppe nicht freundlich sind, und sogar auch heuchlerich. Jedoch, viele serioese VMs Arbeiter sind in dem Archiv mit ihren Resultaten represaentiert.
d.) Die beste Trankription des VMs Text is die von "GC", "Gen Claston" (4).
Berj
(1) The Voynich Manuscript - An Elegant Enigma, by M.E. D'Imperio, Aegean Park Press, Laguna Hills CA, c. 1976, ISBN 0-89412-038-7
(2) Yale University Beinecke Library: http://webtext.library.yale.edu/beinflat/pre1600.ms408.htm
(3) http://voynich.ms/forum/
(4) http://internet.cybermesa.com/~galethog/Voynich/
*****************************
From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Wednesday, September 27, 2006 12:09 AM To : vms-list@voynich.net
Subject : Re: VMs: waxing ignorant
Sarah Goslee wrote Tuesday, September 26, 2006 7:51 PM:
" .......I have to guess that I'm probably one of the very, very few people on this list who both owns a wax tablet and uses it on a regular basis......The idea of wax tablet as VMS notepad is contraindicated, however, by the difficulty or impossibility of writing the VMS characters on a wax tablet. You are writing in wax with a pointy stylus - curves are far more trouble than they are worth. You quickly develop a very angular hand when using one, and there were alphabets developed for use with wax tablets in the middle ages.......... "
I own a candle and a toothpick, and hardly ever use them for writing. But with them, I just tried writing 16 or 17 Voynich symbols in their natural size: I had no trouble whatsoever doing it, and the results were easily recognized, including the intruding gallows letters. All it took was getting into the habit of regularly swiping, with my thumb, a line, or portion of a line, to remove the wax shavings.
Berj
*************************
From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Wednesday, September 27, 2006 8:56 AM To : vms-list@voynich.net
Subject : Re: VMs: waxing ignorant
Sarah Goslee wrote Wednesday, September 27, 2006 6:38 AM:
" Hooray for experiment!.......And by the way, if you need to remove shavings, you are writing too hard....... "
With the particular candle, I found that by pressing slightly harder, the production of shavings ceased.
Berj
**********************
From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Thursday, September 28, 2006 10:04 AM To : vms-list@voynich.net
Subject : RE: VMs: Re: Intro, background, angles of attack
Greg Stachowski wrote Thursday, September 28, 2006 6:41 AM:
" .......not everyone on the list has training in logic, statistics, philosophy or science and discussions like this are useful in pointing out (or reminding of) potential pitfalls. The philosophers and statisticians who originally came up with these ideas did so because they needed to know how to tell when their results were meaningful and when not; for the same reason, those working on the VMS need to be aware of these ideas. "
and Greg Stachowski wrote Thursday, September 28, 2006 7:19 AM:
" ........In any case, for clarity of the record and the benefit of the silent audience:..........all this is as relevant to the study of VMS as it is in any branch of science (in the broad sense, not just the physical sciences), as it helps us gain confidence in our results and reject those which are in some way flawed. "
Pondering the silent pedestrian perspective for a moment, the one not trained in logic, statistics, philosophy or science, the one that needs the benefit of all this clarity, I wonder out loud:
the polished intellectual stops in at a farmer's market; he steps up to the table of vegetable offerings of one particular old farmer, eyes his produce, and with an air of authority declares: all green peppers are green.
If it is early in the harvest season, the old farmers replies: come back in a few weeks. If it is late in the harvest season, the farmer replies: come back in a few days.
I wonder just what it is that the polished intellectual "knows", that the farmer doesn't know.
Berj
***************************
From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Thursday, October 5, 2006 12:52 PM To : vms-list@voynich.net
Subject : Re: VMs: RE: Several Voynich Related Documents at NSA; How to Get Them
Jonathan Lopez wrote Thursday, October 5, 2006 11:15 AM:
" ...... He basically said that most of the people in the NSA think its a hoax as does he.
IMHO, i think they are upset they couldnt crack it. Most of the people who tried to crack it, did it in their off time, because its currently listed as a waiste of Uncle Sam's money. "
Well if the VMS text is a hoax, then it is a hoax with a remarkable amount of subtle, mathematical regularities throughout it, regularities that I would find hard to believe were randomly generated by a mathematically naive hoaxer.
The symbols stream of the VMS text is very relevant to the problems of spread-spectrum radio transmissions, something of great interest to Uncle Tonoose.
Berj / 3U / QAO
******************************
From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Saturday, October 7, 2006 6:45 PM To : vms-list@voynich.net
Subject : RE: VMs: Re: " ... most of the people in the NSA ... "
John R wrote Saturday, October 7, 2006 6:02 PM:
" It seems to me that NSA's "mystique" depends not on how interesting (or how boring) its employees happen to be (after all who even knows who they are?), but on the deep secrecy in which its activities are shrouded (and especially shrouded in the public imagination). And I would think that NSA hires employees not on the basis of how "interesting" they happen to be, but rather based on their qualifications and competencies. "
Well all well and good, but that sounds a bit more severe than what I was thinking. I was thinking, that having read her book, my impression of Mary D'Imperio is that she must be a very interesting person. Someone I would like to meet and ask a million question.
Berj
***********************
From : Berj N. Ensanian <>
Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Sunday, October 8, 2006 1:24 AM
To : vms-list@voynich.net
Subject : VMs: part9: CREINTIS, Voynich, prime numbers, ESCRINET, anagrams & Christine de Pizan
XVII. The Nine Rosettes Manuscript viewed from the perspective of Spread-spectrum Signal Analysis
I wrote in section XV. that one of the major goals in this analytic strategy is transforming along a complete, closed circuit path throughout the VMS text, where everywhere along the way the clues are clearly and unambiguously unified. That is, we would like to select a sequence of symbols somewhere in the VMS corpus, operate upon it, check to see if at every transformation cycle the transformed symbols sequence is present somewhere else interesting in the VMS corpus, and continue so until we arrive back at the beginning. Of course, we are assuming that such closed circuits exist in the VMS text, a reasonable assumption, if one believes that the symbols stream in the VMS was generated via combinations and variations of the periodic c6 and e12 transforms.
Is there a specialization of c6 and e12 in the generating of symbols sequences? If indeed c6 and e12 are the generator mechanisms of the VMS text, then a specialization seems indicated by their different natures: e12 transformation sequences preserve polarity-grouping (symbols versus odd or even field-positions), even under shifting. The c6 sequences change polarity grouping. Perhaps a specialization is that c6 generates symbols sequences, but under the control of e12 instruction sequences. Or vice versa. In the search for closed-circuit paths, it seems necessary to take into account this analytic complication, and to think of two different transforms, c6 and e12, operating simultaneously, reminiscent of the interlaced braiding of prime numbers activity in the manuscript, already discussed earlier in this series.
How are such paths to be found? What clues, or assumed clues from the book can be used to identify promising hunting ground? [XVII-1] How wide a sub-section of the VMS text corpus is to be searched for promising leads to a symbols sequence that has the tell-tale signs of c6, and e12, operating simultaneously, and can serve as the beginning for a trial closed transformations circuit? We have already seen some very short circuits, notably in section XIV. with the sequence GC- g1c8ae , the transformations of which seemed to flow through pages of the VMS where apparent code tables are exhibited, the code pages. We can guess that when a transformations sequence abruptly stops working, that the instructions controlling it have changed. This analytic complication of simultaneous c6 and e12 operation, especially in light of w, the period of a particular c6 or e12 transformations sequence, being without upper limit, calls for wide views of symbols sequences: large blocks of text viewed from the c6 and e12 perspectives.
In this section I will introduce one conceptual approach to the widest possible search, the entire VMS text corpus in one gulp, if so desired, while at the same time suited for the handling of extreme complications. I will here in this section just introduce the basic idea qualitatively, and get into details in later sections. Here I'll attempt an analogy that explains the essentials of my thoughts on this, in everyday terms. In the following, it will help to make these analogies:
symphony conductor = the Voynich manuscript text encipherer
the conductor's whim = the coding scheme
the secret symphony = the VMS plain-text
orchestra instrument = occurrence of a variation of a VMS symbol in the VMS text
instrument location = physical occurrence of text symbols on VMS parchment
time = logical sequence and positions of message symbols
spread-spectrum transmission of the secret symphony = the VMS text corpus
noise = apparent message symbol, but in actuality an attention diverting-symbol, or code scheme support symbol
We imagine a conductor, Christine, with magical powers: as she conducts a symphony, say Beethoven's 5th, she can, at will and whim, trans-locate any orchestra instrument (and its player) anywhere in the realm, for any duration of time. She can conduct the audio of the symphony in any manner, from beginning to end as normal, or backwards, or in pieces of varying time-lengths mixed in any order.
And we imagine a listener, Uncle Tonoose, with about equal magical powers: he is able to multipli- trans-locate his sense of hearing, while at the same time properly ordering what he hears, so that when the conductor has finished the symphony, Tonoose recognizes that it is complete, and at that instant he is able to integrate its total audio properly in his mind, and is able to replay it in his mind: as Beethoven intended it to be heard.
So, in general, by analogy, the conductor is the spread-spectrum transmitter, and the listener is the spread-spectrum receiver.
Now as it happens, Uncle Tonoose, normally a conservative bachelor, finds himself with a strong fancy for Christine. And he's by far not the only one - Christine has many suitors vying for her hand, although now and then she does admit to herself that Uncle Tonoose is fun to be around. Nevertheless, Christine puts him off. He persists, and finally Christine puts forth a challenge: she will, sometime in the future, conduct a symphony. If Tonoose is able to hear it, identify it, and prove to her the differentiation she employed in playing it, she will accept his hand. Tonoose counters that he accepts the challenge on the condition that Christine, if she similarly challenges her other suitors, choose different secret symphonies for them, even if among the symphonies there are very similar passages. Christine agrees.
Tonoose is thrilled, for he has the all-important piece of information, he knows the single most important thing of all: he knows that Christine's secret symphony did NOT begin at any moment in time prior to her issuing her challenge to him. Thus he has a boundary for the beginning.
Christine, in conducting her secret symphony, uses her magical powers to the fullest extent. She "conducts" the orchestra warm-up. During the symphony she takes abrupt pauses. She even uses some wrong instruments at times, for example she substitutes a kazoo for a flute. She trans-locates the instruments of her orchestra so diffusely, and even into and out of other orchestras playing other symphonies here and there around the realm, that the audio of her symphony dissolves completely into the everyday general grand background noise of the realm, from babies snoring to volcanoes exploding. No-one, except Uncle Tonoose, he fervently hopes, could even tell for sure if the everyday background noise of the realm is ever so slightly different than usual. Others may hear something now and then, but they will always wonder if it was just some fleeting little meaningless noise amidst the general din and roar that they heard.
To decipher the Nine Rosettes Manuscript from the spread spectrum point of view, I guess:
1.) It must be recognized that there are clues in the book that point to it having a worthwhile message in its text, that the text is not merely some creative nonsense hoax. The most compelling clues are the exhibitions of mathematical knowledge. [XVII-3] [XVII-4]
2.) That the text is composed of noise symbols and message symbols, the noise symbols being equally important to the construction of the text.
3.) That the amount of noise is vastly greater than the decipherable message buried within it, although the construction of the text from noise plus message symbols is in itself an intended demonstration of cipher technique. The extreme ratio of noise to signal is perhaps the major reason the decipherment of the VMS text is difficult: the noise isn't just "white noise", it is also decoy patterns, and the decoy patterns may turn out to be the real masterwork in the Nine Rosettes ms. And those decoys are precisely an excellent reason for considering the analytic techniques applied to crypto spread-spectrum signals, where natural radio background noise is not only taken advantage of for its bury-the-signal possibilities, but also its possibilities for serving as spectral components in producing fake, diversionary signal pulses.
4.) That noise symbols and message symbols can be the same actual symbol / glyph in different symbols sequences, and that the difference is recognized in how symbol sequences transform under mathematical operations.
5.) That from an analytic point of view, the noise can be regarded as mathematical objects, mathematical vectors pointing to the message symbols. [XVII-5]
6.) That the message symbols, even after identification as such, must still be matched to some alphabet and language, likely much easier than sifting them out in the first place. However, if say, 93% of the symbols in the VMS corpus are noise, and only 7% scattered throughout are message symbols, then it seems to me that up front no language can be ruled out as the original plaintext source language (s). [XVII-6]
7.) That the single most important step in the decipherment of the MS 408 text is the identification of the true beginning of one of its scattered logical symbols sequences. This hunt for a true beginning, among the noise and decoy beginnings, is the main motivation for considering the analytic techniques of spread-spectrum radio-frequency signals.
Lest the foregoing be taken that I'm implying it's a big deal, it isn't, it is just another attack approach, an approach that happens to be natural to signal analysts. It is just the treating of the Voynich text as the record of a signal, hopefully a sufficiently complete record, and applying a particular signal analysis discipline to it: detection and decoding of crypto spread-spectrum radio transmissions. The individual text symbols are regarded as radio-frequency pulses, and it is to be determined what their "spectra" are as a function of location and adjacency in the text. By their spectra is meant the collection of transformation properties of symbols, with the goal of recognizing at least two different major transformation properties. Once those spectra are obtained, the next task is to see which spectra seem to go together in some larger complex spectrum model, and then make a decision about which symbols sequences are noise and which are message.
For those who want to experiment with this, a good first thing to do is to produce spectrum graphs that clearly show the classic observations of Tiltman and Currier, thus having familiar references to which one can remain tethered as the experimental transformations upon symbols sequences are carried out. The next good thing to do is to construct a cipher scheme model from the ground up, in other words a completely known reference, and adjust it until its spectra start to look like the real thing.
It is quickly experienced that good experimental ideas are needed if computation times are to be kept reasonable. For example, one idea I had for the entire VMS text would have taken me and my 733 MHz computer something like 40 days to complete within the context of normal living. [XVII-7] That forced thinking of some more clever way to get new and general pictures of what is going on with the text - an example of a situation where it is advantageous to not have at one's disposal a supercomputer.
But even with good ideas it is still tedious work, and often confusing: another problem is discoveries overload: so many new patterns, patterns that hold up, are uncovered at times, that one is faced with seemingly endless tests on reference texts, and long searches on the internet and in the vms-list archives for any previous mentions thereof, to see what might be a promising experimental path to follow next.
If it is any consolation, then it can be said that it will be easier than real world crypto spread-spectrum radio analysis because in this the work is mainly only mathematical, whereas in the former it is mathematical physics. A slight overlap of the analogy could be pondered though, when it is considered that some of the Voynich symbols are not clearly identifiable due to ink fading and / or parchment aging. The incognito symbols pose another similar problem. [XVII-8]
There are some major patterns in the VMS text corpus besides those found by Tiltman and Currier. I will report my findings in detail when I am sufficiently confident about the separation of decoy patterns from true logical vector patterns. There is no point in my passing on my confusions while I am attempting, tediously, to eliminate them. [XVII-9]
Berj / KI3U
[XVII-1] One approach I tried began by observing that Tiltman's "Roots" and "Suffixes" (Table 27 in D'Imperio) reminded me, very much, of computer machine language instructions. Page f80r, which I discussed in section II. (part 1 of this series of posts), seems to have these instruction registers shifting left going down the first 12 text lines. I decided to see what would happen if I regarded a symbols-group starting with GC- 4o as an instruction register, a register holding an instruction about some portion of VMS text.
I chose VMS page f78v for a place to get a 4o instruction. I had developed some ideas on the possible connection of the illustration on f78v with Christine de Pizan's 10 sibyls, 9 of them bathing, and Steve Ekwall had dramatically expanded f78v's links to other pages. [XVII-2 ]
With this view then, the first line of f78v holds two 4o instructions, both being the same: 4ohc89
The second, is the last word on the line, and the descender of its GC-4 contacts the GC-k in the word on the line underneath: ok9
It is as if the 4o is linking the GC-h to its right with the GC-k underneath.
To interpret this instruction, I remembered that I had read something, somewhere, sometime, that a symbol essentially identical to GC-4o could stand for "quaternion" or "quire" hundreds of years ago in European literature. This led me to assume that the instruction fell into the category of jump instructions, and I assigned the following meanings to the register contents:
4o = quire
h = folio
c = quire address pointer
8 = folio address pointer
9 = line pointer
In generic assembly language, I could then write the instruction as:
JMP quire GC-c:folio GC-8:line GC-9
To decode this further I used Tables 16 and 22 in D'Imperio and arrived at:
JMP quire 5:folio 8:line 9 and ultimately:
JMP f43r:line 9
So, from the 9 bathing VMS sisters (and the sibyl showing Christine her 9 sibyl-sisters bathing) of f78v I jumped to page f43r and was pleasantly surprised to find something not immediately totally out of whack with the experiment. On the contrary, the first thing you see in f43r is an illustration featuring 9 trunks supporting a canopy of their crowns, from which grow 10 flower bulbs, symbolic of 10 sibyls in all. If one allows that allegories are important in the VMS, then it can be admitted that this experiment did not immediately arrive at a totally ludicrous place in the manuscript.
And what is on line 9 of f43r? Curiously, the second word is: 4okc79 per GC's transcription, where GC-7 and GC-8 are slight variations of one another in the GC transcription alphabet, that is to say it is a slight variation on 4okc89 . And, I recalled that the GC-4 of the original JMP instruction on f78v linked a GC-h and GC-k.
Then things get even more interesting. I noticed on f43r, somewhat to my amazement, colored as it was at the moment by experimental enthusiasm and optimism, that on line 10 there is a 4ohc89 and the descender of its GC-4 is contacting the GC-k of the koe89 on line 11 underneath, so that the line-10 Gc-4o is acting like a link between a GC-k and another GC-k.
So, not bad I thought: a possible closed circuit, by some stretch of the imagination, albeit a circuit where the transformations along where not done by c6 and e12, though still involving Christine de Pizan, but rather via some other transformation ideas: 4o "instruction registers" motivated by Tiltman, and tables in D'Imperio. And, it just might be worthwhile to see if symbols sequences in f78v and f43r are inter-transformable by c6 and / or e12.
But that's a lot of experimental work, even for short sequences. And after all, the first logical thing to do would be to check all occurrences of 4ohc89 in the VMS, there are lots of them, to see what fraction of them have their GC-4o linking gallows symbols across lines. And it all remains in the realm of more or less microscopic, or small-scale investigation of the text, where one is ever concerned about fooling one's self by making a mountain of significance out of a molehill curiosity. The microscopic is good - you notice things you could have noticed before , but maybe didn't. But the practically infinite possibilities for microscopic experimental paths called for some guidance that only the macroscopic view can provide. And so I was motivated to get a better understanding of symbols sequences in general, across the entire VMS text corpus, the big picture, and accordingly thought of ways to do it. The ideas of spread-spectrum radio transmissions suggested themselves as a natural attack approach.
[XVII-2 ] vms-list thread: VMs: Christine de Pizan and the Voynich Manuscript; Friday, June 16, 2006 9:59 PM
[XVII-3] vms-list posts:
RE: VMs: Hand signs and question [was part8: CREINTIS etc.]; Sunday, July 30, 2006 12:24 AM
RE: VMs: Hand signs and question [was part8: CREINTIS etc.]; Sunday, July 30, 2006 8:01 PM
RE: VMs: Hand signs and question [was part8: CREINTIS etc.]; Wednesday, August 2, 2006 4:42 PM
[XVII-4] There are simpler, and more straightforward clues as well that the text is to be regarded as meaningful in some way. For example, in the so-called pharmaceutical section of the book, the right-most panel of page f101v (a.k.a. f102r2) has at its bottom-left an illustration of a large and bizarre, brown colored "root". This root is labeled with the symbols-sequence GC-
hoe8ayo8
So we have hoe8ay followed by o8 . The sequence hoe8ay is not at all common throughout the VMS.
This sequence hoe8ay does also appear near the end of the 7th line of text on page f18v, but with a space between the hoe and the 8ay :
<18v.7>91oe.8oy.1o,8.4ohoe.8am.4ohoe.8ay.89-
We note that in f18v.7 the hoe8ay sequence is bracketed by o and 8 rather than being followed by o8 as in f102r2.
What do we see on page f18v ? We see 10 lines of text accompanying a plant illustration. The plant has for its root the same bizarre root that is illustrated on f102r2.
f102r2: bizarre root, by itself, labeled: hoe8ayo8
f18v: same bizarre root, connected to its plant; line 7 of the text: ohoe8ay8
This correlation could be dismissed, despite the unique bizarre root, and the extremely rare sequence hoe8ay , but that doesn't lead anywhere. Rather, it is a clear and simple indication that the symbols sequences in the VMS are to be regarded as somehow meaningful.
[XVII-5] vms-list post: VMs: Voynich labels as numbers; Alice; CREINTIS & anagramming ideas; Wednesday, July 19, 2006 2:19 PM
[XVII-6] vms-list post: RE: VMs: part8: CREINTIS, Voynich, prime numbers, ESCRINET, anagrams & Christine de Pizan; Tuesday, July 18, 2006 10:09 PM
[XVII-7] Computation budgets of factorial size, that is: (N) x (N-1) x (N-2) x ..... x 2 x 1 where N = number of symbols in the sequence being experimented with, are often unavoidable. N factorial, denoted N! quickly grows to astronomical proportions with even moderate sized symbols sequences. Consider that for a tiny sequence of just 10 symbols N! = 3628800 and then ponder a spread spectrum experiment that operates upon a symbols sequence of, say, 35000 symbols.
[XVII-8] vms-list post: VMs: incognito symbols in the Voynich manuscript; Wednesday, June 7, 2006 1:29 AM
[XVII-9] vms-list post: VMs: If at first you don't succeed; Saturday, August 19, 2006 11:03 AM
In that post, addressed to Jeff Haley, I told him of an interesting off-list exchange I had had with GC, where it transpired that GC and I had both, independently, discovered the same exact mathematical pattern in the VMS text. (Actually we agree somewhat on at least one other mathematical aspect of the text.) I will post the details of my arrival at that pattern sometime in the future. Here I want to just mention that GC and I arrived at our identical observations, independently, and from completely different approaches: this is what made it so interesting, because I had arrived there via CREINTIS c6 and e12 transforms, and GC had arrived there via a different method that is his prerogative to publish whenever he sees fit. I do not know the details of GC's approach, and he does not know the details of mine, and it will be quite interesting in the future to compare notes and see how the two approaches arrived at the same results.
*******************
From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net Sent : Sunday, October 8, 2006 1:19 AM To : vms-list@voynich.net Subject : Re: VMs: Re: " ... most of the people in the NSA ... "
MorphemeAddict@XXXXXXXXXX wrote Saturday, October 7, 2006 8:17 PM: " Because such association can be considered frivolous or silly, a waste of valuable resources, for one thing. Not the subject of serious research, nor a proper use of a national agency. "
Ok. Well you didn't say who can consider it frivolous or silly; I guess after the usual round of all green peppers are green it would come down to "they" who tend to think that way. No problem there.
But I have a difficult time believing that folks like Friedman, Tiltman, Currier, and D'Imperio ever thought that way, Friedman's anagram taken into account. The very existence of D'Imperio's book and its public availability, it seems to me, makes a certain point by the community out of which it came. Berj
*********************
never rx the posting echo; this from list archives:
Berj N. Ensanian Posted: Tue Oct 10, 2006 11:59 pm Post subject: two not so different pages compared
mesinik@XXXXXXXXX wrote Tuesday, October 10, 2006 3:19 PM:
" Yes, there definitely might be something. The problem is, we can't yet find the numerals in the text. "
The Hindu-Arabic numerals are all plentiful in the text. D'Imperio devotes some discussion to that, and provides a very good Table 16 in that regard (not to be taken as complete).
So I think the question is: did the author intend to use / exhibit / the system of 9 symbols?
Which were frowned upon in many circles back then.
At this point, as far as I know, the general opinion leaves the question without definite answer because of little, if any, discussion of it. In my own case I've firmly believed that the system of 9 symbols is a central theme in the book, since coming to understand that mathematics is a major theme in the book, and I mention the system of 9 symbols, calculating with the Hindu-Arabic numerals, often in my posts. My view has been greatly reinforced with the CREINTIS work, and in fact the numbers sequence I mentioned in another thread that GC and I found independently in the VMS text, I came upon largely due to a certain track of CREINTIS work that I have, for myself, been referring to as "the 9 problem". I'll post on it in the future in the CREINTIS series of posts.
And so, from that point of view, that the system of 9 symbols is very important in the book, I see many clues in the Voynich Manuscript.
I'll give one example: the mysterious quire 9. There is, in Voynichville, the view that quire 9, on account of the peculiar location of its quire marking, has been incorrectly bound into MS 408. I consider the opposite view: it is another little signal from the author that her Nine Rosettes Manuscript is intimately concerned with 9 symbolically, and mathematically. And, of the symbolic + mathematical aspects of 9, it doesn't get much bigger than the system of nine symbols.
Berj
**************************
From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Wednesday, October 11, 2006 11:26 AM To : vms-list@voynich.net
Subject : VMs: corrections to GC voyn_101.txt tanscript
I've begun organizing some notes on corrections to GC's voyn_101.txt transcript of the entire MS 408 text. So far, I've found remarkably few instances where I think correction is needed: usually when I double-check the best images of the VMS that I have, I wind up agreeing with GC's transcription.
I have two proposed corrections. First, the line-based reporting system:
GC( )<... = the original transcript as it appears in voyn_101.txt
?!(n)<... = the line with the proposed correction(s)
n = number of proposed corrections in the line
Here are the two proposed corrections:
GC( )<65r.1>okaip.8ap.aeap=
?!(1)<65r.1>okaip,8ap.aeap=
GC( )<87r.1>foae2sae.2oGoy.9j1oGcosam.okco8ae.sam-
?!(1)<87r.1>goae2sae.2oGoy.9j1oGcosam.okco8ae.sam-
Done this way it can be immediately seen that in f65r.1 I think the space is a "soft", or short one, rather than a hard / normal one, and in f87r.1 I think the first symbol should be GC-g rather than GC-f.
I'm temporarily designating my corrected transcript file: voynC101.txt
Incidentally, a note to newcomers: when setting up sophisticated searches through a transcript, whether it be voyn_101 or another, be aware of errors that can occur due to the fonts installed interacting with whatever search function or program. In GC's transcription alphabet the absolute identity of a transcript symbol is its ASCII code. Thus the absolute identity of GC-g is GC-103. If you write your own search programs, be sure to write its algorithm to search for ASCII codes: search for ASCII 103, not character "g", even if with the common alphabet letters, ASCII codes << 128, your keyboard and screen interactions use the convenient character "g".
voyn_101.txt is really listing ASCII codes; it can look different on the screen depending on what characters-word processor you view it with.
There is a poor man's way to search voyn_101.txt for the more obscure symbols with their higher ASCII codes, using whatever word processor you have: copy a sample of the symbols to be searched for, directly from voyn_101.txt on your word processor screen, into that same word processor screen's find box. Your search sophistication will of course be limited to what the find function can do. (1)
Berj
(1) GC's transcription alphabet and transcription files are available here:
http://internet.cybermesa.com/~galethog/Voynich/
********************************
From : Berj N. Ensanian <>
Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Saturday, October 14, 2006 12:39 AM
To : vms-list@voynich.net
Subject : VMs: Letter symbols in Christine, and the Nine Rosettes Manuscript
Hello to all interested in the possibility that Christine de Pizan was the primordial influence leading to the Nine Rosettes Manuscript. I have here a few more items to add to the Was-it-Christine? checklist. [1]
1.) The VMS symbols-group GC-so
This 2-symbols-sequence group is common throughout the VMS, EXCEPT as a self-standing "word". By itself in the text, bracketed by spaces, I find GC-so only in these 11 instances (none for variations GC-to and GC-$o ):
f2r.9 (botanical section of VMS)
f30v.7 (botanical)
f47r.6 (botanical)
f67r.1 outer ring (cosmological)
f87r.6 (botanical) [2]
f100r.3 (herbal / pharmaceutical)
f102r1.12 (herbal / pharmaceutical)
f106r.25 (star pages / recipes)
f107r.42 (star pages / recipes)
f111r.25 (star pages / recipes) [3]
f111r.26 (star pages / recipes) [3]
Did Christine too write this group in her known manuscripts? And if yes, did it stand out relative to its context writing?
To see, lets go back once more to where we've been before, Christine's publishing masterpiece, the Queen's Manuscript, BL Harley MS4431. (The queen was Isabeau of France, wife of Charles VI. Christine presented the commissioned book to Isabeau ~ 1414.)
Have a look again at MS 4431 f.17 with its illustration of Christine and Lady Reason clearing the Field of Letters:
http://ibs001.colo.firstnet.net.uk/britishlibrary/controller/textsearch?text=Christine&start=25&startid=1547&width=4&height=2&idx=2
In this magnified picture of the page's illustration, at bottom left, to the lower-left of the rubric, there is in a tan color, a perfect example of what in VMS studies is the group GC-so . Note how the initial GC-s has the same construction we see in the VMS: it appears like a little letter c, to which is joined from above a larger clockwise-curving arc.
What the GC-so group means in MS 4431, f.17 , I do not know; perhaps a Christine scholar does. And of course we do not know what GC-so means in the Voynich manuscript. Perhaps a variation of the lone GC-s is a personal sine of Christine.
2.) The GC-k looped symbol (symmetric double-loop gallows letter)
There is at least another GC-k, one much, much closer in form to what we see in the VMS, than the first we found a few months ago; in fact, it is about perfect. Return to the same above image of f.17 , look up a little, and to the left of the GC-so . You will see a red GC-k that at a casual glance looks like just another part of the rubric, but can equally well, if not more likely, be seen as a separate item "intruding" upon the rubric.
3.) GC-k versus the Heraldic Knot and the Zodiac Sign of Gemini
As presented in "A Dictionary Of Symbols", the depictions of the Heraldic Knot and the Zodiac sign of Gemini have a strong resemblance to a pair of GC-k 's joined smoothly at their legs. [4]
One can fathom, that the idea for the remarkable intruding gallows letters in the VMS came from the Heraldic Knot and Gemini symbols. To see this, lets compare a particular example intruding gallows in the VMS, GC-K, more precisely GC-75, with a Heraldic knot like ornamentation in an MS 4431 illustration:
MS 4431 f.290 , an illustration from the building of the City of Ladies:
http://ibs001.colo.firstnet.net.uk/britishlibrary/controller/textsearch?text=Christine&start=25&startid=6797&width=4&height=2&idx=2
In the Voynich cosmological diagram on f85r2 (left-most panel in the Beinecke online image designated f85v), in the outer, text-bearing ring, under the southeast arching fountain spray, is the symbols group GC- oKo89 with its intruding gallows GC-K . Have a look at this particular GC-K . And then compare it with the Heraldic Knot like ornamentation in 4431 f.290 - in the left half of the picture, just above the little building within which is depicted Christine with Ladies Reason, Rectitude, and Justice.
So, we have added a little more data to consider when weighing Christine de Pizan as the original force behind the world's most mysterious manuscript.
From one elementary perspective, Christine's literary career campaign of championing virtue, especially self-confident feminine virtue, might be regarded as playing out on a stage framed by two extreme examples: the example of zero-virtue, the utterly failed role model of Isabeau, and the example of infinite virtue, Joan of Arc. Christine tried hard to get Isabeau to act like a responsible Queen and help prevent, rather than accelerate France's slide into civil war. But Isabeau must have been a terrible disappointment to Christine. Joan appeared as if by a miracle, vindicating Christine's life-long maxims, only to be treacherously destroyed by members of church and state, members of the same greater circle that Christine was a member of.
Thus it seems, that Christine would have had ample motivation to initiate a lasting, secret, and complex sisterhood doctrine.
Berj / KI3U
[1] For complete details, including bibliographic, on the possibility of Christine de Pizan being the conceiving originator of efforts that eventually led to the extant manuscript Beinecke MS 408, a.k.a. Voynich Manuscript, VMS, the Nine Rosettes Manuscript, etc., see the vms-list series, of which the latest installment is: VMs: part9: CREINTIS, Voynich, prime numbers, ESCRINET, anagrams & Christine de Pizan; Sunday, October 8, 2006 1:24 AM
[2] f87r is the page immediately after the 9 rosettes f85/f86 foldout, that foldout being the grand climax of the Voynich manuscript. It is among the candidate pages suggesting perhaps that their page number, at top-right, may possibly be involved in the page's composition: f42r, f54r, f78r, f80r, f84r, f87r, f104r, f107r.
[3] The f111r star page is one of those pages in the VMS that gives indications that its text from the top-left of the page to the bottom-right, was NOT laid down per normal writing. Have a look at it, and note that the 12 or so lines (reminiscent of e12 outputs) preceeding lines 25 and 26 appear as if they were squeezed into their parchment space, as if the blocks of text before and after were written first, with a space reserved for the squeezed block of lines.
This invites considering not just single lines as cipher units as per Currier, but also blocks of lines. Or in any case, it hints as evidence for more complex encipherment procedures than just a serial symbols-stream scheme. Perhaps cipher templates relate to the squeezed lines, or non-linear scripting effect: two or more code-generating templates used to compose blocks of text onto a page, and their slight mis-alignments causing cramping.
For more on the possibly non-linear scripting of VMS text units see:
http://mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/philipneal/voynich/voypage.html#lineorder
and see also discussions in the vms-list threads:
VMs: incognito symbols in the Voynich manuscript; Wednesday, June 7, 2006 1:29 AM
VMs: Christine de Pizan and the Voynich Manuscript; Friday, June 16, 2006 9:59 PM
[4] A Dictionary Of Symbols, J.E. Cirlot, 2nd ed., Translated from the Spanish by Jack Sage, Barnes & Noble, 1995
********************************
From : Audrey Wylfing <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Sunday, October 15, 2006 2:07 AM To : <vms-list@voynich.net>
Subject : VMs: RE: Ground Zero of Voynich Archeology
Bert,
Your piece is thoughtful, illuminating and exciting and speaks to me as a newcomer to Voynich studies with a little interest in cryptology.
I would like to propose a sub-branch of your Nine Rosettes Studies. The role of nuns in the creation of iconographic materials for the various purposes of the church perhaps deserves more attention. The rosettes remind one immediately of lace - mantillas, altar-cloths and so forth. Both the human figures and the towers remind one of the simply drawn
inhabitants and backdrops of wall-tiles. The plants remind one of emblematic vegetation in devotional art such as the Hawstead Panels see http://frogend.blogspot.com/2006/08/lady-drurys-great-sadness.html
Is there perhaps a connection?
For many centuries, everyday materials, from fabrics to wall-tiles, were made in, or to the orders of convents. The prime purpose of these was to display religious symbols and emblems and to communicate their many levels of meaning to their recipients. These meanings were inherent both in the images themselves and in their placing within the overall design schema of the object in question.
These items passed from place to place throughout Europe - a common and harmless currency. During periods of religious persecution, what better way to pass sensitive messages than to use items of everyday, uncontentious devotion?
Conceivably the manuscript might be an index or directory structure to one set of such imagery?
Kind regards
Audrey Wylfing
With belated apologies for the frivolous
http://frogend.blogspot.com/2006/07/voynich-board-game.html
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-vms-list@voynich.net [mailto:owner-vms-list@voynich.net] On Behalf Of Berj N. Ensanian
Sent: 15 October 2006 05:43 To: vms-list@voynich.net
Subject: VMs: Ground Zero of Voynich Archeology
The standard history of the Voynich manuscript, reproduced in Mary D'Imperio's book, was supplied in essential outline by Wilfrid Voynich himself. In a sense, ground zero for Voynich historical research seems to be the court of Bohemian emporer Rudolphe II. [1]
This standard history, slightly extended, remains orthodox to this day. But, to put it politely, it has been suspected of being inaccurate. [2]
We are approaching one hundred years time over which this standard history has been orthodox. I believe a fair question is:
For believing the standard history as received from Wilfrid Voynich, what has that history given in return toward illuminating the manuscript's many mysteries?
Anything?
Anything besides more puzzles, and the necessity to continue playing the true believer?
Ought not an accurate history, however incomplete, yield, after a hundred years anyway, at least some answers, some unambiguous CONCRETE leads, that de-mystify at least some aspects of the manuscript, besides those that could have been generated without any received history, and besides those that could have been generated from only examination and study of the physical manuscript itself?
Recently, my own growing dis-satisfaction with the standard received VMS history, because of its lack of production of useful information, reached such a high level, that I began attempts to describe the manuscript accurately in brief, and I contracted that further into a descriptive label: The Nine Rosettes Manuscript (9RMS). The 9RMS label is not only my attempt at an accurate label, but also serves to emphasize what I feel is the glaring inconsistency between what the book actually projects itself, and what its standard history tortuously tries to make-believe. [3]
If you go to the trouble of making, even if only partially, from the information in D'Imperio and the best available online images of MS 408, [4], a physical model of the book, one that you can hold in your hand and flip the pages of and unfold the foldouts of, then, as happened to me, you may get impressions from it that result in conversing with yourself along these lines:
How can this possibly be the object that is being talked about in the standard history, and its variations including oddball herbal, or mere hoax for money?
This book is intensely constructed around a climax - the Nine Rosettes foldout, and that foldout, every square centimeter of its parchment on both sides, radiates an extraordinarily superior mind, a mind passionately obsessed with a mission to establish and perpetuate some kind of very serious philosophy encompassing all things of priority to spiritually sensitive thinkers.
That to me is just obvious - there is no need to first understand what the script "reads" upon possible decipherment. Anyone intelligent and educated, who beholds the full impact of the 12 panels of the Nine Rosettes foldout parchment, and then goes on to refer to its book only in terms of hieroglyphics, or hundreds of herbal illustrations, or sphynxes, is, I think, deliberately, for some powerful reason, obscuring the nature of the manuscript when mentioning it.
Now, I am open to come back into the standard history camp, and see Wilfrid Voynich as he represented himself, and primarily because of the possibility just mentioned, namely that, say, Athanasius Kircher was deliberately cryptically being alerted to MS 408, deliberately cryptically for some powerful reason, but it will take some really and truly believable evidence. If it exists, then I haven't yet become aware of it.
Presently I don't really believe that Rudolphe II's court ever saw MS 408, and if, with a time machine, we could transport ourselves back to that court to query the supposedly-involved personalities about it, even show them MS 408, I wouldn't be at all surprised if we'd get that What-are-you-talking-about? and What's-this? look on their faces, at least
from the intellectually honest ones.
I don't have a good idea of the manuscript's history, but I do have some suspicions and guesses about the orthodox version. Perhaps they are too simple.
The standard Voynich history refers to some book or books of great interest, but I don't get anything 9RMS from those, rather I guess that they refer to something along the lines of an Egyptian embalming herbs manual, copy
thereof or original, that someone got a hold of and wanted Athanasius Kircher to look at. Maybe Kircher did, and maybe it can be identified via his papers, those papers which have yielded nothing whatsoever about the manuscript that standard VMS history says he was alerted to, and more than once queried on, by his friends. I guess that Wilfrid Voynich knew all this, and knew of some letters and records in certain libraries, and even had a useful letter in his personal collection, and when he got hold of the mysterious unique manuscript somewhere somehow, he started synthesizing, with the help of a little acid, and some other serious physical manipulations of the book, and of people in useful positions, a thread for the literary discovery of the ages: Roger Bacon and so on.
If that is how it went, then Voynich, who conceivably may have been sensitive about his wife being the daughter of an immortal, would stand to become an immortal himself: the discoverer of the great sensational secret of scientific history: Bacon 500 years ahead of everybody etc. etc.
And for a while this story was believed by many. Then the Bacon angle of it fell apart, but the Kircher and Rudolf parts still stuck, like a glued ex libris plate, kept afloat by Voynich's tight control over who had access to the intensely magnetic manuscript:
You want to study my manuscript? Then you have to buy my hard-earned history of it. Or at least not challenge it. [5]
His Bacon story shattered, Voynich soon died, and his wife had this problem on her hands: guarding the honor of the husband she was devoted to.
Well, if you suspect that the history is bogus, and you don't care, but you want access to the ms, and on top of all problems the ms's owner is the daughter of George Boole, then some careful tactics are called for. Friedman got his access. And he apparently greatly frustrated Dr. Strong of Yale who also wanted access: he wouldn't let Strong have a complete copy of the ms. Neither would Mrs. Voynich. [6]
Why? Was it because Friedman was worried about cryptographic competition from Strong? One would think that Friedman was too good a cryp to worry much about that. I don't know. But, I guess, Friedman suspected that the
manuscript's history was an outright fabrication, and he was concerned that Strong would soon see that and be vocal about it, thus compromising Friedman's position with his benefactress, Mrs. Voynich.
The secret history of the bogus history of the Voynich manuscript is an interesting possible subject in itself, and far more complex than the few pure guesses about it that I've just rolled. But on to the important thing:
Can we propose, if only in the vaguest outline, some fresh hunting ground for MS 408 archeology and history, that might have a chance of yielding real paydirt, unambiguous concrete paydirt, by the end of the next hundred years?
We need fresh hunting ground for MS 408 history! That is not too much to ask after a hundred years of: ???
So lets give it a try, developing fresh hunting ground. It won't hurt - it won't necessarily clash with the orthodox history.
Because I presently believe the mcP hypothesis of the Voynich manuscript to be the best, [7], and because I see it only gathering in believability, and because Christine de Pizan remains the best candidate for the hypothesis's MmsP, it is natural to propose archeological sites associated with Christine. And there is a prime candidate among those.
Ground Zero of Nine Rosettes Archeology: The Abbey of Poissy
Among the mysteries of Christine's life is where she was and what she was doing, after presumably leaving Paris during France's upheavals about the spring of 1419. Actually, her whereabouts and doings appear to be mysterious
from 1413 on. [8]
The one precisely dated work by her after 1419 is her last known work, the cryptically ending Joan of Arc poem, of 1429, wherein she mentions being in a closed convent for eleven years. Christine scholars assume that on leaving Paris she went to the Abbey of Poissy, not far from Paris, well familiar to Christine, and where her daughter was a nun.
It seems logical from the mcP hypothesis point of view that Christine, if she did not begin composing the mcP in her convent, worked on it there, and that nuns in a network of cloisters associated with that convent were the initiated priestesses and guardians of the mcP secret sisterhood doctrine.
I suggest, especially to enthusiastic newcomers to MS 408 study who are not yet frozen into the orthodox history, that it is worthwhile to research the activities of nuns, and semi-nuns of the late middle ages in Europe, especially in France and Italy, and especially to note any connections to the Abbey of Poissy.
If the mcP hypothesis is correct, and if MmsP = Christine de Pizan, then an exciting promise is the discovery, perhaps even behind some secret cloister wall-stone, or concealed within some ancient candle-stick, of that hitherto elusive scrap of parchment, bearing the unmistakable script and illustrations of the 9 Rosettes manuscript.
Berj / KI3U
[1] The Voynich Manuscript - An Elegant Enigma, by M.E. D'Imperio, c. 1976-80, Aegean Park Press, ISBN 0-89412-038-7 Funny, how 89 seems to show up so often in things Voynich.
[2] see for example Jorge Stolfi's comments in the vms-list thread: VMs: 600 ducats for what?; Saturday, March 20, 1999 1:13 AM
[3] vms-list post:
VMs: Voynich labels as numbers; Alice; CREINTIS & anagramming ideas ; Wednesday, July 19, 2006 2:19 PM and vms-list thread from: RE: VMs: Hand signs and question [was part8: CREINTIS etc]; Sunday, July 30, 2006 12:24 AM
[4] http://webtext.library.yale.edu/beinflat/pre1600.ms408.htm
[5] Unless I am reading D'Imperio wrong, as late as 1966 there were still only 6 or 7 facsimile copies of the manuscript in the entire world.
[6] GC's website has for download the relevant personal correspondence of Dr. Strong; well worth reading:
http://internet.cybermesa.com/~galethog/Voynich/
[7] vms-list post: VMs: General mcP Hypothesis on the Voynich Manuscript; Sunday, May 21, 2006 11:41 PM
[8] Christine de Pizan, Her Life and Works, A Biography By Charity Cannon Willard, New York, Persea Books, 1984
********************************************
From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Sunday, October 15, 2006 6:33 PM To : vms-list@voynich.net
Subject : RE: VMs: RE: Ground Zero of Voynich Archeology
[Note: I will bcc: my specific-to-list-member posts to that list member until list-functionality is back to normal, so to be sure that at least they receive my comments.]
Audrey Wylfing wrote Sunday, October 15, 2006 2:07 AM:
" ..... I would like to propose a sub-branch of your Nine Rosettes Studies. The role of nuns in the creation of iconographic materials for the various purposes of the church perhaps deserves more attention. The rosettes remind one immediately of lace - mantillas, altar-cloths and so forth...........For many centuries, everyday materials, from fabrics to wall-tiles, were made in, or to the orders of convents. The prime purpose of these was to display religious symbols and emblems and to communicate their many levels of meaning to their recipients. These meanings were inherent both in the images themselves and in their placing within the overall design schema of the object in question.
These items passed from place to place throughout Europe - a common and harmless currency. During periods of religious persecution, what better way to pass sensitive messages than to use items of everyday, uncontentious devotion? Conceivably the manuscript might be an index or directory structure to one set of such imagery? ..... "
Hello Audrey,
Now that is an interesting thought I had not had - the idea that tradegoods made by the nuns could also serve as crypto-media in their network.
As for the VMS being an index / directory, I personally think it has information well beyond that: I expect it has doctrine. But you suggest, I think, a kind of map, and I believe David (MONET) has similar views on the manuscript.
Berj
************************
bcc: to Steve Ekwall & GC From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Sunday, October 15, 2006 3:01 PM To : vms-list@voynich.net
Subject : VMs: vms-list and archives problems?
Is it just me, or are other list members experiencing problems with list and archives functionality?
A hiccup now and then is normal in something as complicated as this list with its massive archive, but from my end the situation has been degrading dramatically since about July, and now it is at the point of confusion, at my end.
I don't know anymore for sure who is posting what, who is receiving what from the list-servers, and even the archives has become so troubled that I can't use it to figure out what is currently happening on the list.
Problems:
1.) a posting-email, although as a check is bcc: self-addressed to an alternate e-adr, never posts at all. It's bcc: arrives normally, indicating that the trouble is not in the normal e-mailing apparatus at the originating end.
2.) posts are received that are obviously mid-thread posts, but the launch posts and subsequent thread posts up to the received one, were never received.
3.) the archives problems are complicated, and I have seen myself listed as an author of a post I definitely never authored.
For several days now, posts that I have received, are not duplicated in the archives, but in their place an older post is repeated with current posting date and time stamps.
I think something is not working right. Berj
****************************
From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Sunday, October 15, 2006 4:08 PM To: vms-list@voynich.net
Subject : Re: VMs: vms-list and archives problems?
[Note: I will bcc: my specific-to-list-member posts to that list member until list-functionality is back to normal, so to be sure that at least they receive my comments.]
David wrote Sunday, October 15, 2006 3:19 PM
" Yes- Something has changed. Perhaps recent discussions have had complicating effects. "
Hi David,
Well in that vein I wasn't thinking of Uncle Tonoose, as he is very polished and has been around here since before all of us. Rather I was entertaining thoughts of the paranormal: "the curse" getting to the list servers :-)
I mean the one thing that has been consistent is that I've been getting all the curse commercials. Perhaps thereby a little poltergeist has erupted within the list apparatus. I think I'll try re-direct its attention to something useful:
THE curse on the plagiarists
Was that a rap I just heard? Remarkable, isn't it, that the above can arguably be considered, temporarily anyway, not off-topic. Berj / KI3U
*************************
From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Sunday, October 15, 2006 10:35 PM To : vms-list@voynich.net
Subject : Re: VMs: vms-list and archives problems?
[Note: I will bcc: my specific-to-list-member posts to that list member until list-functionality is back to normal, so to be sure that at least they receive my comments.]
Hello Nick, You scripted: " :-o "
It reminded me that I hold the distinction of being the first on the list to ask you for an autographed copy of the book. No rush, as I know from hard experience how difficult it is to get a publishing operation off the ground. Berj
**********************
From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Tuesday, October 17, 2006 2:06 AM To : vms-list@voynich.net
Subject : RE: VMs: Ground Zero of Voynich Archeology
[Note: I will bcc: my specific-to-list-member posts to that list member until list-functionality is back to normal, so to be sure that at least they receive my comments.]
Audrey Wylfing wrote Monday, October 16, 2006 3:40 AM:
" I have not really considered this idea beyond a brief study of the period which inspired it - the persecution of Catholics following the Gunpowder Plot and the peregrinations of Mary Ward and the Loreto Sisters - but it occurred to me that they may have inherited an earlier system under guidance from the Jesuits. "
Hello Audrey
In the 1994 archives there is a post by Joao Leao:
Posted: Wed Aug 24, 1994 2:00 pm Post subject: Rem: Speculating on the VMs and female monasteries...
wherein also is quoted Ron Carter: " So, maybe the VMs was produced by a sect of female monks? "
I think the original idea of female authorship of MS 408 goes back to Fr. Petersen's considerations of Hildegard of Bingen - D'Imperio's book has material on that.
Have a look at f78v: one could think of it as a "cloister tub".
And maybe with the individual tubs, such as in f70r, it is symbolic of the nuns, each in her own cloister cell.
Berj
***************************
From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Thursday, October 19, 2006 12:54 PM To : vms-list@voynich.net
Subject : Re: VMs: vms-list and archives problems?
[Note: I will bcc: my specific-to-list-member posts to that list member until list-functionality is back to normal, so to be sure that at least they receive my comments.]
From my end, the list and its archives has been seriously disrupted, as I outlined in the launch of this thread. Problems above average level began rising around July, and by early August there seemed to be correlations of certain on-list problems with certain off-list problems.
Since 10 OCT 2006 the archives no longer updates, but rather duplicates the last post there with the date-and-time stamps of the posts since then.
Thus, with the current-posts portion of the archives disfunctional, the minimal check on actual list activity is no longer possible, and in a nutshell it is not possible to know who is saying what, and who is hearing what. I don't want to sound overly dramatic, but from what I have seen, it is possible that associated off-list communications are troubled also, making the entire greater vms forum seem as if under attack by something effective, but intellectually crude.
I have since all this started, seen jumbling in the archives. From my perspective the most serious - it was sometime back since July, the archives for a while showed me as the author of a post that I had nothing whatsoever to do with, the thread of which I had nothing whatsoever to do with.
Trouble of that nature is pretty serious stuff - the archives of this list is the depository of everything meaningful in MS 408 research since 1991 and even earlier.
Berj / KI3U
From: MONET273@XXXXXXXXXXXX
Reply-To: vms-list@voynich.net To: vms-list@voynich.net
Subject: Re: VMs: vms-list and archives problems? Date: Thu, 19 Oct 2006 10:12:07 EDT
Hi VMs List:
What has happened to the List?
Is it quiescent - or what?
Best to all
David
*************************
From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Sent : Thursday, October 19, 2006 3:19 PM
To : MONET273@xxxxxxxxxx Subject : Re: VMs: vms-list and archives problems?
[Note: I will bcc: my specific-to-list-member posts to that list member
until list-functionality is back to normal, so to be sure that at least they receive my comments.]
David wrote Thursday, October 19, 2006 2:45 PM:
" OK Berj So this is a test response to your post. Naturally, one wonders what causes this problem and if it's related to content. If so, of course, that provides new information. It could imply , for one thing, that some aspect of the VMs has a present-day importance. Which was the subject of recent discussions. David "
Yes David I agree, it sure could imply that. But, as dear old Uncle Bernie, God rest his soul, used to say: Is this really necessary? In this forum anyway:
The great epochal clash of instruction registers over the very heart of the world's most mysterious manuscript.
Berj / KI3U
*****************************
From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Thursday, October 19, 2006 9:20 PM To : vms-list@voynich.net
Subject : Re: VMs: vms-list and archives problems?
[Note: I will bcc: my specific-to-list-member posts to that list member
until list-functionality is back to normal, so to be sure that at least they receive my comments.]
Philip Neal wrote Thursday, October 19, 2006 3:50 PM:
" I think something is wrong too. I always post to the list and read it by email. ...... "
The number of list members I know of, at this point, who are experiencing problems and who realize that something serious has been happening, is approaching a dozen.
I think the first question is: is the trouble intentional or accidental?
On the assumption that it is intentional, and has a definite motive / goal, it is possible for some list members, based on their knowledge of list activity, and associated off-list activity of the last several months, and especially the last couple of months, to infer some possible clues, and reach their own conclusions.
Let us suppose for a moment, that an intentional disruption is under way, for whatever reason. Let us suppose that the intentional disruption tries to be sophisticated: say, altering the contents of messsages between their being sent and being received, and so on, in other words manipulating perceptions.
In a forum like this one it is very difficult to pull something like that off without leaving suspicious clues. Because, whereas the technical hacking is certainly doable, to pull it off without leaving clues, the hacker would have to be not only intelligent, and broadly educated, but also familiar with an extremely difficult problem that requires some facility with multiple disciplines and languages, and in order to really pull it off un-noticed, would have to have interacted as a persona on the list so as to get a good feel for the interactions flow. That is a big assignment for even a group of sharp hackers, unless one of them is an insider, a list member. That is what I meant earlier when I described the attack as effective, but intellectually crude.
Berj / KI3U
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http://www.talk-history.com/forum/ground-zero-voynich-t2319.html
Berj / KI3U Recent Historian Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Pennsylvania Posts: 2
22 OCT 2006 04:12 GMT
Ground Zero of Voynich Archeology
KI3U / 15 OCT 2006
Ground Zero of Voynich Archeology
The standard history of the Voynich manuscript (VMS, Beinecke MS 408), reproduced in Mary D'Imperio's book, was supplied in essential outline by Wilfrid Voynich himself. In a sense, ground zero for Voynich historical research seems to be the court of Bohemian emporer Rudolphe II. [1]
This standard history, slightly extended, remains orthodox to this day. But, to put it politely, it has been suspected of being inaccurate. [2,9]
We are approaching one hundred years time over which this standard history has been orthodox. I believe a fair question is:
For believing the standard history as received from Wilfrid Voynich, what has that history given in return toward illuminating the manuscript's many mysteries?
Anything?
Anything besides more puzzles, and the necessity to continue playing the true believer?
Ought not an accurate history, however incomplete, yield, after a hundred years anyway, at least some answers, some unambiguous CONCRETE leads, that de-mystify at least some aspects of the manuscript, besides those that could have been generated without any received history, and besides those that could have been generated from only examination and study of the physical manuscript itself?
Recently, my own growing dis-satisfaction with the standard received VMS history, because of its lack of production of useful information, reached such a high level, that I began attempts to describe the manuscript accurately in brief, and I contracted that further into a descriptive label: The Nine Rosettes Manuscript (9RMS). The 9RMS label is not only my attempt at an accurate label, but also serves to emphasize what I feel is the glaring inconsistency between what the book actually projects itself, and what its standard history tortuously tries to make-believe. [3]
If you go to the trouble of making, even if only partially, from the information in D'Imperio and the best available online images of MS 408, [4], a physical model of the book, one that you can hold in your hand and flip the pages of and unfold the foldouts of, then, as happened to me, you may get impressions from it that result in conversing with yourself along these lines:
How can this possibly be the object that is being talked about in the standard history, and its variations including oddball herbal, or mere hoax for money?
This book is intensely constructed around a climax - the Nine Rosettes foldout (f85/86), and that foldout, every square centimeter of its parchment on both sides, radiates an extraordinarily superior mind, a mind passionately obsessed with a mission to establish and perpetuate some kind of very serious philosophy encompassing all things of priority to spiritually sensitive thinkers.
That to me is just obvious - there is no need to first understand what the script "reads" upon possible decipherment. Anyone intelligent and educated, who beholds the full impact of the 12 panels of the Nine Rosettes foldout parchment, and then goes on to refer to its book only in terms of "hieroglyphicks", or hundreds of herbal illustrations, or "Sphinxes", is, I think, deliberately, for some powerful reason, obscuring the nature of the manuscript when mentioning it.
Now, I am open to come back into the standard history camp, and see Wilfrid Voynich as he represented himself, and primarily because of the possibility just mentioned, namely that, say, Athanasius Kircher was deliberately cryptically being alerted to MS 408, deliberately cryptically for some powerful reason, but it will take some really and truly believable evidence. If it exists, then I haven't yet become aware of it.
Presently I don't really believe that Rudolphe II's court ever saw MS 408, and if, with a time machine, we could transport ourselves back to that court to query the supposedly-involved personalities about it, even show them MS 408, I wouldn't be at all surprised if we'd get that What-are-you-talking-about? and What's-this? look on their faces, at least from the intellectually honest ones.
I don't have a good idea of the manuscript's history, but I do have some suspicions and guesses about the orthodox version. Perhaps they are too simple.
The standard Voynich history refers to some book or books of great interest, but I don't get anything 9RMS from those, rather I guess that they refer to something along the lines of an Egyptian embalming herbs manual, copy thereof or original, that someone got a hold of and wanted Athanasius Kircher to look at. Maybe Kircher did, and maybe it can be identified via his papers, those papers which have yielded nothing whatsoever about the manuscript that standard VMS history says he was alerted to, and more than once queried on, by his friends. I guess that Wilfrid Voynich knew all this, and knew of some letters and records in certain libraries, and even had a useful letter in his personal collection, and when he got hold of the mysterious unique manuscript somewhere somehow, he started synthesizing, with the help of a little acid, and some other serious physical manipulations of the book, and of people in useful positions, a thread for the literary discovery of the ages: Roger Bacon and so on.
If that is how it went, then Voynich, who conceivably may have been sensitive about his wife being the daughter of an immortal, would stand to become an immortal himself: the discoverer of the great sensational secret of scientific history: Bacon 500 years ahead of everybody etc. etc.
And for a while this story was believed by many. Then the Bacon angle of it fell apart, but the Kircher and Rudolf parts still stuck, like a glued ex libris plate, kept afloat by Voynich's tight control over who had access to the intensely magnetic manuscript:
You want to study my manuscript? Then you have to buy my hard-earned history of it. Or at least not challenge it. [5]
His Bacon story shattered, Voynich soon died, and his wife had this problem on her hands: guarding the honor of the husband she was devoted to.
Well, if you suspect that the history is bogus, and you don't care, but you want access to the ms, and on top of all problems the ms's owner is the daughter of George Boole, then some careful tactics are called for. Friedman got his access. And he apparently greatly frustrated Dr. Strong of Yale who also wanted access: he wouldn't let Strong have a complete copy of the ms. Neither would Mrs. Voynich. [6]
Why? Was it because Friedman was worried about cryptographic competition from Strong? One would think that Friedman was too good a cryp to worry much about that. I don't know. But, I guess, Friedman suspected that the manuscript's history was an outright fabrication, and he was concerned that Strong would soon see that and be vocal about it, thus compromising Friedman's position with his benefactress, Mrs. Voynich.
The secret history of the bogus history of the Voynich manuscript is an interesting possible subject in itself, and far more complex than the few pure guesses about it that I've just rolled. But on to the important thing:
Can we propose, if only in the vaguest outline, some fresh hunting ground for MS 408 archeology and history, that might have a chance of yielding real paydirt, unambiguous concrete paydirt, by the end of the next hundred years?
We need fresh hunting ground for MS 408 history! That is not too much to ask after a hundred years of: ? ? ?
So lets give it a try, developing fresh hunting ground. It won't hurt - it won't necessarily clash with the orthodox history.
Because I presently believe the mcP hypothesis of the Voynich manuscript to be the best, [7], and because I see it only gathering in believability, and because Christine de Pizan remains the best candidate for the hypothesis's MmsP, it is natural to propose archeological sites associated with Christine. And there is a prime candidate among those.
Ground Zero of Nine Rosettes Archeology: The Abbey of Poissy
Among the mysteries of Christine's life is where she was and what she was doing, after presumably leaving Paris during France's upheavals about the spring of 1419. Actually, her whereabouts and doings appear to be mysterious from 1413 on. [8]
The one precisely dated work by her after 1419 is her last known work, the cryptically ending Joan of Arc poem, of 1429, wherein she mentions being in a closed convent for eleven years. Christine scholars assume that on leaving Paris she went to the Abbey of Poissy, not far from Paris, well familiar to Christine, and where her daughter was a nun.
It seems logical from the mcP hypothesis point of view that Christine, if she did not begin composing the mcP in her convent, worked on it there, and that nuns in a network of cloisters associated with that convent were the initiated priestesses and guardians of the mcP secret sisterhood doctrine.
I suggest, especially to enthusiastic newcomers to MS 408 study who are not yet frozen into the orthodox history, that it is worthwhile to research the activities of nuns, and semi-nuns of the late middle ages in Europe, especially in France and Italy, and especially to note any connections to the Abbey of Poissy.
If the mcP hypothesis is correct, and if MmsP = Christine de Pizan, then an exciting promise is the discovery, perhaps even behind some secret cloister wall-stone, or concealed within some ancient candle-stick, of that hitherto elusive scrap of parchment, bearing the unmistakable script and illustrations of the 9 Rosettes manuscript.
Berj / KI3U
[1] The Voynich Manuscript - An Elegant Enigma, by M.E. D'Imperio, c. 1976-80, Aegean Park Press, ISBN 0-89412-038-7
This is the single indispensible standard reference work on MS 408.
Funny, how 89 seems to show up so often in things Voynich.
[2] see for example Jorge Stolfi's comments in the vms-list thread: VMs: 600 ducats for what?; Saturday, March 20, 1999 1:13 AM
[3] vms-list post:
VMs: Voynich labels as numbers; Alice; CREINTIS & anagramming ideas; Wednesday, July 19, 2006 2:19 PM
and vms-list thread from:
RE: VMs: Hand signs and question [was part8: CREINTIS etc]; Sunday, July 30, 2006 12:24 AM
[4] http://webtext.library.yale.edu/bein...1600.ms408.htm
[5] Unless I am reading D'Imperio wrong, as late as 1966 there were still only 6 or 7 facsimile copies of the manuscript in the entire world.
[6] GC's website has for download the relevant personal correspondence of Dr. Strong; well worth reading:
http://internet.cybermesa.com/~galethog/Voynich/
[7] vms-list post: VMs: General mcP Hypothesis on the Voynich Manuscript; Sunday, May 21, 2006 11:41 PM
[8] Christine de Pizan, Her Life and Works, A Biography By Charity Cannon Willard, New York, Persea Books, 1984
[9] The vms-list archives are online here:
http://voynich.ms/forum/
The archives are extensive, and for the most part intact.
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http://www.talk-history.com/forum/letter-symbols-christine-t2320.html
Berj / KI3U Recent Historian Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Pennsylvania Posts: 2
22 OCT 2006 04:40 GMT
Letter symbols in Christine, and the Nine Rosettes Manuscript
KI3U / 14 OCT 2005
Letter symbols in Christine, and the Nine Rosettes Manuscript (Voynich ms, Beinecke MS 408)
Hello to all interested in the possibility that Christine de Pizan was the primordial influence leading to the Nine Rosettes Manuscript. I have here a few more items to add to the Was-it-Christine? checklist. [1]
1.) The VMS symbols-group GC-so [5]
This 2-symbols-sequence group is common throughout the VMS, EXCEPT as a self-standing "word". By itself in the text, bracketed by spaces, I find GC-so only in these 11 instances (none for variations GC-to and GC-$o ):
f2r.9 (botanical section of VMS)
f30v.7 (botanical)
f47r.6 (botanical)
f67r.1 outer ring (cosmological)
f87r.6 (botanical) [2]
f100r.3 (herbal / pharmaceutical)
f102r1.12 (herbal / pharmaceutical)
f106r.25 (star pages / recipes)
f107r.42 (star pages / recipes)
f111r.25 (star pages / recipes) [3]
f111r.26 (star pages / recipes) [3]
Did Christine too write this group in her known manuscripts? And if yes, did it stand out relative to its context writing?
To see, lets go back once more to where we've been before, Christine's publishing masterpiece, the Queen's Manuscript, BL Harley MS 4431. (The queen was Isabeau of France, wife of Charles VI. Christine presented the commissioned book to Isabeau ~ 1414.)
Have a look again at MS 4431 f.17 with its illustration of Christine and Lady Reason clearing the Field of Letters:
http://ibs001.colo.firstnet.net.uk/b...height=2&idx=2
In this magnified picture of the page's illustration, at bottom left, to the lower-left of the rubric, there is in a tan color, a perfect example of what in VMS studies is the group GC-so . Note how the initial GC-s has the same construction we see in the VMS: it appears like a little letter c, to which is joined from above a larger clockwise-curving arc.
What the GC-so group means in MS 4431, f.17 , I do not know; perhaps a Christine scholar does. And of course we do not know what GC-so means in the Voynich manuscript. Perhaps a variation of the lone GC-s is a personal sine of Christine.
2.) The GC-k looped symbol (symmetric double-loop gallows letter)
There is at least another GC-k, one much, much closer in form to what we see in the VMS, than the first we found a few months ago; in fact, it is about perfect. Return to the same above image of f.17 , look up a little, and to the left of the GC-so . You will see a red GC-k that at a casual glance looks like just another part of the rubric, but can equally well, if not more likely, be seen as a separate item "intruding" upon the rubric.
3.) GC-k versus the Heraldic Knot and the Zodiac Sign of Gemini
As presented in "A Dictionary Of Symbols", the depictions of the Heraldic Knot and the Zodiac sign of Gemini have a strong resemblance to a pair of GC-k 's joined smoothly at their legs. [4]
One can fathom, that the idea for the remarkable intruding gallows letters in the VMS came from the Heraldic Knot and Gemini symbols. To see this, lets compare a particular example intruding gallows in the VMS, GC-K, more precisely GC-75, with a Heraldic knot like ornamentation in an MS 4431 illustration:
MS 4431 f.290 , an illustration from the building of the City of Ladies:
http://ibs001.colo.firstnet.net.uk/b...height=2&idx=2
In the Voynich cosmological diagram on f85r2 (left-most panel in the Beinecke online image designated f85v), in the outer, text-bearing ring, under the southeast arching fountain spray, is the symbols group GC- oKo89 with its intruding gallows GC-K . Have a look at this particular GC-K . And then compare it with the Heraldic Knot like ornamentation in 4431 f.290 - in the left half of the picture, just above the little building within which is depicted Christine with Ladies Reason, Rectitude, and Justice.
So, we have added a little more data to consider when weighing Christine de Pizan as the original force behind the world's most mysterious manuscript.
From one elementary perspective, Christine's literary career campaign of championing virtue, especially self-confident feminine virtue, might be regarded as playing out on a stage framed by two extreme examples: the example of zero-virtue, the utterly failed role model of Isabeau, and the example of infinite virtue, Joan of Arc. Christine tried hard to get Isabeau to act like a responsible Queen and help prevent, rather than accelerate France's slide into civil war. But Isabeau must have been a terrible disappointment to Christine. Joan appeared as if by a miracle, vindicating Christine's life-long maxims, only to be treacherously destroyed by members of church and state, members of the same greater circle that Christine was a member of.
Thus it seems, that Christine would have had ample motivation to initiate a lasting, secret, and complex sisterhood doctrine.
Berj / KI3U
[1] For complete details, including bibliographic, on the possibility of Christine de Pizan being the conceiving originator of efforts that eventually led to the extant manuscript Beinecke MS 408, a.k.a. Voynich Manuscript, VMS, the Nine Rosettes Manuscript, etc., see the vms-list series, of which the latest installment is:
VMs: part9: CREINTIS, Voynich, prime numbers, ESCRINET, anagrams & Christine de Pizan; Sunday, October 8, 2006 1:24 AM
The vms-list archives are online here: http://voynich.ms/forum/
The archives are extensive, and for the most part intact.
[2] f87r is the page immediately after the 9 rosettes f85/f86 foldout, that foldout being the grand climax of the Voynich manuscript. It is among the candidate pages suggesting perhaps that their page number, at top-right, may possibly be involved in the page's composition: f42r, f54r, f78r, f80r, f84r, f87r, f104r, f107r.
[3] The f111r star page is one of those pages in the VMS that gives indications that its text from the top-left of the page to the bottom-right, was NOT laid down per normal writing. Have a look at it, and note that the 12 or so lines (reminiscent of e12 outputs) preceeding lines 25 and 26 appear as if they were squeezed into their parchment space, as if the blocks of text before and after were written first, with a space reserved for the squeezed block of lines.
This invites considering not just single lines as cipher units as per Currier, but also blocks of lines. Or in any case, it hints as evidence for more complex encipherment procedures than just a serial symbols-stream scheme. Perhaps cipher templates relate to the squeezed lines, or non-linear scripting effect: two or more code-generating templates used to compose blocks of text onto a page, and their slight mis-alignments causing cramping.
For more on the possibly non-linear scripting of VMS text units see:
http://mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/...html#lineorder
and see also discussions in the vms-list threads:
VMs: incognito symbols in the Voynich manuscript; Wednesday, June 7, 2006 1:29 AM
VMs: Christine de Pizan and the Voynich Manuscript; Friday, June 16, 2006 9:59 PM
[4] A Dictionary Of Symbols, J.E. Cirlot, 2nd ed., Translated from the Spanish by Jack Sage, Barnes & Noble, 1995
[5] Of the several transcription systems, and transcripts of the "text" of MS 408 that have been done, the system of GC, "Glen Claston" (a pseudonym), is by far the best, in my opinion. GC's transcription alphabet, and his complete transcript of MS 408 are available online:
http://internet.cybermesa.com/~galethog/Voynich/
Note that the absolute identity of a transcript symbol in GC's alphabet is defined by its ASCII code. When there is no confusion (say due to fonts), the common text-character can be used to denote a VMS symbol. Thus the VMS symbol that appears like a tall double-looped, double-legged, symmetric letter, is absolutely identified by its ASCII code: GC-107, but under normal circumstances is given as: GC-k .
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http://www.talk-history.com/forum/letter-symbols-christine-t2320.html?p=11225#post11225
Berj / KI3U Recent Historian Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Pennsylvania Posts: 3
24 OCT 2006 05:57 GMT
Re: Letter symbols in Christine, and the Nine Rosettes Manuscript
Hello red clay
Well I can try, although the significance is in the details, and what I have posted will best be utilized (or rejected) by in-depth Voynich ms workers.
That said, I'd like to convey this: Christine de Pizan produced some of the finest manuscripts of her era. If a Christine student, used to manuscripts of such superb quality, comes at the idea that the VMS, basically a rag by comparison, may be connected with Christine, then there is a good chance the idea will be dismissed as ludicrous.
But, if the Christine student allows that the VMS is a copy of a hypothesized master document, mcP, and reproduces faithfully the SYMBOLIC, and mathematical content of the mcP, rather than being a physical high-quality ms specimen, and the Christine student then evaluates the symbolic content of the VMS and measures it against the symbolic content of Christine's known works, the idea is not at all ludicrous, especially if one comes to the conclusion that the VMS dates to the 15th century, is of European origin, and the mastermind behind it is a woman.
None of this is easy. One can spend years going around in circles trying to probe the VMS mystery. The VMS has had the reputation of "the world's most mysterious manuscript" since shortly after it was discovered early last century, and it doesn't take long, once one when gets to work on it seriously, to understand why.
Berj / KI3U
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http://www.talk-history.com/forum/begin-probing-mystery-t2343.html?p=11238#post11238
Berj / KI3U Recent Historian Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Pennsylvania Posts: 4
25 OCT 2006 04:47 GMT
How to begin probing the mystery of The Nine Rosettes / Voynich Manuscript
24 OCT 2006
How to begin probing the mystery of The Nine Rosettes / Voynich Manuscript
The following are my opinions on how to get started, based on my serious, and continuing ever since the fall of 1999 interest in the mystery of Beinecke MS 408, "the world's most mysterious manuscript", the Voynich Manuscript, VMS, the Nine Rosettes Manuscript, 9RMS.
1.) Get and read the one indispensable standard reference book on the subject:
The Voynich Manuscript - An Elegant Enigma
by M.E. D'Imperio
Aegean Park Press, c. 1976-1980, ISBN 0-89412-038-7
Everything Voynich, before and after D'Imperio, flows in one way or another through the information and concepts in Mary D'Imperio's book. In Voynichville, possession and study of this book is the difference between being a serious student, and remaining a holiday tourist without a clear idea of the terrain. The bibliography at the end of the book has 267 entries. More extensive and current bibliographies that have built upon this one, are online.
When confused about anything Voynich, check D'Imperio - at the least there is likely to be in there a hint on how to resolve the confusion. Having read D'Imperio you will know how to separate the wheat from the chaff among the offerings in Voynichville, including those online.
In the land of the nine rosettes there is no substitute for D'Imperio.
2.) Download the best available online images of the manuscript's pages from the Yale Beinecke Library:
http://webtext.library.yale.edu/bein...1600.ms408.htm
Look at all of these images often: the lower resolution images are handy for viewing one right after the other rapidly, like flipping the pages of the book, to refresh and re-stimulate your conceptions of the entire book as a whole. Go to the trouble of understanding the physical construction of the manuscript, and especially how its fold-outs work.
Be aware that there is a possibility of confusion with page numbers. For example, the VMS page that has its Beinecke image identified as f101v, is in advanced study more accurately identified as f102r2.
If you have access to the Beinecke library, you can examine MS 408 directly, as well as the associated materials there that are listed on the webpage just given.
3.) Do not in the least be discouraged from serious pursuit of the mystery if you lack mathematical skills: the mathematical and cryptographic is just one aspect of the mystery. You may have historical and / or artistic skills, or other skills, that result in progress. You may be lucky, and perhaps without even trying, stumble across a critical clue, perhaps in a library, a museum, or the proverbial old castle, that starts a chain reaction leading to an illumination of this mystery. It could be you.
4.) Browse online forums that discuss the manuscript seriously, and not just the english language ones if you are fluent in another language. I am a member of two other forums; one is very young - the german group hosted at yahoo:
http://de.groups.yahoo.com/group/voynich-de/
Many of its members are fluent in english. This group is fairly open-minded in its considerations; for example, it considers the effects of dreams with respect to the Voynich manuscript, and occasionally also conducts group experiments involving dreams: there are people who had never heard of the VMS who had a strange dream, or paranormal experience about a mysterious script or book, and soon found themselves discovering the Voynich manuscript and its world, and recognized it as the object of their dream or paranormal experience. Incidentally, it is not uncommon that even the most conservative thinkers undergo the instant "I'm hooked!" experience upon discovering the 9 Rosettes manuscript.
The other online forum I am a member of, the Voynich Manuscript Mailing List, vms-list, is the oldest online forum concerned with the manuscript:
http://www.voynich.net/
It's archives, mostly intact, going back to 1991, are online, associated with a parallel forum, here:
http://voynich.ms/index.html
If you think you've figured out something about the mystery, it is advisable to first search, thoroughly, at least this archive, to see what related material is in there, before announcing your discovery.
5.) At an advanced stage of study, in addition to the Beinecke Library, another library with important Voynich historical documents is the Marshall Library in Lexington, Virginia.
6.) If you concentrate a part of your study on MS 408's mysterious and beautiful script, you will see that there have been several transcription systems and transcripts achieved over the years, each with their own pluses and minuses. Transcription is critical: a bad system can lead you into endless errors, while a good system can make you see new things, and get useful analytic results. Earlier this year, Voynich study old guard oldtimer "Glen Claston" (a pseudo-nym) a.k.a. "GC" released online his glyph-based transcription alphabet, and his complete transcription of MS 408:
http://internet.cybermesa.com/~galethog/Voynich/
I personally believe GC's transcript work to be the best available. Also, I am the one to whom to report proposed corrections, that may or may not be included in annual update releases. GC and I agree on some critical aspects of the mathematical structure of the cipher text, but we are cordially in disagreement over the manuscript's origin, history, and meaning.
7.) Be aware that in a sense, the world's most mysterious manuscript is a hot potato. In the ninety plus years since students have been trying to understand the enigma, severe embarrassments and hard feelings have been par for the course. The intense magnetism of the mystery draws intelligent thinkers into it, and won't let them go, while at the same time generating the feeling that one could end their life without seeing anything in the way of a satisfactory resolution, or suddenly out of the blue seeing a solution that renders all their own work and theories worthless. So this is important: if you are truly serious about pursuing the mystery, then never worry about making a fool of yourself in the pursuit of it; it is truly a deep one, and it will have the last laugh. Over the history of the manuscript's study to the present day, it is not unsual to see depressions, unsportsmanlike conduct, and strange behaviour among the denizens of Voynichville.
A defense mechanism has arisen in some quarters of Voynichville: the convenient theory that the manuscript originated as a hoax, and is basically meaningless or of little importance, a waste of serious study time. And this defense mechanism now and then, here and there, precipitates ridicule against serious students. The ridicule can also be used by some who know better, to achieve more calculated objectives.
As far as I know, there are no professional MS 408 scholars. And there definitely is no-one who can claim to be "the authority on MS 408" - such a notion would be subject to being torn to pieces in five minutes in the vms-list forum. At the moment, the mystery has not been solved yet, despite some clever propaganda from certain quarters taking advantage of the ill-informed masses, and the rather poor preparations of some journalists reporting their survey of Voynichville.
There is a fair number of people in high academic positions who study the manuscript, but the number of them willing to admit it publicly is not great. Because of unpleasant events in the early years of VMS study by academics, ever since it takes extraordinary courage for someone who has an academic reputation to protect, to admit to association with this mystery.
If the solution to the world's most mysterious manuscript reveals philosophy, ideological philosophy with critical aspects highly relevant to present-day political realities, then the hot potato is likely to get hotter.
So then, these are my quick brief opinions on how to begin exploring the mystery of MS 408. If truly deep mysteries get you going, then consider yourself invited to the land of the Nine Rosettes.
Berj / KI3U
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From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : voynich-de@yahoogroups.de
Sent : Wednesday, November 1, 2006 10:31 AM To : voynich-de@yahoogroups.de
Subject : [voynich-de] f85 / f86 Bruecken, Wasserwege, und Schloesser
Voynich Manuscrikpt f85 / f86 Bruecken, Wasserwege, und Schloesser
In der VMS Hoehepunkt Abbilding f85 / f86 (die neun Rosetten) sind zwischen einigen Rosetten, Bruecken, Wasserwege, und sogennante Schloesser, zu sehen. [1]
Z.b. zwischen: Nord und Nordwest Rosetten; Nord und Nordost; Nordost und Ost; Sued und Suedwest.
Die Einzelheiten sind am besten in dem Beinecke hoch-Detail Bild, .sid auch gennant ZOOM, zu sehen.
Lassen wir uns diese mit einer Zeichnung aus dem 17. Jahrhundert, die in dem Archiv von Bern ist, vergleichen. [2]
Berj / KI3U
[1] Beinecke_DL: 1006231 http://webtext.library.yale.edu/beinflat/pre1600.ms408.htm
[2] http://www.florin.ms/beth5.html
ITALIANISMES DANS L'ENLUMINURE LYONNAISE. LES ILLUSTRATIONS DU DES CAS DES
NOBLES HOMMES ET FEMMES DE BOCCACE PEINT PAR LE MAITRE DU ROMAN DE LA ROSEDE
VIENNE (PARIS, B.N.F., Fr 229)
ITALIANATE ILLUMINATIONS IN LYON: THE MINIATURES OF BOCCACCIO'S DES CAS DES
NOBLE HOMMES ET FEMMES PAINTED BY THE MASTER OF THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE DE
VIENNE (PARIS, B.N.F., FR 229)
CECILE QUENTEL TOUCHE
Abbildung Fig. 15, Schloss von St. Moritz.
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From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Wednesday, November 1, 2006 10:42 AM To : vms-list@voynich.net
Subject : VMs: f85 / f86 Bridges, Waterways, and Castles
In the climactic nine rosettes illustration of VMS f85 / f86 are to be seen bridges, waterways, and so-called castles.
For example, between: north and northwest rosettes; north and northeast; northeast and east; south and southwest.
The details are best seen in the Beinecke high-resolution image, the .sid or also called the ZOOM image.
Lets us compare these with a 17th century drawing in the Archive of Bern. [2]
Berj / KI3U
[1] Beinecke_DL: 1006231 http://webtext.library.yale.edu/beinflat/pre1600.ms408.htm
[2] http://www.florin.ms/beth5.html
ITALIANISMES DANS L'ENLUMINURE LYONNAISE. LES ILLUSTRATIONS DU DES CAS DES NOBLES HOMMES ET FEMMES DE BOCCACE PEINT PAR LE MAITRE DU ROMAN DE LA ROSEDE VIENNE (PARIS, B.N.F., Fr 229)
ITALIANATE ILLUMINATIONS IN LYON: THE MINIATURES OF BOCCACCIO'S DES CAS DES NOBLE HOMMES ET FEMMES PAINTED BY THE MASTER OF THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE DE VIENNE (PARIS, B.N.F., FR 229)
CECILE QUENTEL TOUCHE
Fig. 15, the castle of St. Moritz.
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http://www.talk-history.com/forum/castles-waterways-bridges-t2430.html?p=11333#post11333
Berj / KI3U Recent Historian Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Pennsylvania Posts: 6 1 NOV 2006 09:20 GMT
Castles, Waterways, Bridges, among the Nine Rosettes
Research into "the world's most mysterious manuscript", [1], is ever on the lookout for a clue that links the manuscript with some known historical context, with the hope that a chain reaction or avalanche of clues will result, and lead to a concrete origin of the manuscript. Needless to say, it is not predictable just which little clue will ignite the chain reaction, and one operates best leaving no little pebble unturned. So here we present one more little pebble.
The 9RMS is an incomplete parchment codex of 200+ pages organized around a dramatic visual climax: the f85 / f86 foldout of 6 panels per side, 12 altogether on the book's largest sheet of parchment. One 6-panel side is an integral, fantastically complex illustration known in MS 408 study as the nine rosettes: this illustration is the very heart of the mystery. The mystery of this book in all its aspects is so deep, that attempts to place its, or at least its precursor's origin in time, have varied from the 12th to 17th centuries.
The 9 rosettes illustration has something of a Byzantine flavor, and in addition it suggests themes of mappa mundi, the mathematical system of nine symbols (i.e. calculating with Hindu-Arabic numerals, as opposed to, say Roman numerals), an emphasis on certain numbers, some of which are prime numbers, and their relations as further developed elsewhere in the book, and, philosophy: one gets the sense that the 9 rosettes picture expresses a serious and highly developed philosophical message by an extraordinarily intelligent author. [2]
The philosophy suggestion is further amplified by the illustrations on the other side of the 9 rosettes parchment sheet: for example, the other side bears two circular, so-called "cosmological" diagrams, one centered on the sun, the other on the moon, and the non-text periphery of the moon-centered picture has hidden in it four persons, the one on top seen from the back, and holding what appears to be a tree of life, while at the same time giving the impression of preaching to an audience that is situated on the nine rosettes side. Incidentally, the sun-centered diagram shows one of four men holding what could be a fleur de lis, and adds to impressions that MS 408 could be of French origin.
The idea that the 9RMS originated with a woman or women, has not had extensive following (although that may be changing lately), but nevertheless one of the earliest and most dedicated students of the manuscript, the late Fr. Theodore C. Petersen of St. Paul's College and Catholic University, pointed to the 12th century abbess St. Hildegarde of Bingen as a possible source of interest. Going rapidly through the images of the entire book, it is certainly possible to get the impression: of, by, and for women. The nine rosettes, even if it is merely an unusual mappa mundi, gives many a distinctly feminine impression. [3]
Now let us consider some details in the nine rosettes, and start on turning over one more little pebble on the road of this mystery. In the nine rosettes illustration of f85 / f86 are to be seen bridges, waterways, and so-called castles, connecting some of the rosettes. [4] For example, between: north and northwest rosettes; north and northeast; northeast and east; south and southwest. The details are best seen in the Beinecke high-resolution image, the .sid or also called the ZOOM image (appx. 8.75 Mb download). Lets us compare these with a 17th century drawing in the Archive of Bern. [5] Note especially the V - like flags atop the towers in both the Bern drawing, and the nine rosettes picture.
Berj / KI3U
[1] The Nine Rosettes Manuscript (9RMS)/ The Voynich Manuscript (VMs)/ Yale Beinecke Library MS 408.
see these for more information:
[1a] How to begin probing the mystery of The Nine Rosettes / Voynich Manuscript; 25th October 2006, 05:47 GMT; http://www.talk-history.com/forum/be...ery-t2343.html
[1b] Ground Zero of Voynich Archeology; 23rd October 2006, 05:12 GMT; http://www.talk-history.com/forum/gr...ich-t2319.html
[1c] Letter symbols in Christine, and the Nine Rosettes Manuscript; 23rd October 2006, 05:40 GMT; http://www.talk-history.com/forum/le...ine-t2320.html
[2] Note that the book gives a number of clues suggesting that it is a copy, and not the original that was conceived by the primordial author.
[3] Well-known blog writer Audrey Wylfing has commented: " The rosettes remind one immediately of lace - mantillas, altar-cloths and so forth. " vms-list post to vms-list@voynich.net: VMs: RE: Ground Zero of Voynich Archeology; Sunday, October 15, 2006 2:07 AM
[4] Beinecke_DL: 1006231 http://webtext.library.yale.edu/bein...1600.ms408.htm
[5] http://www.florin.ms/beth5.html ITALIANISMES DANS........ITALIANATE ILLUMINATIONS IN .........(PARIS, B.N.F., FR 229) CECILE QUENTEL TOUCHE see the drawing in Fig. 15, the castle of St. Moritz.
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From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : voynich-de@yahoogroups.de
Sent : Friday, November 3, 2006 2:12 PM To : voynich-de@yahoogroups.de
Subject : [voynich-de] Hindu-Arabische Ziffern und Crisogonus de Nassis in 1469
Bridwell MS 5, das Jahr 1469 Manuskript von Crisogonus de Nassis, ist uns schon bekannt wegen der Aehnlichkeit zwischen ein Detail auf Seite f. 1r und VM (Beinecke MS 408) f85 / f86 "clock hands". [1]
Bridwell's Webseite hatt neulich zwei mehr MS 5 Bilder online gestellt, ff. 55v-56r, und Colophon, f. 86r. [2,3,4]
Alle vier Seiten, in Latein geschrieben, zeigen mehrere Exemplare der Abkuerzung die sich etwa mit Voynich GC-206 oder GC-192 vergleicht.
Aber, besonders interressant in Bridwell MS 5 ff. 55v-56r sind die modern-geschriebenen Hindu-Arabischen Ziffer, sowie wir sie in dem Voynich Nine Rosettes Manuskript sehen.
Berj / KI3U
[1] vms-list Beitrag an vms-list@voynich.net:
VMs: the clock "hands" in f86v nine-rosettes; Saturday, June 3, 2006 1:101 AM
[2] http://www.smu.edu/bridwell/specialcollections/bridwellwesternms/brms.htm#MS5
[3] http://www.smu.edu/bridwell/specialcollections/bridwellwesternms/MS5AugustineWM.jpg
[4] http://www.smu.edu/bridwell/specialcollections/bridwellwesternms/MS5colophonWM.jpg
*******************************************
From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Friday, November 3, 2006 2:15 PM To : vms-list@voynich.net
Subject : VMs: Hindu-Arabic Numerals and Crisogonus de Nassis in 1469
Bridwell MS 5, the 1469 manuscript of Crisogonus de Nassis, is already familiar to us because of the similarity between a detail on page f. 1r and the Voynich Beinecke MS 408 f85 / f86 "clock hands". [1]
Bridwell's website has recently put online two more images of MS 5, ff. 55v-56r, and the Colophon, f. 86r. [2,3,4]
All four pages, written in Latin, show numerous examples of the abbreviation that is comparable to Voynich GC-206 or GC-192.
But, especially interesting in Bridwell MS 5 ff. 55v-56r are the modern-written Hindu-Arabic numerals, as we see them in the Voynich Nine Rosettes manuscript.
Berj / KI3U
[1] vms-list post: VMs: the clock "hands" in f86v nine-rosettes; Saturday, June 3, 2006 1:101 AM
[2] http://www.smu.edu/bridwell/specialcollections/bridwellwesternms/brms.htm#MS5
[3] http://www.smu.edu/bridwell/specialcollections/bridwellwesternms/MS5AugustineWM.jpg
[4] http://www.smu.edu/bridwell/specialcollections/bridwellwesternms/MS5colophonWM.jpg
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http://www.talk-history.com/forum/letter-symbols-christine-t2320.html?p=11381#post11381
Berj / KI3U Recent Historian Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Pennsylvania Posts: 7
6 NOV 2006 03:33 GMT Re: Letter symbols in Christine, and the Nine Rosettes Manuscript
5 NOV 2006 * Correction of an error in the original post of 22 OCT 2006 (written 14 OCT 2006) *
In the original post, items 1.) and 2.), I incorrectly identified the BL manuscript as Harley MS 4431. It is actually another Christine de Pizan manuscript, a much later one dating from 1475, and catalogued as Shelfmark Add. 20698.
Therefore, insofar as items 1.) and 2.) are concerned, the possibility of a direct connection between the symbols-group GC-so and GC-k and Christine is considerably diluted.
Now, another BL image from Add. 20698: http://ibs001.colo.firstnet.net.uk/b...tartid= 11108
suggests that the GC-so in that mansucript is the Hindu-Arabic number "20" and identifies a ruled line on the page; interesting in its own right, because of the paleographic history of the Hindu-Arabic numerals, but too far removed from a direct connection with Christine for the present considerations.
So, as for the possible direct connection between Christine and GC-so we are back down to the famous f.4 picture in BL Harley MS 4431, showing Christine in her study, writing: http://ibs001.colo.firstnet.net.uk/b...tartid= 34278
The last letter she has just written is at minimum a "c" and arguably the greater GC-s . The above online image does not have the resolution to see this, and BL makes it expensive to obtain a good image of the picture, however the reproduction of the picture in the affordable: Daily Life in Medieval Times, by Frances and Joseph Gies, 1969, 1974, 1990, originally published by HarperCollins, Barnes and Noble Books edition published by Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers, Inc., pg. 245 shows the detail clearly. We would not be surprised to see Christine writing a "c" . But if we found a GC-s in her manuscripts, it would be of great interest because of that glyph's prominence in the Voynich manuscript.
This same MS 4431 picture, Christine writing in her study, has symbols / glyphs concealed in it; most unambiguous, is the hidden "7" with the curled base-leg (or alternatively an upside-down "2" ) that is hidden in one of the 3-lobed leaves of the border decoration atop the picture: the 2nd from-left, center-of-the-spiral leaf. Berj / KI3U
******************************************************************************************
From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Sunday, November 5, 2006 10:09 PM To : vms-list@voynich.net Subject : VMs: correction of an error
In the Saturday, October 14, 2006 12:39 AM post: " Letter symbols in Christine, and the Nine Rosettes Manuscript "
I made an error. A big one. In that post, items 1.) and 2.), I incorrectly identified the BL manuscript as Harley MS 4431. It is actually another Christine de Pizan manuscript, a much later one dating from 1475, and catalogued as Shelfmark Add. 20698. Therefore, insofar as items 1.) and 2.) are concerned, the possibility of a direct connection between the symbols-group GC-so and GC-k and Christine is considerably diluted.
Now, another BL image from Add. 20698: http://ibs001.colo.firstnet.net.uk/b...tartid= 11108
suggests that the GC-so in that mansucript is the Hindu-Arabic number "20" and identifies a ruled line on the page; interesting in its own right, because of the paleographic history of the Hindu-Arabic numerals, but too far removed from a direct connection with Christine for that consideration.
So, as for the possible direct connection between Christine and GC-s we are back down to the famous f.4 picture in BL Harley MS 4431, showing Christine in her study, writing: http://ibs001.colo.firstnet.net.uk/b...tartid= 34278
The last letter she has just written is at minimum a "c" and arguably the greater GC-s . The above online image does not have the resolution to see this, and BL makes it expensive to obtain a good image of the picture, however the reproduction of the picture in the affordable: Daily Life in Medieval Times, by Frances and Joseph Gies, 1969, 1974, 1990, originally published by HarperCollins, Barnes and Noble Books edition published by Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers, Inc., pg. 245 shows the detail clearly. We would not be surprised to see Christine writing a "c" . But if we found a GC-s in her manuscripts, it would be of great interest because of that glyph's prominence in the Voynich.
This same MS 4431 picture, Christine writing in her study, has symbols / glyphs concealed in it. Most unambiguous, and I've pointed it out before, is the hidden "7" with the curled base-leg (or alternatively an upside-down "2" ) that is hidden in one of the 3-lobed leaves of the border decoration atop the picture: the 2nd from-left, center-of-the-spiral leaf.
Berj / KI3U
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From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Tuesday, November 7, 2006 4:46 PM To : vms-list@voynich.net Subject : Re: VMs: correction of an error
[Note: I will bcc: my specific-to-list-member posts to that list member
until list-functionality is back to normal, so to be sure that at least they receive my comments.]
Well David, in that case maybe when the list functionality finally returns to normal we'll get a flurry of posts with a solution to the mystery:
The Templars, searching for the true Veronica's Veil, accidentally stumbled upon the thought-to-have-been-lost-in-the-fire-at-Rome Sibylene Books. King Phillip IV found out about this, and went after the goods, finally torching the Templars - de Molay cursed him and the Pope as he burned to death.
Phil and his male scholars hadn't been able to read the books - they realized they needed a true Sibyl to interpret. Aware of the fame of St. Hildegard, they started looking for a French abbess with sibylene talent. Custody of the books began to be more and more in the hands of French nuns who were waiting to arise among them the true successor to the Cumean Sibyl. The books eventually wound up in the Abbey of Poissy, where secret, and never whole, conventionalized copies were made for other convents - one of these partial copies accidentally wound up in the Champaigne Fairs, ultimately to become MS 408.
The French nuns, well versed in St. Hildegard and her friend St. Elisabeth, had caught on to an important realization: the Sibylene books, when altogether, in the hands of anyone but the Cumean Sibyl, were carrying a curse of never-ending ignorance originating with the stupidity of King Tarquin The Proud.
WMV himself caught on to this realization, but only partly: he dismembered MS 408 some, thinking it was a complete copy of the Sibylene Books. Newbold figured everything out, and left his commentary about it all in a meta-cryptic apparently-false solution.
Well, it's amazing how many possibilities for interesting fiction the 9RMS offers :-) Berj
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From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : voynich-de@yahoogroups.de
Sent : Wednesday, November 8, 2006 8:45 PM To : voynich-de@yahoogroups.de
Subject : [voynich-de] GC-k und intruding gallows Symbol in einem 11. Jh. MS
Ueber mittelalterisches latein, ist Wikipedia hier: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_Latin
Dort ist eine Abbildung zu sehen die noch zwei Stufen hoehere Resolution bietet:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Carmina_Cantabrigiensia_Manuscr-C-fol436v.jpg
Es handelt sich um das Manuskript: Carmina Cantabrigiensia Manuscr-C-fol436v
Cambridge University Library, Gg. 5. 35), 11. cent.
Mann sieht sofort ein schoenes Exemplar von GC-k. Aber mehr: zu sehen sind mindestens 4 Exemplare von "intruding gallows" aehnliche Symbolen, und diese sind viehl mehr zu vegleichen mit den intruding gallows im VM, als ist die
circ Abkuerzung die D'Imperio schon in ihrem Buch, Fig. 17 zeigt.
Ich glaube es moeglich noch andere VM-aehnliche Symbolen in diesem MS zu finden. Berj / KI3U
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From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Wednesday, November 8, 2006 8:00 PM To : vms-list@voynich.net
Subject : VMs: GC-k and intruding gallows in 11th c. ms
[Note: I will bcc: my specific-to-list-member posts to that list member
until list-functionality is back to normal, so to be sure that at least they receive my comments.]
Well here is a surprise that once and for all removes any doubt about the legitimate place in internet-society for the people's encyclopedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Carmina_Cantabrigiensia_Manuscr-C-fol436v.jpg
The above url is for the magnified view of this manuscript page: Carmina Cantabrigiensia Manuscr-C-fol436v
Cambridge University Library, Gg. 5. 35), 11. cent.
and one more better stage of resolution is also downloadable (177 kb). The parent url is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_Latin
and, obviously, is for the wiki article on medieval latin. Now to the surprises:
The first thing that hits your eye is a GC-k gallows, the symmetric double-looped glyph / symbol: about at the end of line 20, first (left) column.
Almost imediately after seeing it, I saw what resembles the cerc abbreviation that D'Imperio gives in her Table Fig.17, but in this ms the intruding stem is straight, and overall, it resembles the rendering of intruding gallows letters in the VMS rather strangely well.
And there are at least four of them: 1 in the first column, and 3 in the 2nd. I think with a really close going over, there may be other MS 408 lookalikes. I thought I'd report this to the list immediately though, before going off in search for better images and info on this manuscript.
I hope the current list-disfunctionality is not so severe that only John (Reynolds) and David (Suter) receive this post - the more of us dig into this ms the better. Perhaps it's already been noticed before and a report on it is somewhere buried in the archives. I don't know what the script is called, as I'm not good in that, and just go with the naive rule of thumb that if it's legible, it must be Carolingian miniscule.
Berj / KI3U
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From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Thursday, November 9, 2006 1:17 AM To : vms-list@voynich.net
Subject : Re: VMs: GC-k and intruding gallows in 11th c. ms
[Note: I will bcc: my specific-to-list-member posts to that list member
until list-functionality is back to normal, so to be sure that at least they receive my comments.]
Hello David
I ran into the proverbial confusing brick-wall over at the CUL website trying to search the Gg. 5.35 ms. About all I could get there was a reference to music, which was already indicated from Canta in "Cantabrigiensia". What confused me is year 1890 and a thought / impression of 19th century college songs.
Anyway, next I searched the vms-list archives for any hypotheses that the 9RMS text might be musical notation. Turns out that in 1992 a Pepperdine U. professor? named M. Markowi ? corresponded with list-member rjb and Markowi had a concise and very interesting view of the possibility that the VMS text is musical notation, and rjb posted it. This post is easily found in the archives by searching the term "musing". I also searched "music" and "notation" and found only a few posts, but nothing further interesting.
If I remember correctly, St. Hildegard composed hauntingly beautiful chants. And of course she created her cryptic alphabet and synthetic language. So there is the thought that the MS 408 text, or at least some parts of it, are a kind of musical notation, but not for instruments, rather for a nun's choir chanting so as to evoke an ecstatic spiritual contact.
" ... but is anyone listening? "
I'll bet there is.
Anyway, I have no solution, just an evolving hypothesis that is basically the mcP hypothesis, but further along in context now to include an inspirational connection between St. Hildegard and Christine de Pizan via Hildegard's friend St. Elisabeth, Elisabeth's stuff being well disseminated among convents, and I would think surely therefore the Abbey off Poissy by the time Christine was involved with it.
Then I keep thinking of Prophet Ekwall's words: IT'S OLDER THAN YOU THINK!
For quite a while now I've had this growing feeling, which I alluded to in a post some time ago, that when we finally break down the gate into the mystery of MS 408, we will confront an even deeper hidden mystery of some kind. And I've been wondering to myself if that deeper mystery, assuming it is in there hidden behind the familiar enigma, has something to do with a question that I've always wanted answered: WHY did Christianity arise just WHEN it did? WHY THAT MOMENT IN TIME?
Besides the usual and detached orbital precession explantion.
I've got a hunch that before this is all over, we're going to discover that the lives of early nuns were far, far more complex than suspected, and maybe even more complex than the lives of monks.
In the meantime I've got to hand it to ole' GC for including the GC-218, GC-240, and a few other intruding gallows as glyphs in their own right in his transcription alphabet.
Berj
From: MONET273@XXXXXXXXXXXXX
Reply-To: vms-list@voynich.net To: vms-list@voynich.net
Subject: Re: VMs: GC-k and intruding gallows in 11th c. ms Date: Wed, 8 Nov 2006 20:44:16 EST
In a message dated 11/8/06 8:09:01 PM, ki3u writes: ...............
Hello Berj;
Yes, this is causing a strange feeling. Thoughts that come to my mind are that we have gotten separated from the main party of explorers and are communicating by muffled shouting.... However, it could also be that the three of us are somehow closer to the goal. John Reynolds said he will announce his solution shortly , as will I mine ...... And you sound as though you are on a winning course. So when the time comes we can all three make an announcement.... but is anyone listening? David
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From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Thursday, November 9, 2006 2:02 PM To : vms-list@voynich.net
Subject : RE: VMs: GC-k and intruding gallows in 11th c. ms
[Note: I will bcc: my specific-to-list-member posts to that list member
until list-functionality is back to normal, so to be sure that at least they receive my comments.]
John Reynolds wrote Thursday, November 9, 2006 1:20 PM:
" The reference to music is the word *Carmina* (songs); *Cantabrigensia* is the Latin name of Cambridge (England)."
Aha!
" They may be 11th century songs, but I doubt that these are college songs since not too many colleges and universities existed in the 11th century. "
Well that's why I knew I was getting confused, and left that Cambridge Library website for the vms-list archives to get myself better oriented. I think that CUL Gg. 5.35 is also known as the "Cambridge songs manuscript". Berj
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From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Thursday, November 9, 2006 2:31 PM To : vms-list@voynich.net
Subject : Re: VMs: GC-k and intruding gallows in 11th c. ms
[Note: I will bcc: my specific-to-list-member posts to that list member
until list-functionality is back to normal, so to be sure that at least they receive my comments.]
Dennis S. wrote Thursday, November 9, 2006 1:48 PM:
" I don't know whether you are aware of this, but we've previously found Ms with much more gallows-like embellishments.
from Cappelli's Dizionario (the 1967 reprint of what appears to be the 1929 edition), "Tavola IV"
http://www.geocities.com/ctesibos/voynich/precednt.html
and many more examples at http://main2.amu.edu.pl/~rafalp/WWW/HERM/VMS/palgraf.htm
The most recent gallows embellishments I have seen are in Jean Froissart's Chronicles and are perhaps 1350. I don't have a link handy at the moment. "
Oh yes, I'm well aware of the double-balloons-on-long-strings in one of Capelli's editions. From early times on, gallows of different kinds aren't rare at all - I've found them all over the place, pre-Christian Athenian curse tablets, Crusader inscriptions, papal documents etc., as I've posted in the past.
I don't know what they mean, but I don't think that the GC-k / GC-107 and the GC-1 / GC-49 and the other gallows-like letters in CUL Gg 5.35 are mere embellishments. The GC-k in Gg. 5.35 strikes me as much closer to the heart of the MS 408 mystery than the Capelli example, or, say, the 1113 Papal document shown at Rafal T. Prinke's excellent website.
Berj
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From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Thursday, November 9, 2006 4:32 PM To : vms-list@voynich.net
Subject : Re: VMs: GC-k and intruding gallows in 11th c. ms
[Note: I will bcc: my specific-to-list-member posts to that list member
until list-functionality is back to normal, so to be sure that at least they receive my comments.]
Keith wrote Thursday, November 9, 2006 3:12 PM:
" ...I had another look at Stolfi's work, and was very impressed.... "
Yes, Stolfi's ideas, and those of Jeff Haley, I check periodically: http://www.georgeboolefanclub.com/voynich.html
Berj
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From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Friday, November 10, 2006 5:40 PM To : vms-list@voynich.net
Subject : RE: VMs: GC-k and intruding gallows in 11th c. ms
[Note: I will bcc: my specific-to-list-member posts to that list member until list-functionality is back to normal, so to be sure that at least they receive my comments.]
John Reynolds wrote Friday, November 10, 2006 10:55 AM:
" Although I may or may not be considered a list-newcomer (I wasn't a participant in 1997), I definitely appreciate this information.
Although I had glanced at the Tavola IV examples previously, I had not understood their central significance. "
Hello John
There is actually an even broader significance (I think) than the embellishment vs symbol question, associated with the Tavola IV "gallows", and I'll comment on that in a moment. I want to first say that although like you I'm not exactly a Voynich newcomer, I am being partly self-serving in my periodic be-sympathetic-to-newcomer-bewilderment style of posting. Because, the VMS study is so complex, so multi-faceted, and so often frought with unknowns and ambiguities that I find it easy to get started off on what can later prove to be bad ideas or errors. Accordingly I was glad you quickly set me straight earlier in this thread with the "Canta" and Cambridge. Earlier this spring Jeff Haley made a strong push for being more comprehensible in our posts, and therefore of course more sympathetic to newcomers trying to get up to speed. I took Jeff's cue. Still, it is not easy to make an advanced point in a post and simultaneously present a sufficient context clearly, without writing into the post a long-winded synopsis of the matter under consideration.
Anyway, I will be just a little long-winded here on the broader significance. As I see it.
MS 408 has an unknown "script" with an "alphabet". Many of the alphabet's "letters" are elements from known European alphabets or symbols-systems of the late middle ages, covering a great variety: abbreviations, shorthand alphabets, Hindu-Arabic numerals, notarial script, secret or semi-secret (say alchemical) writing systems.
The tall looped symbols, or "gallows" letters, attract special attention, because although not unknown elsewhere and from even before Christianity, they are so common in the VMS, and so conspicuously perfected in their design as apparent major VMS alphabet-symbols, that the entire Voynich text gives the impression of being a highly-developed discipline that must have taken some time to achieve, and one would think had the involvement of a school, even if a secret / private one confined to, say, a closed network of correspondents.
In their most complex and beautiful form, as intruding gallows, these glyphs / symbols and the Voynich text give many observers a vague oriental impression, and that leads to the question: is the VMS script of oriental, or non-European, rather than occidental origin?
To answer the question, one has to look at what the scribes in the western world were routinely putting down on parchment, vellum, and paper. In one of my posts early this year I've described it as: what is in the scribe's hand, ready to come out? That is, even if the scribe is not routinely writing a particular symbol, what could he / she render as a symbol-innovation quite naturally and automatically?
An important reference is Adriano Capelli's book on Latin abbreviations: Lexicon Abbreviaturarum, and in her own book D'Imperio took samples from the 1949 edition of Capelli and placed them in her Table Fig. 17. The relevance of Latin abbreviations to the VMS text symbols also, logically, contributes to making Latin, or medieval Latin, a favored reference language for VMS text analytic attacks.
Altogether on the question, D'Imperio wrote in chapter 4:
" My own feeling is that we need not go as far afield as the Orient to explain these complex outlines; "
" It is my feeling that we need not look beyond the system of Latin abbreviations, familiar to all learned men of the Middle Ages and Renaissance throughout Europe, combined with early forms of Arabic numerals and some common alchemical and astrological symbols, to find the inspiration for the design of the Voynich script. "
When in 1997 Jim Reeds found in one of Capelli's editions [1] the Tavola IV photograph of an 1172 Italian-origin letter with "gallows" letters clearly as part of the readable script, it was an exciting find: here was an identifyable medieval European document with gallows. The list members discussed the find in the context of just-embellished-ordinary-letters versus symbols-in-their-own-right. Reeds immediately saw those particular gallows as just embellishments on the Carolingian script, but more importantly he wrote:
" An ongoing thread in discussions of the Voynich MS has been the source of the alphabet, only some letters of which looked like ordinary letters or numbers. So a non European origin, or at least some non European influence, was posited for the VMS. "
" To the contrary, I argued at the begining of this year, many of the supposedly non-standard Voynich letters were exactly the sorts of fanciful invented letters used in Europe in ciphers. By good luck I found an edition of Tranchedino's late 1400's book of cipher alphabets, many of which had a strong Voynich-like look. Rene Zandbergen said (if I recall correctly) that all that was lacking from the Tranchedino collection were the gallows-like letters. "
" So now we see the gallows-like decorative letters in the document reproduced in Cappelli. "
" I think it is now clear that all the VMS letter shapes are well within the range of fanciful and decorative letter shapes actually used in the late middle ages. If you had asked an Italian of 1470 to invent a cipher alphabet he would have come up with something like the VMS alphabet, and there is nothing about the VMS alphabet incompatible with such an origin. "
The important point Reeds was making was around creation of a cipher, by European scribes. Also, it was clear that D'Imperio had been right, and it was not necessary to look to the east. As far as I know, the 1997 Tavola IV event served primarily toward these ends, and those "gallows" are not regarded in Voynichville as special symbols in their own right. Since then, more examples of gallows have been found, some just flourishes, others apparently symbols in their own right, and this thread was launched upon just the latest, CUL Gg. 5.35, fol436v. I think at least some of the Voynich similar glyphs on that page are symbols in their own right. I have no idea if there is any direct connection whatsoever to the Voynich manuscript.
The internet is making broadly visible more and more mss, and a bunch of us in Voynichville are always combing the net for a "hit". But, so far the pattern is that these finds are in occidental documents, and although it is still theoretically possible that the VMS script had an eastern origin, the idea that it must have had, is dead. And the reason for driving this home is this: enthusiastic baby newcomers to MS 408 study, who will remain in the pursuit of the mystery for the long-run, can easily be distracted in the beginning and waste a lot of time and energy on the idea that the VMS script must be non-European in origin. I should know.
Flourishes, embellishments, ligatures, and border decorations that produce the visual impact of gallows letters are no less important than clearly-it-is-a-symbol-in-its-own-right gallows-letters. Because, we might get a lead to the origin of the MS 408 / VMS / 9RMS / Voynich manuscript / Nine Rosettes manuscript originator(s). For suppose, we find that the documents of medieval abbess so-and-so commonly exhibit ligatures or embellishments that very much resemble Voynich gallows letters: she seems to express these designs as if they flow from her hand automatically. Well, we would naturally like to have a closer look at her life and its context.
We know that these looped glyphs in their various variations were around in western glyphography from before Christianity. When we find an example, we want to know:
1.) Is it accidental, or intended?
2.) Is it a fancy flourish, a ligature, or a distinct symbol?
3.) If it is a distinct symbol, what does it mean, who designed it, and who used it?
In Beinecke MS 408 the variations on what are presumably five basic gallows glyphs, GC-102, GC-103, GC-104, GC-106, GC-107, are uncomfortably numerous. The intruding-upon GC-49 gallows glyphs also have their variations; we need only look at page f42v, line 1, first glyph, and line 2, 5th or 6th "word" to get an idea of what confronts the 9 Rosettes manuscript paleographer and de-cipherer. The first glyph on line 1 is described by some in Voynichville as "Michelin Man", but I have described it as symbolically suggestive of a woman giving birth to twins, the twins in turn symbolic of plain-text and cipher-text: a woman mastermind behind the enigma. The unique line 2 intruding gallows glyph I tentatively take to be another hint in the manuscript that prime numbers are important in it, for it suggests to me a pointer to the prime number 43. Perhaps it is an instruction to leave page f42v and jump somewhere on f43.
My own nine rosettes work has further complicated the gallows glyphs picture, when earlier this year I identified, and insisted upon the reality of "incognito symbols" in the manuscript. I believe that these glyphs are not accidental, and have some specific meaning with respect to cipher. The incognitos came to light because of the relatively recent availability online of the high-resolution images provided by Yale's Beinecke library.
And so, how is the VMS text to be transcribed?, so that analytic attacks upon it can make some progress, even with the knowledge that any kind of practical transcription scheme will be throwing out some information that resides in the "text". A good transcription will result in progress, a bad one will retard progress, by definition.
In case the newcomer hasn't noticed it yet, there began some years ago among the vms-list old-guard a schism of sorts, and its consequences are very much palpable at times on the list. A part of the schism involved differing opinions on what are glyphs and symbols among the hundreds of thousands of pen strokes making up the text in the VMS, and how to transcribe them.
Berj
[1] It is still not clear, to me anyway, which edition of Capelli, possibly a 1990 reprint. The two online editions of Capelli that I have seen do not seem to exhibit the particular Tavola IV photo that we are concerned with here. This points out another problem for newcomers in an already confusing field: when was so and so's book actually published? The most immediate example is D'Imperio's Elegant Enigma, and I usually reference it c. 1976-1980, and always give its ISBN: 0-89412-038-7. Once the book is in your hands, it doesn't take long to think up a theory about why its publishing date is ambiguous.
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From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Friday, November 10, 2006 9:50 PM To : vms-list@voynich.net
Subject : RE: VMs: GC-k and intruding gallows in 11th c. ms
[Note: I will bcc: my specific-to-list-member posts to that list member until list-functionality is back to normal, so to be sure that at least they receive my comments.]
Philip Neal wrote Friday, November 10, 2006 1:59 PM:
" If you mean the last word of the line which begins with a capital G, I think it is a caret mark (insertion mark) prefixed to the sequence 'Adt' and is intended as a correction to the middle word of the line opposite in the right hand column, 'Atltende' i.e. 'Attende'. "
Lets assume that is correct. I have these questions then:
1.) Is this a new interpretation of the GC-k symbol?
That is, it is an instruction to insert as a replacement the group to its right into some other location in the document.
2.) What is the function of the "8" that is linked with the underline to the GC-k at its left?
3.) Is it ruled out, or likely ruled out, that the correction is just that - a correction, and NOT an intentional decoy using an apparent correction to carry a hidden message?
4.) In the right column, what is the relationship between the group to be corrected, Atlt, to the 2nd "word", right after the period, in line 5 above?
Something rings right about your observation. If the GC-k was a more-or-less common (within some scribal circles) device for indicating insert-replace, then it seems a natural symbol to have incorporated into a cipher system. Once there, an evolved cipher system could put the GC-k to other uses.
Berj
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http://www.talk-history.com/forum/strange-botany-nine-t2539.html
Berj / KI3U Recent Historian Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Pennsylvania Posts: 8 12 NOV 2006 06:55 GMT
Strange Botany in the Nine Rosettes Manuscript
The Nine Rosettes Manuscript [1] is studied by its major sections, one of which is the "botanical" section: well over a hundred of the manuscript's pages, not all contiguous, display drawings of "plants", accompanied by the manuscript's mysterious text. At first glance it all very much gives the impression of just another medieval herbal. (The book also has an "herbal" section that can be viewed as a subsection of the botanical section).
But, to date, not a single one of the plants has been positively identified: there is no universal agreement among botanists about the identity of any plant in the 9RMS. The most famous case of identification is the socalled "sunflower" on page f93r, by the American botanist Fr. Hugh O'Neill in 1944. Were this identification universally accepted, then the 9RMS could be dated after 1493 when Columbus, returning from his second America voyage, first brought sunflower seeds back to Europe (this ignores the possibilities of pre-1493 Europe-America contacts).
Whereas many of the 9RMS plants appear tantalizingly close to being identifyable, some are obviously very strange, and suggest that the concept of plant is being used as a medium for symbolic expression of some message.
For example, the plant on page f52r has a very strange root structure, a major portion of which suggests a crux dissimulata, a version of the anchor cross. One could even take the symbolism further, and ponder that the root of this plant portrays, symbolically, a schism in the church. Were that schism the Protestant Reformation, then the 9RMS would date after 1517. But to this point nothing is certain, and the 9RMS remains the world's most mysterious manuscript, truly an enigma against the voluminous amount of internal clues that it offers.
In the search for connections to the 9RMS, students naturally examine countless medieval and early Renaissance manuscripts. Here lets look at an 11th c. English Herbal and compare some of its plant drawings with some in the 9RMS. [2]
Oxford Bodleian Library Ps. Apuleius, Herbal England, St. Augustine's abbey, Canterbury; 11th century, c. 1070-1100 http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/dept/scwm...hmole/1431.htm
This is an 11th c. Herbal that might have possible source-book connections to some of the strange botanical illustrations in the VMS. This Herbal makes reference to Dioscoridis' classical Herbal. It has a fondness for the color blue in its plants. This Herbal's script also exhibits some forms that look like some of the Latin abbreviations forms in the 9RMS text. For a first quick look:
fols. 7v-8r http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/dept/scwm...0/00001418.jpg
Here we see plants with leaves or flowers that appear like Christian crosses. The plant on the right on fol. 8r also has a root that appears almost like the headless body of a walking animal. Compare with the 9RMS page f90v plant.
In f90v the 3-pronged bulbs just underneath the crystal-like crosses also resemble the flowers of the fol. 7v plant at bottom, which too has crosses. It is as if the design for the VMS f90v plant has been synthesized from ideas on MS. Ashmole 1431 fol. 7v-8r, plus some other elements from elsewhere - for its triangular green leaves.
fols. 9v-10r
One can get the impression that elements from these plants were used in the design of the 9RMS plant on f2r.
fols. 21v-22r
Compare the strange geometry of the Pericalis plant on f21v at bottom, with those in 9RMS pages f22r, f35v, f40r, f52r.
fols. 29v-30r
In fol. 30r on the right, compare the snakes in the roots of the bottom-right plant with 9RMS f49r.
fols. 36v-37r
Unfinished pages that may be useful in analysis of 9RMS page compositions.
Berj / KI3U
[1] Voynich Manuscript (VMS); world's most mysterious manuscript; the Elegant Enigma, Nine Rosettes Manuscript (9RMS); also once upon a time known as The Roger Bacon Cipher Manuscript; it is MS 408 in the Yale University Beinecke Library: http://webtext.library.yale.edu/bein...1600.ms408.htm
For an orientation on how to begin 9RMS study, there is this talk-history post you can read:
How to begin probing the mystery of The Nine Rosettes / Voynich Manuscript; 25th October 2006 05:47 GMT
It includes information that will help you assess some of the material in this talk-history post:
The Mystery of the Voynich Manuscript; 28th June 2004 10:09
[2] For some other types of comparisons there are these posts in the talk-history forum:
Castles, Waterways, Bridges, among the Nine Rosettes; 1st November 2006 09:20 GMT
Letter symbols in Christine, and the Nine Rosettes Manuscript; 6th November 2006 03:33 GMT
Ground Zero of Voynich Archeology; 23rd October 2006 05:12 GMT
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From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Sunday, November 12, 2006 5:39 PM To : vms-list@voynich.net
Subject : RE: RE : VMs: Bodleian MS. Ashmole 1431 11th c. Herbal
[Note: I will bcc: my specific-to-list-member posts to that list member ......................my comments.]
Hello Jean
Thanks for pointing that out. I plead guilty to not having checked the archives this time, and missing Johannes Siemons' post about MS 1431 in 2004. Well, at least my archives negligence did result in my going through the available 1431 images and noting firsthand the remarkable possible connections with the VMS. Here is something else about that: when I put in my mind these documents side-by-side, i.e. the Ashmole Herbal and the botanical section of the VMS, I receive an overwhelming subjective impression that the Ashmole is a male product, and the VMS botanical is a female product. That is to say, my already well-established view that the VMS originates with women, is definitely reinforced.
You wrote " already known to the list " and this reminded me that I often think that "the list" is a kind of personality that already knows the answer to the mystery. If only it could speak, and tell us! It is reminiscent of the popular U.S. mystery radio program of the 1930's on, "The Shadow": " Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows! " " Who knows what secret lurks in the heart of the Nine Rosettes? The List knows! "
:-) Berj
From: jean-yves artero Reply-To: vms-list@voynich.net To: vms-list@voynich.net
Subject: RE : VMs: Bodleian MS. Ashmole 1431 11th c. Herbal Date: Sun, 12 Nov 2006 09:36:51 +0100 (CET)
Hi Berj You are right and your comments are on track. This MS. was already known to the list, I expect:
http://www.voynich.net/Arch/2004/02/msg00205.html
http://mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/philipneal_vms/analogues.html
Jean
"Berj N. Ensanian" <> a écrit : Here is an 11th c. Herbal that ..........
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http://www.talk-history.com/forum/strange-botany-nine-t2539.html?p=11484&posted=1#post11484
Berj / KI3U Recent Historian Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Pennsylvania Posts: 9 13 NOV 2006 04:29 GMT
Re: Strange Botany in the Nine Rosettes Manuscript
Hello Red Clay Well, like about everything else with this mystery, the points you raise have been, and still continue to be debated. For example, on the question of did the author intend the plants to be depicted realistically, by the standards of typical herbals of the time, one can take a middle ground and speculate that the author was well aware of botanical realism, but consciously, for some reason, decided to avoid strict realism. I think it's pretty certain that at least some of the plants are symbolic vehicles. For example, a leaf of the plant on page f65v, plainly depicts one of the most common symbols of the manuscript's mysterious text alphabet - that letter resembles a simple ribbon. The most advanced proposal in this vein of the plants being symbolic vehicles, is that the plant illustration on page f6r is a depiction of a complex mathematical relation concerning the prime numbers, and further, that that mathematics was ahead of then-public mathematics, that is it was secretly held mathematical knowledge, and that this will ultimately require re-writing the history of mathematics. [1] The skill-level of the artist is also an ongoing debate. Clearly some of the drawings are pretty crude, for example the one on page f8r. On the other hand, if we dismiss the requirements of realism and complexity, then the plant drawings on pages f21r and f32r are pleasing enough as works of art to have up on the wall in a frame, I think. Just as with the question of how many hands scripted the manuscript's text, it is debated how many artists did the illustrations. Some of the illustrations show high artistic skills. Have a look at page f80r. This page is in the so-called "balneological" section of the manuscript. [2] Across the top of the page is a scene involving nine women, and one man at the extreme right. [3] Look at the right-most girl - she appears to be trying to get away from a young man who is chasing her, and reach a community of women at the left. The artist rendered her with relatively few pen strokes, yet we have three-dimensional perspective, and she is also in motion. This indicates high artistic skill and artistic self-confidence I believe. Then of course there is the manuscript's dramatic climax, f85/86: the six-panel foldout with the nine rosettes illustration. One of the most remarkable things about this unique masterpiece is that it evokes different perceptions from different viewing distances: quite clearly the artist intended that we take in different scenes, and imagine different things, at long, medium and close-up distances. Close-up, there are many three-dimensional items in there, bridges, castles and so forth. Add to this the hypothesis that the nine rosettes foldout has something to tell about mathematics, and the entire tapestry is an absolute marvel. For me personally, the problem of how many hands scripted the text, and how many illustrators drew the pictures, was simplified once I reached the conclusion that the manuscript is a copy made by nuns in a convent, and the manuscript's lost parent document originated with a woman master-mind. Berj / KI3U
[1] For more on this, search the vms-list archives using "prime number" at: http://voynich.ms/index.html
[2] The balneological section is characterized by fluids and tubs and pipes or plumbing, attended by mostly naked females, often in bath scenes. Some of the manuscript's most baffling and unusual illustrations are in this section.
[3] For an interpretation of this scene from the hypothetical point of view that Christine de Pizan (c. 1365-1430) was involved with the origin of the Nine Rosettes Manuscript, see in the vms-list archives the post:
VMs: part1: CREINTIS, Voynich, prime numbers, ESCRINET, anagrams & Christine de Pizan; July 18, 2006
Section II. Introduction to Voynich - Christine de Pizan Connections: VMs f80r
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From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Monday, November 13, 2006 5:19 PM To : vms-list@voynich.net
Subject : RE: VMs: GC-k and intruding gallows in 11th c. ms
This is NOT a cheap book (see bookfinder.com): The Latin Glosses on Arator and Prudentius in Cambridge University Library MS GG. 5. 35 by Gernot Rudolf Wieland
Since I just exhausted my November book-buying budget, I wonder if anyone on the list has seen this book.
Does it have anything that can help us with the GC-k and intruding gallows glyphs in CUL Gg. 5.35 ?
Berj
From: "Berj N. Ensanian" <> Reply-To: vms-list@voynich.net
To: vms-list@voynich.net Subject: RE: VMs: GC-k and intruding gallows in 11th c. ms
Date: Fri, 10 Nov 2006 21:50:07 -0500 [Note: I will bcc: my specific-to-list-member posts to that list member until list-functionality is back to normal, so to be sure that at least they receive my comments.]
Philip Neal wrote Friday, November 10, 2006 1:59 PM: " If you mean the last word of the line which begins with a capital G, I think it is a caret mark (insertion mark) prefixed to the sequence 'Adt' and is intended as a correction to the middle word of the line opposite in the right hand column, 'Atltende' i.e. 'Attende'. "
Lets assume that is correct. I have these questions then:
1.) Is this a new interpretation of the GC-k symbol?
That is, it is an instruction to insert as a replacement the group to its right into some other location in the document.
2.) What is the function of the "8" that is linked with the underline to the GC-k at its left?
3.) Is it ruled out, or likely ruled out, that the correction is just that - a correction, and NOT an intentional decoy using an apparent correction to carry a hidden message?
4.) In the right column, what is the relationship between the group to be corrected, Atlt, to the 2nd "word", right after the period, in line 5 above?
Something rings right about your observation. If the GC-k was a more-or-less common (within some scribal circles) device for indicating insert-replace, then it seems a natural symbol to have incorporated into a cipher system. Once there, an evolved cipher system could put the GC-k to other uses.
Berj
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From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Thursday, November 16, 2006 12:54 AM To : vms-list@voynich.net
Subject : VMs: Amazons, a-mazons, and one-breasted Voynich nymphs / naked female figures
I was suprised just now, while searching the archives, and the net in general, to find nothing on the possibility that the one-breasted naked females in Beinecke MS 408 Voynich are representations of Amazon or a-mazon women warriors.
Can this be? I find it hard to believe that nobody before commented on the possibility.
As we all know, the human figures in the VMS illustrations show a variety well beyond naked, anatomically approximately-normal females.
There are females with zero, one, and two breasts, and apparently some where a right breast was later added by a presumed retoucher. There is at least one hermaphrodite - the topmost figure in f72r1 (middle panel of Beinecke f71v); this figure is doubly rare on account of direct frontal nudity. (The high-resolution .sid image is needed to see the hermaphrodite characteristic clearly.)
There are figures that look to be naked males, but without genitals. There is the bearded fellow in the tub in the "Pisces" panel. Anyway, a lot of puzzles in the Nine Rosettes MS's spectrum of human figures.
But have I missed something in my search of the archives - does anyone recall a list discussion of one-breasted Amazon warriors, and the nymphs / plump naked females / VMS sisters / nuns / priestesses / Vestal Virgins etc. ?
Berj / KI3U
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From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Thursday, November 16, 2006 3:53 PM To : vms-list@voynich.net
Subject : RE: VMs: GC-k and intruding gallows in 11th c. ms
Concerning the CUL MS Gg. 5.35, so far mostly the name of one scholar comes up in connection with it, in my searches: Gernot Rudolf Wieland As I mentioned, his books are obtainable, but not inexpensive.
On his 1983 book " The Latin Glosses on Arator and Prudentius in Cambridge University Library MS GG. 5. 35 " there is a Review of it in The Classical Review, New Ser., Vol. 34, No. 1. (1984), pg. 156, by Alison M. Peden, St. Hilda's College, Oxford.
Peden's review is negative, concentrating on the book's shortcomings with respect to Wieland's three aims for his book, which are not paleographic. However, important to us in attempting to investigate the Voynich-like glyphs / symbols on fol. 436v, Peden has some comments that may be helpful paleographically, and I'll quote them here, with numbers added for possible future reference:
1.) " He has used the 'Cambridge Songs' manuscript, probably compiled and kept at St Augustine's, Canterbury, about whose paleographical make-up he and George Rigg wrote exhaustively in Anglo-Saxon England IV (1975). "
2.) " His obsession with minutiae is often irritating, especially when, having considered a gloss carefully from every point of view, he concludes that it can only be explained as a simple mistake. "
3.) " W. concludes, from the random nature of the glosses, that the Cambridge manuscript is a teacher's copy, designed not so much to lead a struggling student through Arator and Prudentius as to serve as an aide-memoire for the lessons to be taught. He thinks that glosses beginning with 'q:' (for quare, quaerere or quaestio, perhaps) indicate where questions should be asked of students. And it is in the remarks made about the teaching of Latin in Anglo-Saxon schools that lies the strength of W.'s book. His careful study of the accentual marks and glosses on the syllable-length and metre of the poems seems to show that the text was recited as prose, and he believes it was not used to teach poetry. "
(In the last sentence, "text" apparently refers to the works of Arator and Prudentius, the early Christian Latin poets.)
5.) " He makes several interesting points about the special problems involved in teaching Latin to native Anglo-Saxon speakers. "
6.) " W. makes helpful references to Aelfric's Grammar in relation to these glosses, ... how can we be sure that the glosses which appear to clarify Latin usage specifically for the Anglo-Saxon reader were actually composed for that purpose, rather than copied from an exemplar with ultimate Continental provenance? It is odd, in this respect, that the syntax marks in the manuscript, which clarify the Latin by using connected symbols, do not seem to be directed at the particular difficulties of an Anglo-Saxon, though these marks are generally original to the glossator, and not copied from manuscript to manuscript. ... But the glosses provide no startling fresh evidence about the wider reading of the glossators. "
It looks to me that the work by Wieland and Rigg cited in 1.) would be nice to look at next.
My most-want-to-know questions on the Voynich-like glyph-structures on fol. 436v of CUL Gg. 5.35 are now these:
1.) What is the interpretation of the GC-k symbol in line 20 of the left column?
2.) What is the function of the "8" that is linked with the underline to the GC-k at its left?
3.) What is the significance of the joining of the GC-k with the 8 by the underline?
There are some "words" here and there in the VMS that begin with GC-k and end with GC-8.
4.) In the right column, line 5, what is the interpretation of the second and third symbols-groups? The second group in particular, apparently begins with a capital "A", and the rest of it is just a very uncomplicated similar to a Voynich intruding gallows glyph.
Berj / KI3U
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From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Thursday, November 16, 2006 9:05 PM To : vms-list@voynich.net
Subject : RE: VMs: GC-k and intruding gallows in 11th c. ms
John Reynolds wrote Thursday, November 16, 2006 5:21 PM:
" The fifth line of the right column is the conclusion of the verse for the letter "O":
O si corde intellegis,
que precepta legis sunt,
quod illi, qui adulterant,
lapidibus subiaceant!
The word sub-iaceant breaks after "sub" at the end of line 4, and continues at the beginning of line 5.
There follows "Adte" which is an abbreviation of "Adtende", the first word of the refrain.
Then the intruding gallows glyph and "Adtende" again, this time spelled out in full, apparently intending the refrain.
The scribe is inconsistent in how (s)he indicates the refrain: in some verses he/she writes "Adte", in some verses, "Adtende", in others neither, and in this particular verse, both. "
Ok, I can see the refrain: it is lines 3 and 4 in the left column.
I could not put " A dte " together from Capelli, but I attribute that to my at-best baby Latin skills. Still, I wonder if the separation of the a from the d, and then emphasizing it with a capital, A, means anything we might be interested in.
And, why on line 5 go with such elaborate artistry, when there is enough room there to write out Adtende twice?
All this seems to reinforce the question:
Is it possible?, that in some portions of the Voynich text, an intruding gallows glyph-group means:
this stands for a refrain,
or
this stands for a specific block of data (not necessarily text),
from elsewhere.
One the left column, as far as the GC- k___8 goes, the closest thing I've yet found in MS 408 is on f81v, line 13. Curiously, in the illustration on the page, the VMS sisters in the communal tub are in two groups of 8. And, the fluid flow at the front of the tub seems to point to a group of lines, among which are lines 13 and 14. And line 14 starts with GC-8.
I'm still trying to get a lead on Wieland and Rigg's paleography of MS Gg. 5.35, but so far no luck.
Berj
**************************
From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Saturday, November 18, 2006 10:46 AM To : vms-list@voynich.net
Subject : VMs: 15th c. Castello Odescalchi
There is a nice photograph of a 15th. century castle in central Italy, Castello Odescalchi in Bracciano, in an otherwise totally irrelevant bbc news web-article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/6160350.stm
Note the circumferential crenelations. Compare with walls and castles in the nine rosettes foldout, especially the 9 o'clock castle of the northeast rosette. [1, 2]
I don't think they are the same; castle architectural styles versus castle building / modifying period is another pretty intense discipline of course.
Berj / KI3U
[1] see discussion on "M" etc. in vms-list post: VMs: Templars, Masons, and Voynich; Sunday, April 23, 2006
[2] vms-list post: VMs: f85 / f86 Bridges, Waterways, and Castles; Wednesday, November 1, 2006
http://voynich.ms/index.html
voynich-de@yahoogroups.de post: Voynich Manuscrikpt f85 / f86 Bruecken, Wasserwege, und Schloesser; Wednesday, November 1, 2006
http://de.groups.yahoo.com/group/voynich-de/
talk-history post: Castles, Waterways, Bridges, among the Nine Rosettes; 1 NOV 2006 09:20 GMT
http://www.talk-history.com/forum/myths-legends-mysteries-f43.html
******************************
From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Saturday, November 18, 2006 12:53 PM To : vms-list@voynich.net
Subject : Re: VMs: Bodleian MS. Ashmole 1431 11th c. Herbal
Jeff Haley wrote Friday, November 17, 2006 8:35 PM:
" ... I was conducting a perfectly valid poll ... my point was that the text is connected to the illustrations ... "
Hello Jeff
I also believe that the Voynich text is connected to the illustrations, at least in some parts of the book.
My strongest reason for this belief comes from the label of the bottom-left root in pharmaceutical f102r2 and its unmistakable connections with text and illustration in botanical f18v, which I explained in detail in footnote [XVII-4] in one of my recent posts [1].
Needless to say, this view has no sympathy for notions that the text was randomly generated and sprayed onto the pages.
Berj
[1] vms-list post: VMs: part9: CREINTIS, Voynich, prime numbers, ESCRINET, anagrams & Christine de Pizan; Sunday, October 8, 2006 1:24 AM
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From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Monday, November 20, 2006 12:18 AM To : vms-list@voynich.net
Subject : VMs: Is there another / second Voynich ms copy?
Dear All
I've always been puzzled by one-time Army Security Agency technical historian Dr. Albert H. Carter's report, on his personally examining the Voynich Manuscript on September 10, 1946. [1]
Carter even notes the time the examination session began: 1200. What Carter describes has several inconsistencies with the MS 408 we know. I don't know why, but in Reeds' reproduction of Carter's report, Carter reports the famous "sunflower" is on page f 28v. But in Beinecke MS 408, the sunflower is on f93r. Page f93r is numbered "93", so if Kraus re-bound MS 408 before donating it to Yale in 1960, he seems to have done it right, regardless of who can tell a sunflower when they see a drawing of one. But that is just one point. Carter describes the book he saw as "vellum of excellent quality", both the cover and the leaves he describes as vellum, whereas the Beinecke Library describes MS 408 as parchment with a vellum cover. And MS 408's leaves appear to me on average as just medium quality. And there are other inconsistencies. For example, Carter states: "It is the work of a single scribe." The archives show that these inconsistencies have been noticed and discussed. [2]
They are part of the weirdness of the modern history of the Voynich manuscript that includes even a legend of a Voynich manuscript residing in the Vatican archives after Voynich already possessed the manuscript.
Everywhere you look around "Count Wilfrid Mikhail Voynich" there are puzzles! Puzzles with the common denominator: trails abruptly end!
Even his admirers were aware of the phenomenon. For example, during the thirty-third annual meeting of the Medical Library Association, McGill University, Montreal, 25-27 June 1930, Dr. Archibald Malloch, during his Presidential Address, eulogized Voynich:
"We regret very deeply that one of our honorary members, Mr. Wilfrid M. Voynich of London and New York died on the 19th of March of this year."
And Malloch said:
"His knowledge of mediaeval manuscripts was very profound and yet he was not always able to tell one exactly how he could give the date and the country of writing. It seemed to be intuitive with him. In 1912 he found an extraordinary, illustrated manuscript in cipher..."
Commenting on Voynich's escape from Siberian exile, Malloch said:
"His recital of details of his imprisonment and final escape sounded almost like a fairy tale." [3]
Intuitive. Fairy tale. [4]
In the archives is the story, that predictably has its trail ending abruptly, of a Voynich manuscript from Russia. But I'm wondering if there still is a non-zero possibility that there exists a second copy of "the world's most mysterious manuscript", that also passed through Voynich's hands, Russia or not.
On this, does anyone have any comments, ideas, suggestions, archives leads?
Berj / KI3U
[1] See D'Imperio ISBN 0-89412-038-7, and download Carter's entire report from Jim Reeds' website:
http://www.voynich.net/reeds/
[2] see for example vms-list threads: VMs: A. H. Carter report; Thu Sep 28, 2000 3:21 pm and:
VMs: Paleographer A. H. Carter; Thu Sep 28, 2000 9:55 am and:
VMs: Re: VMS in Russia?; Sun Dec 29, 2002 8:43 pm
[3] I forget where I obtained this facsimile of Malloch's presidential address, but I have the .pdf and can email it to whoever wants it. Perhaps a Canadian list member with access to McGill's Medical Library Association can discover something about honorary member Voynich.
[4] I've not been shy about my deep suspicions of MS 408's standard received-from-Voynich-himself history, vms-list post: VMs: Ground Zero of Voynich Archeology; 15 October 2006
******************************
From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Monday, November 20, 2006 11:53 AM To : vms-list@voynich.net
Subject : RE: VMs: Just joined
KG wrote Monday, November 20, 2006 3:30 AM:
" Having seen some of the recent exchanges between listers, I write this with some dread for being so uninformed.
Has the VM been transcribed? By that I mean have the wording and pictures been set down in a modern
format. "
Hello KG
These are just my opinions.
The best way to build a foundation of being informed about VMS and to follow this list's discussions, is to begin by reading D'Imperio. Mary D'Imperio's book is indispensible in serious Voynich affairs. [1]
I recently placed online, specifically written for possibly-bewildered Voynich study newcomers, a short piece titled: "How to begin probing the mystery of The Nine Rosettes / Voynich Manuscript". [2]
The apparently-text symbols-stream in the manuscript has seen many transcription efforts over the past nearly one hundred years of study. In my mind, Voynich transcription systems are fundamentally divided into two philosophies:
1.) Late medieval and early Renaissance Latin abbreviations are relevant to understanding the MS 408 text;
2.) they are not, or are not primarily anyway.
If they are not relevant, then one is free to devise a transcription scheme according to some preferred graphic dissection, from the pixel-level on up. At the pen-strokes level, the system known as EVA is standard, and it has a distinguished history. [3]
If Latin abbreviations are important, then a glyph-based transcription system is needed, one that pays attention to known abbreviations glyphs. The system devised by list-member "Glen Claston" (a pseudonym) a.k.a. "GC" does that meticulously, while at the same time having the flexibility of allowing its philosophy to be defeated to a large extent toward the strokes-level. [4]
The Yale Beinecke Library provides images of the MS 408 pages online in several resolutions. [5]
The best are the .sid ZOOM images. Individual researchers produce their own pictures from time to time, ranging from transcriptions to processed images. [6]
Berj / KI3U
[1] The Voynich Manuscript - An Elegant Enigma, by M.E. D'Imperio, Aegean Park Press, c. 1976-1980, ISBN 0-89412-038-7
[2] http://www.talk-history.com/forum/myths-legends-mysteries-f43.html
[3] http://www.voynich.nu/writing.html
[4] http://internet.cybermesa.com/~galethog/Voynich/
[5] http://webtext.library.yale.edu/beinflat/pre1600.ms408.htm
[6] see for example:
http://www.dcc.unicamp.br/~stolfi/voynich/98-11-07-f116-redrawn/ and
http://www.ic.unicamp.br/~stolfi/voynich/04-07-15-retouching/
*************************************
From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Monday, November 20, 2006 8:26 PM To : vms-list@voynich.net
Subject : Re: VMs: Is there another / second Voynich ms copy?
" However, I really wish Voynich's own provenance hadn't been even more flaky than his eponymous manuscript's - it makes everything even more difficult, don't you think we've got a hard enough job as it is? "
" Is that the thought you suppressed this: that Voynich probably originally made his money selling faked manuscripts, which were produced by his European network of forger buddies? " - Nick Pelling [1]
Keith wrote Monday, November 20, 2006 11:45 AM:
" My view is that the writers had fled from their place of work to escape disease and war to a village possibly, and the vellum was already a herbal in outline form. It could have been their major asset, but needed to be finished. "
Hello Keith
The disease aspect is something I've also been thinking about because, after all, during the time frame we assume the VMS originated, there were those periodic devastating outbreaks of Black Death and plague, that did not help the Church's image as an effective agency. In this vein, I conceive the possibility that at least some portions of the ms are associated with a kind of White Mass, the opposite of a Black Mass, and having as its object the warding off of evil plague spirits.
For example, f72r2 is the socalled "Gemini" panel in the socalled astrological section of the ms; I believe the astrological section is regarded by many Voynich students as the book's oldest.
Anyway, f72r2 is typical of the astrological section where you have dozens of naked women, often holding up stars, situated or marching around circles. And as I've recently recalled, among the human figures in the ms there are oddities. [2]
For instance, in f72r2, in the middle ring, at about 1:30 pm, there appears to be that naked fellow with an erection marching along with all the naked women. Conceivably these scenes are a kind of White Mass ritual.
Steve Ekwall has long held the view that the stars held up by the women are symbolic of "successful birth". That would not be inconsistent with a White Mass aimed at surviving devastating plagues.
Also, I'm inclined to think that medieval nuns led very complex lives, and also there were semi-nuns of different classes, and often directly connected with cloistered nuns (the technical names for these semi-nuns are in a book somewhere around here), and I see nothing particularly discordant with the possibility that semi-nuns might perform white masses during plague times.
But this is a bit off this thread topic: the oddities of the modern history of the Nine Rosettes manuscript. And I came across another interesting curiosity in that vein.
We have in standard Voynich manuscript history the story about the ms having been sold to Rudolphe II for the enormous sum of 600 ducats, and we have the attempts to make sense of that by the digging into John Dee's financial history.
But suppose, just suppose for a moment, even if you hate the idea, that Wilfrid Voynich indeed faked a bogus history for the manuscript. We suppose it would be easier to fake the history than the ms itself. [3]
Then ask yourself this: where did Voynich get the idea of an eccentric ruler paying an exhorbitant sum of money for a pile of medium-grade skins with weird scribbles, one amazing 9 rosettes picture, and a few weird pictures among many, many ho-hum for-the-period botanical and herbal pictures?
Well, in the archives, among Voynich biography informations, I came across Dana Scott's 2002 post [4] reproducing a 1915 Voynich inventory from the Chicago Tribune, and this item caught my attention:
"oldest known set of playing cards"
This had me recall that Tarot cards were originally playing cards, and there was something in their history having to do with a lot of money. And so I went over to the very informative, but tedious-to-navigate website on the history of the tarot:
http://trionfi.com/0/b/
where I immediately saw written this:
" Pier Candido Decembrio wrote in August/September 1447 his "Vita di Filippo Visconti", immediately after the death of this duke of Milano one month before. In this text he notes, that Filippo Maria Visconti commissioned a deck for the unbelievable high prize of 1500 ducatos. "
Well, perhaps Wilfrid Voynich was familiar with this piece of playing cards history, seeing that he claimed to have the oldest known playing cards.
The list archives already considers the possibility of Michal Wojnicz / Voynich creating his sudden manuscript treasures and reputation via forgeries.
In the launch of this thread I mentioned Voynich's association with the McGill University Medical Library Association: apparently Voynich was able to come across medieval Vesalius medical manuscripts with no more difficulty than you and I come across trash on a city sidewalk. I suspect that Voynich may have supplied some old medical manuscripts to McGill's medical library. It would be interesting to know more about that. It would be interesting to read possible diaries of the McGill people, like Dr. Malloch, to see what they wrote down privately about Voynich. I suppose the easiest way to have any of this, is to recruit the McGill archivist to this list.
No, I don't think Voynich fabricated MS 408 from scratch with old genuine parchment, and home-made inks using his chemistry student experience, and generated the text by transcribing George Boole's old mathematical notes. But I also don't think the MS 408 f1r acid "accident" upon which so much of the standard MS 408 history depends, was an accident; and if I am willing to believe it, I still have to take somebody's, who?, word for it, that the "Tepenece" acid-revealed "signature" on f1r matches its legend. Actually, if you do some image processing experimentation on f1r you can easily get the strong impression that the page's margins were physically altered, and that original writing on them was obscured - for example near the top right of the page there is a GC-4 or "4" that comes out pretty clearly with image processing. Then also have a critical look at the corresponding top corners of the rest of the parchment: f1v, f8r, and f8v, especially the page number on f8r.
Rather than fabricate an entire mysterious manuscript, it would though seem a lot easier to do some retouching of an existing one, and forge or fabricate old letters, and have a "Count" plant them in libraries here and there around Europe. Maybe the mysterious Miss Nill, was handy with a quill?
Why is Carter's description of the ms at odds with MS 408? Why are pages that are known to have been in the ms when Voynich first announced the ms to the world, missing from MS 408? Why did Kraus re-bind MS 408? What was the point of Kraus's odd meeting with a Vatican librarian?
Was there then another VMS copy? Did Voynich shuffle them for some reason or another? Or did Voynich have a loose ms that he divided into two copies?
In the archives we see that the list is, correctly of course, concerned about sounding prone to conspiracy theories in connection with all this. However, when with Voynich there are all these oddities, plus the totally unsatisfactory MS 408 history that he gave, then one cannot help but consider alternatives on the same level of Voynich's oddities: the ever-present thought is that a breakthrough in the modern history of the VMS could become an immediate breakthrough in the overall grand mystery.
It is a mystery of sorts that the standard history of the world's most mysterious manuscript, as received from Wilfrid Voynich, continues to have such prominence today.
Why is that?
Physicists are not rare in Voynichville history, fortunately. I ask them to consider this: concerning the documents and their characteristics, infra-red and all, upon which the standard history of Beinecke MS 408 depends, how much do you consider "proven", in the sense that physical phenomena are proved in the laboratory?
Even if I shine an infra-red lamp upon a document, and with suitable infra-red imaging I see a name there, apparently autographed, and whether or not that autograph resembles any known autographs of a known person, nothing is yet proved about a real connection between the document and the person.
I wonder if anyone in possession of a little piece of old parchment or vellum has done this experiment: get an early 20th century graphite pencil from an antiques shop somewhere, and very lightly write something on the skin. Then soak a sponge in acid, and place the sponge on the writing.
Berj
[1] from the vms-list thread: VMs: new revelations; Mon Dec 30, 2002 7:25 pm
In that thread Gabriel Landini writes:
" To my taste there are 2 pieces of evidence that would rule out completely a forgery (by V):
1. The Baresch letter (1637) with some transcription sent via Moretus (which has not been found, but I cannot recall how we know about this letter).
2. The "schaedata" of the 1939* letter from Baresch to Kircher.
If any of these included transcription looking like Voynichese, that would completely rule out a modern forgery (I think) " * Landini meant 1639 and later corrected this typo.
[2] vms-list post: VMs: Amazons, a-mazons, and one-breasted Voynich nymphs / naked female figures; Thursday, November 16, 2006 12:54 AM
[3] From the archives, a 9 Aug 94 message, Subject: Voynich family friend, from Jim Reeds to voynich@rand.org reads:
" Today I met someone whose family was friends with the Voyniches: he remembered Ethyl, his parents knew Wilfrid. When I told him that some people suspected Wildrid of forging the book, he was not suprised: that was just the sort oof thing that Wilfrid could have done: sneaky, full of secrets, etc. When I said that Mrs V did not know it was forged
(as is clear from her correspondence preserved at Yale) he agreed: Mrs V, who was a pillar of rectitude, would not have known: Wilfrid was capable of keeping such a secret from his wife. Oh yes, my informant knew Ann Nill, too. "
[4] vms-list post: VMs: Re: VMS in Russia?; Mon Dec 30, 2002 5:28 pm
**********************************
From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Tuesday, November 21, 2006 8:09 AM To : vms-list@voynich.net
Subject : RE: VMs: claimed decipherment by Newbold
Anne wrote Tuesday, November 21, 2006 5:30 AM: " ... and could be described as an 'irrational' claim of decipherment (i.e. Kircher claimed such a decipherment, as some of you may know)... "
Hello Anne
Perhaps you may know that Kircher and Newbold in their irrational projections also produced credible material: Kircher with Coptic etc., and Newbold's name will forever live in the annals of Chemistry for the Newbold formula for extracting copper from blue vitriol, a result of his Voynich work.
Search this list's archives: they are a goldmine for solid facts, and also projections: http://voynich.ms/index.html
Berj
*************************
From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Wednesday, November 22, 2006 2:36 PM To : vms-list@voynich.net Subject : RE: VMs: VM transcriptions
Hello KG
In your other thread (VMs: Just joined) I wrote " The apparently-text symbols-stream in the manuscript ... "
I think that can use some amplification, and the point I want to make is that if you are going to embark upon extensive MS 408 "text" analysis, then it is a good idea to first copy some of it in your own hand, so as to get a personal feel for what it actually is.
With the EVA and GC transcription systems it is easy to assume that it is a stream of symbols encoding some message, maybe in cipher maybe not, and question that notion no further. But what if some Voynich blocks of "text" are something else? A tapestry like image perhaps? A map of some kind?
For example, if you've done a lot of electronics engineering, especially with paper and pencil, and you come across Voynich page f78r, you might see a resemblance to electronic circuit diagrams, from the links, via descenders, between successive lines in the upper block of text. It would of course not be a circuit schematic for electric currents, but perhaps for information currents of some kind. What transcription system would be suitable for exploring that idea? How would you get the f78r "text" into an electronics circuit analysis program? [1]
Berj
[1] Earlier this year list member Modran / qpo82aiv outlined an intriguing transcription scheme that might be suitable:
VMs: Computable Penstroke Transcription (trying); Friday, June 2, 2006 1:47 AM
From: "Keith Griffiths" Reply-To: vms-list@voynich.net
To: <vms-list@voynich.net> Subject: VMs: VM transcriptions Date: Wed, 22 Nov 2006 02:59:31 -0000
My thanks to Berj, Greg, Jeff and Larry for the information they supplied on where to find transcriptions of VM.
~~ Keith Griffiths
*****************************
From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Thursday, November 23, 2006 12:07 PM To : vms-list@voynich.net
Subject : VMs: 111,111,111 ^2 & the coincidence of writing rules and calculating rules
Currently there seems to be circulating on the net this: 111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321
which is correct, but also much more interesting than its remarkable face value. And it may have some relevance to Nine Rosettes Manuscript text attacks. And so let me entertain you for a few moments with some thoughts on this.
I've long been interested in the general problem of: rules for writing an initial group of symbols into a new group (you could say changing one sentence into another) where the resulting group (the new sentence) reads as a correct mathematical result, when the initial group of symbols happens to appear as the left side of a mathematical expression.
That is to say, a certain "grammar" coincidentally appears to perform calculations, even though it is no more than a set of specifications for the placement of the symbols from an initial set, an initial "word" or "sentence". If I remember right from my computer machine language days these kinds of happy coincidences occur in binary mathematics in accumulator and other registers.
There is I think a formal name in mathematics for this general idea, that I forget at the moment, even though I once gave a lecture to a group of mathematicians on this subject; the important thing I got from that lecture, was noticing that although of course everyone appreciated the general mathematical significance, it was the women in the audience who were by far the most fascinated by the subject. Perhaps it has something to do with women's keener interest in verbal matters?
Anyway, because some time ago I reached the conclusion that women were ultimately behind the Nine Rosettes / Voynich Manuscript, and because I also concluded that the system of nine symbols, that is Hindu - Arabic numerals, is a strong feature in the design of Beinecke MS 408, this general idea of mathematical calculation versus grammar is usually on my mind during attacks on the mytserious "text". So lets have a quick look at 111,111,111 squared.
Rule for the inital two words: they are identical, and each is made up of 1's, say n of them, where n ranges from 2 to 9. Inbetween them, we place a spaced "x", for example: 11 x 11
and finally we follow this with a space and "=" and another space, like this: 11 x 11 =
Rule for writing the new one-word sentence on the right of the "=" is: Begin with 1 and write the integers in progression up to n, and then down to 1 again. This is what you get:
11 x 11 = 121
111 x 111 = 12321
1111 x 1111 = 1234321
11111 x 11111 = 123454321
111111 x 111111 = 12345654321
1111111 x 1111111 = 1234567654321
11111111 x 11111111 = 123456787654321
111111111 x 111111111 = 12345678987654321
Viewed as calculations, all the above "sentences" are correct. Moreover, the grammar can be generalized very quickly to include: 1 x 1 = 1
From the Voynich view the above is reminiscent of Steve Ekwall's folding mirrors and TTT (i.e. tic-tac-toe fractals).
When n = 10 our generalization becomes much more complicated, and in my notes I see that I was becoming concerned with what mathematical work is ever concerned with: a good notation! The notation must at a glance make it obvious what is a mathematical expression versus what is a grammar / syntax expression, and they happen to be mixed in this work! It was already difficult to do this just generalizing to include 1 x 1 = 1 and I realized that to really develop this I would have to drop Voynich concentration and focus on this. Of course the ultimate generalization challenge is to come with a syntax that works for multiplying, dividing, adding and subtracting any integer numbers, and then the icing on the cake, assuming it is possible: writing out all the prime numbers in sequence just by following some simple syntax rules. I'll bet God knows how to do it.
I decided to let that go for now. Anyway, for n = 10 the zero symbol first appears on the right side:
1111111111 x 1111111111 = 1234567900987654321 Notice the "absence" of an "8" in the first half.
8 and 9 and 89 and 98 - those so frequently encountered symbols in the 9 Rosettes ms script!
Well, so for what that was worth, I hope this was fun. Happy Thanksgiving to all. Berj / KI3U
********************************
From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Friday, November 24, 2006 8:32 PM To : vms-list@voynich.net
Subject : VMs: f15r page altered?
Doesn't it look like page f15r has been trimmed, the right edge substantially reduced, and the bottom edge crudely trimmed with two passes?
And the ink of the page number, "15", looks relatively fresh, as if penned in after the resizing.
I thought I had read something about this in the archives some months ago, but I just now read all the archives material on f15r, and couldn't find it. Perhaps what I read earlier concerned another page.
The other end of f15, f10, also looks a bit narrow. On f10r, at the upper right, above and to the right of the "10", you can see something that might be a faded glyph, perhaps a "4". It is easier to see with the negative of the color picture.
Berj / KI3U
***********************
From : Berj N. Ensanian <>
Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Saturday, November 25, 2006 3:10 PM
To : vms-list@voynich.net
Subject : RE: VMs: 111,111,111 ^2 & the coincidence of writing rules and calculating rules
I tried a quick experiment to see if anything curious in the VMS text relates to Table 1:
n = 1: 1 x 1 = 1
n = 2: 11 x 11 = 121
n = 3: 111 x 111 = 12321
n = 4: 1111 x 1111 = 1234321
n = 5: 11111 x 11111 = 123454321
n = 6: 111111 x 111111 = 12345654321
n = 7: 1111111 x 1111111 = 1234567654321
n = 8: 11111111 x 11111111 = 123456787654321
n = 9: 111111111 x 111111111 = 12345678987654321
n = 10: 1111111111 x 1111111111 = 1234567900987654321
Lets take 7 from among the 16 or 17 most common VMS text symbols / glyphs, and assign them numbers 1 - 8 as follows:
Table 2:
GC-o : 1
GC-m : 2
GC-a : 3
GC-8 : 4
GC-9 : 5
GC-c : 6
GC-h : 7
GC-o : 8
Now we substitute Table 2 into Table 1, but concern ourselves only with the results portion of Table 1, from n = 2 to n = 8:
Table 3:
n = 2: omo
n = 3: omamo
n = 4: oma8amo
n = 5: oma898amo
n = 6: oma89c98amo
n = 7: oma89chc98amo
n = 8: oma89chohc98amo
Next we take only the symbols groups from the "n = " symbol on to the right:
Table 4:
n = 2: mo
n = 3: amo
n = 4: 8amo
n = 5: 98amo
n = 6: c98amo
n = 7: hc98amo
n = 8: ohc98amo
All we have done is to produce 7 groups of symbols, using Table 1 as a scheme for doing it. Table 1 has the peculiarity that it is written from extremely simple syntax rules, while coincidentally expressing correct arithmetical expressions in the system of nine symbols, the Hindu-Arabic numerals. How common are these Table 4 symbols groups in the MS 408 text corpus? I had handy two files that were derived from GC's voyn_101.txt transcription, as follows:
S1T49V18.TXT = the symbols sequence from the beginning of the manuscript up to and including line 18 on page f49v. Total of 32438 symbols.
X103.TXT = the symbols sequence from the beginning of f103r to the end of f112v. Total of 32397 symbols.
Both files are what GC transcribed, but with all hard and soft space markers removed, line-ending markers removed, and line identifications removed: nothing but the symbols sequences. Files like these are handy for experiments upon the bulk of the corpus when you want to ignore, or treat as throw-out "noise" the spaces between Voynich "words", and so on.
Here are the number of occurrences of the sequences in Table 4, that I found in the two sequences files:
Table 5:
symbols-group, hits in S1T49V18, hits in X103
mo 215, 291
amo 199, 277
8amo 73, 39
98amo 27, 10
c98amo 3, 3
hc98amo 0, 1
ohc98amo 0, 1
The results seem to show what we already know - digraphs and trigraphs are fundamental in the Voynich text, and their concatenations are controlled by some scheme that doesn't wait much beyond a string of four or five symbols before swinging into action. It also shows some differences in the text between the first half of the book, and the second half, also well known.
Presently the above experiment appears to be just a parsing stunt. However, on some intuitive level not yet easily verbalized, it reminds me of ideas from Steve Ekwall as already said earlier in this thread, ideas of Stolfi's core-mantle-crust, and ideas of Jeff Haley's navigate-the-department-store-of-Legos-blocks-isles [Jeff: just my way of visualizing it :-)].
Berj / KI3U
*********************************
From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Monday, November 27, 2006 6:17 PM To : vms-list@voynich.net
Subject : Re: VMs: Re: Re: VM transcriptions
High speed non-automated telegraphy. Berj / KI3U
From: MONET273 Reply-To: vms-list@voynich.net To: vms-list@voynich.net
Subject: Re: VMs: Re: Re: VM transcriptions Date: Mon, 27 Nov 2006 16:47:04 EST
Are there any languages in which only, or mainly, vowels are used? David
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From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Friday, December 1, 2006 10:20 PM To : vms-list@voynich.net
Subject : RE: VMs: The whirlpool in the VMs
Marianna Ridderstad wrote Friday, December 1, 2006 8:51 PM:
" Of course, the history of the above mentioned beliefs on the whirlpool are most interesting when we try to date the VMs, because, at least to me, that is exactly what is depicted on f68v3: the starry sky pictured as a whirlpool, the lines coming from the center (the Earth) being the four cardinal directions (and the four more lines being the intercardinal directions), and, appropriately, this movement of the sky is then followed by depictions of the movements of the sun and the moon on the following pages. "
Hi
I think that's a great idea. For the first time I have a real anchor to that Voynich page - thank you.
I can't add much more at the moment, as my copy of Hamlet's Mill is a hundred miles away and it's been years since I read it. But I hope there is some good discussion of this.
By the way, I took a quick look at your page: http://www.astro.helsinki.fi/~marianna/vmsnumbering.htm
and was more or less startled to read this:
" If the VMs characters are numbers, it seems based on the plots above that the platform characters and quite possibly also the gallows belong to different 'species' than the other characters. They could, for example, be the denoters for hundreds or thousands. "
By coincidence, this past week, offlist, I have been going back and forth with Robert Teague about his numerical assignments to certain Voynich symbols. I had proposed to him some alternates (not replacements) to some of his assignments so that the little 3x3 matrix at the right of lines 12-14 in f58r:
GC-
% a y
o e 9
1 a e
would come out as an arithmetic problem, 1078 - 153 = 925 as per:
10 7 8
-1 5 3
9 2 5
To make this work, one of my maneuvers was to assign to the plumed platform symbol, GC-% the value 10, and conjectured that variations, like the position and shape of the plume, could stand for 20, 30, 40, 50 and so on, in those parts of the VMS where presumably the symbols represent numbers. Robert then found something that really suprised me: there is a close match between the top and middle rows of the f58r matrix, and two words in the moon-ring of f68r3.
From reading your above on numbers, I'm glad to know that someone else has considered this and the idea is not so far-fetched.
Berj
***********************
From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Saturday, December 2, 2006 12:49 AM To : vms-list@voynich.net
Subject : VMs: It's older than you think
IT'S OLDER THAN YOU THINK
- Steve Ekwall
With respect to my comments in Marianna Ridderstand's thread [1] and my offlist communications this week with Robert Teague, and 1078, I wonder if anything astronomically significant happened in year 1078 that the VMS author(s) might reasonably be concerned with.
Here is some info with pix on the original Chinese stone planisphere astronomy diagram dating from 1078-1085 that seems to have some resemblance to that strange cosmo diagram on f69V:
http://www.chinaculture.org/gb/en_madeinchina/2005-10/09/content_74107.htm
If that's not old enough, how about the solar eclipse of 1078 BCE: http://members.aol.com/gparrishjr/astro.html
Berj / KI3U
[1] VMs: The whirlpool in the VMs; Friday, December 1, 2006 10:20 PM
********************************
From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Saturday, December 2, 2006 1:38 AM To : vms-list@voynich.net
Subject : Re: VMs: It's older than you think
If we get to meet in person some time over coffee, I'd like to discuss Lascaux with you and get your take on that. Very interesting to me.
To answer your question, on the personal level, this manuscript is important to me as a seemingly never ending learning experience, as well as an excuse to explore all kinds of ideas - a real adventure. I do have my hypotheses, but I also read and learn from the views expressed here that are very, very different.
I have a strong hunch that "the solution", when it comes, will just be the gateway into some even deeper mystery, perhaps not immediately realized - perhaps in the form of some little loose end that appears like it will be tidied up in time.
Yes I have certainly thought that: a person deciphers the manuscript, has an experience, and decides it is best not to publicize what they know, or all they know.
Berj
From: MONET273@ Reply-To: vms-list@voynich.net To: vms-list@voynich.net
Subject: Re: VMs: It's older than you think Date: Sat, 2 Dec 2006 01:07:50 EST
In a message dated 12/2/06 12:54:39 AM, ki3u writes: > ..........>
> It's not older than I think, for one, since I believe many attributes of the VMs are descriptive of geologic forms which are millions of years old, and even in human terms, it probably has descriptions of features which are
recorded at Lascaux... That said, I think a number of different forces militate against any who decipher it, revealing what they have found...... After looking at this manuscript for a couple of years now, I think I have
begun to get a feeling for how "important" it is; and I am curious; how many people on this List consider the VMs "important" ? And if so- in what way, and to whom , is it "important"? David
************************
From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Saturday, December 2, 2006 11:29 AM To : vms-list@voynich.net
Subject : RE: VMs: The whirlpool in the VMs
Jeff Haley wrote Sat, 2 Dec 2006 15:38:12 -0000:
" To me the T-O map at the centre is significant. Indicating that these may be projections of rhumb lines onto the stars. This would indicate a navigational theme here. "
Offlist with Robert I had wondered if the star labels, like around the S-curve in the "Pleiades" diagram might be navigational data written as Teague numbers. For example, in the 3 x 3 matrix of star page f58r, assuming it really does display arithmetic (and the case for that I still consider to be thin), then the matrix can also be read from bottom to top as addition: 925 + 153 = 1078 and this suggests the possibility: From place 925 it is 153 sailing days to place 1078. But the style of the drawing on f68v3 gives me the impression that it is not about cold navigational geometry, and that's why Marianna's mythological whirlpool interpretation makes so much sense to me. A mythological Jason and the Argonauts theme in there perhaps somewhere.
Berj
**************************
From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Saturday, December 2, 2006 1:07 PM To : vms-list@voynich.net
Subject : RE: VMs: The whirlpool in the VMs
And the herbal f90v picture can give the impression of alchemical transmutation: from the bottom going on up, the crude animal-like entity evolves / transmutes into crystalline star or cross-like flowers.
Berj
From: jean-yves artero Reply-To: vms-list@voynich.net To: vms-list@voynich.net
Subject: RE: VMs: The whirlpool in the VMs Date: Sat, 2 Dec 2006 18:25:05 +0100 (CET)
Perhaps, yes... http://www.levity.com/alchemy/caezza3.html
Jean
"Berj N. Ensanian" <> a écrit : A mythological Jason and the Argonauts theme in there perhaps somewhere.
*************************
From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Saturday, December 2, 2006 9:12 PM To : vms-list@voynich.net
Subject : VMs: 3x3 matrix of f58r and the f68r3 moon-ring
Offlist, Robert Teague wrote me Saturday, December 2, 2006 1:40 PM: " Your 3x3 matrix-- could it be a magic square? "
Hi Robert
Well, looking through my notes, you wouldn't believe what all I tried back in April to decisively make something numerical happen with the f58r 3 x 3 matrix: everything from prime numbered magic squares to some computer models that are reminiscent of David's (MONET) paint-spilled-on-the-sidewalk-is-meaningful idea.
I had been driven by the assumption that the f58r text, or at least much of it, was verses from the New Testament gospels, and I wanted the little 3x3 to identify which verses. But I could not decisively close the loop of conjectures with numbers assigned to the 3x3. So I set it aside.
Then a week ago I realized I had not tried your numerical assignments, although I remembered reading your earliest post on it in the archives. Offlist I got from you the exact assignments, and the result was the 1078 - 153 = 925 proposition, which only became VERY interesting to me after you showed me the words in the f68r3 moon-ring.
I may as well detail it a bit here for anyone on the list who is interested, as it may stimulate some ideas, and in any case it touches upon several things of general interest. I'll try to write the following so that motivated newcomers can follow, and caution that I'm writing my opinions and observations based on my level of study of the nine rosettes manuscript.
The f58r and f58v star-pages are of the star-pages section of the ms (also called the "recipes" section, a designation I can't stand!). The other star pages, f103r - f116r, follow much later in the book, for some reason.
It has been suspected that the ms has been mis-gathered or mis-foliated, not to mention missing pages and forged paginations, and the pages may not be in the original intended order. However, when the book is analyzed in terms of its sections, visualizing it as a sphere that has been cut in two, a kind of core-plus-concentric-shells organization can be seen, which is even easier to see if one views the herbal / pharmaceutical section as a sub-section of a general botanical section:
The balneological core is surrounded by the cosmological shell, surrounded by the botanical shell, surrounded by the star-pages shell, this structure then modified by assymetries:
The logical climax of the book, the f85 / 86 six-page foldout, better viewed as a single folding-frame of 12 related panels, with one side of 6 panels bearing the unique 9 rosettes illustration, is in the cosmological shell. The bulk of the botanical section, and being devoid of pharma sub-components, is at the front of the book, and is itself encapsulated by weird page f1r and code-wheel page f57v. It is as if this shell is just a hemisphere, but a very thick one. Counter-balancing it is the skin-thin single f116v page, the last page of the book, the oddball f116v being a whole field of study in itself.
At the very center of the book (in this core-plus-shells model) the balneological core is pierced by a single all-text code-page: f76r
By code-pages I mean those several pages in the book, across sections, that appear to show code-tables or code-diagrams indended to give cipher clues. It is from one of these code pages, f49v, otherwise a nice botanical page with a nice plant drawing, that Robert began deducing a relationship between the text symbols and numbers: if it is assumed that at least in some places in the book the "text" symbol groups are actually numbers, then Robert's assignments of:
this Vonich symbol = this numeral
are logical and sound - see the list archives for how Robert deduced his assignments.
Robert studies the astronomy / astrology pages in the cosmological section, and from them he has produced proposed correlations of dates and historical astronomical events wich have been debated - again see the archives. There is in this kind of attack a high potential for a breakthrough in the overall Voynich mystery: if a date is deciphered that is clearly attached to some pattern of stars or other astronomy on page X, and the whole thing survives the debates of the type: well we don't know if this variable star was bright enough to be seen with the naked eye from cloudy London on this night etc., and especially if it can be done twice or more, page Y and Z etc., then we may have a solid indication that whoever designed page X, knew of that astronomical event and had a reason for depicting it in the book. And take off from there.
Now, regarding star-page f58r, it is one of those pages that strongly suggests non-linear scripting of parts of its text, as if the text was assembled onto the page from building-blocks, and perhaps even at different times. In particular the right side of the 15-lines first paragraph of f58r gives the impression that the ends of lines 3 - 14 may have been added independently of the bulk of the paragraph, and especially noticable is what I call the 3 x 3 matrix at the end of lines 12 - 14 which suggests that it is an independent unit.
At first glance this 3x3 matrix appears to be built from 9 symbols or glyphs; so let us temporarily write the matrix:
Table 1
B A C
D E F
G Q E
and also note how GC, in his voyn_101.txt transcription, has transcribed the glyphs from the f58r images available to him:
Table 2 GC-
% a y
o e 9
1 a e
or in ASCII GC-
37 97 121
111 101 57
49 97 101
As you can see, in his voyn_101.txt transcript, GC has transcribed matrix elements A and Q as the same, namely GC-a / 97.
We proceed on the assumption that this matrix's elements were intended by the VMS author to represent numbers. Robert has assignments that will decode matrix elements C, D, E, F, and G as numbers:
Table 3
B A 2
1 5 3
9 Q 5
We require numerical values for B, A, and Q to proceed. We now assume that the numbers in the matrix have internal relationships - they are bound by some mathematical rules. If that were not so, then B, A, and Q could be any numbers, and we would have to look outside the 3x3 matrix for clues to their identity.
We assume that the numbers are Hindu-Arabic numerals, that the rows are final numbers, and that the relationships between the number elements as they are written in the form of the array / matrix means a simple arithmetic problem, possibly one where the involved numbers point to something in f58r and / or elsewhere in the manuscript.
The simplest further development that seems to work, although not without cost, is that the matrix's bottom row is the result of arithmetic between the top and middle rows: the middle row (number) subtracted from the top row (number). It will turn out to be symmetric, that is, the top number can be viewed as the result of the addition of the middle and bottom numbers. The further development in this vein produces:
Table 4
10 7 8
1 5 3
9 2 5 read from top to bottom: 1078 - 153 = 925 read from bottom to top: 925 + 153 = 1078
The costs involved in this result are three:
1.) Matrix element C (from Table 1) cannot be = 2, as is normal in Robert's assignments, but must = 8.
Because we believe that Robert's numerical assignments are logical, we do not want to disturb them at all if we can help it. Therefore, we reason that in the vein of a "verbose cipher", there are alternate assignments of numbers-to-symbols / glyphs, and in the case of the 3x3 matrix, its numbers are mixed from however many such numbers-assignments tables exist in the manuscript.
The justification for choosing C = 8 comes from the fact that that symbol, GC-y, resembles the symbol for the number 8 as 8 was written in the 16th century, at least in the 16th century. [1]
So, GC-y (EVA-r) has the alternate numerical values: 2, and 8.
2.) Matrix element B, a plumed pedestal glyph, as it is known in Voynichology, must stand for a double-digit number as we are used to in Roman numerals or hex codes, specifically here, B = 10.
Because in Beinecke MS 408 there are clear variations of the plumed pedestal glyph, this naturally suggests that variations of the plume's shape and horizontal position above the pedestal define further double-digit numbers, like 20, 30, 40, 50, for example. The essential idea of different numbers species represented in the Voynich ms has been deduced before by Marianna Ridderstad. [2]
Therefore, rather than being alternates, Ridderstad's species can be regarded as additions to an expansion of Teague's table of numerical assignments.
3.) Matrix element Q (Table 1) cannot be identical to element A. We examine f58r and can immediately, even without the high-resolution .sid image, see a significant difference in glyphs Q and A. There is no doubt that glyph A is the familiar and very common GC-a. The Q does resemble it, and we could take Q to be just a scribe's pennmanship variation of GC-a. Apparently GC did so.
But, there really is a significant difference betweeen Q and A, and we can see it without a magnifying glass on a printout of page f58r, that is of the same size as its actual dimensions. The need-no-magnifying-glass seeing of the difference should answer the objection of Newboldism. [3]
Now, for the purposes of this 3x3 matrix analysis I can just keep "Q" without bothering further with transcription details. However, GC's transcription alphabet offers at least a couple of different ways to transcribe Q into something other than GC-a, and one of these is fully compatible with the EVA transcription system. Accordingly, I had during this work earlier this week, settled upon:
Q = GC-ci = EVA-ei
Robert's table of assignments has GC-c (EVA-e) = 4
By the time I was dealing with Q, I had to have it = 2. To make it happen, I made this assumption: when glyphs are representing numbers, and the GC-c it written close enought to GC-i so that together, GC-ci, they resemble GC-a, then GC-ci = 2. This immediately suggested that analogously GC-c could be used somewhat like we see in Roman numerals: CI and CIII and so on.
So here in the 3x3 matrix we have mixed together straight-forward Hindu-Arabic numerals, "species", and the compound thing GC-ci, in an arithmetic problem. Is the grand assumption.
I realized that the above costs were high, and I was about to set aside the 3 x 3 matrix once again. Then Robert found that its top row appears in the f68r3 moon-ring, and the middle row has a very similar counterpart in the same ring. This amazed me. Robert also had a date or two figured out there.
I was amazed because: f68r3 is astronomy, and therefore numbers are natural to it; being the Pleiades panel, it is about the most gotta-be-astronomy page in the entire book. At the same time, the f58r star-page has this 3x3 array / matrix, that, to my eye anyway, strongly suggests it is a logical unit, and has something mathematical in its meaning. And they all could be related? Through numbers?
Wow!
At this point I still consider the 1078 - 153 = 925 or 925 + 153 = 1078 interpretation to be thin. For one thing, what is so special about those numbers? I haven't thought of anything yet that makes sense, unless one wants to speculate that 925 to 1078 is approximately the period over which the Khitan (Asian) script flourished.
But, this experimentation has convinced me even more of Robert's numbers being valid, as a concept. Even if he ever has to create alternates to the numerical assignments for some of them, the concept seems stronger to me now that I've seen connections between the 3x3 matrix and the Pleiades moon-ring.
Berj / KI3U
[1] see Table Fig. 16, The Voynich Manuscript - An Elegant Enigma, by M.E. D'Imperio, Aegean Park Press, c. 1976-80, ISBN 0-89412-038-7
[2] http://www.astro.helsinki.fi/~marianna/vmsnumbering.htm
[3] Newbold was accused of mistakenly interpreting Greek shorthand strokes in his transcriptions. For example, it was argued that you needed a magnifying glass to see the alleged Greek symbols, and in reality they were just artifacts of cracking, over the ages, of the old ink of some of the symbols on the manuscript's parchment. This counter to Newbold's transcription method may need to be re-examined in light of the relatively recent availability of the high-resolution .sid images, because in them it is often easy to see the ink and the parchment grain in great detail, and I for one would like to be clearly shown how and where cracking ink, and perhaps micro-stretching of the parchment, created plausible Greek shorthand symbols where there were none before when the parchment was freshly being written on. Much more serious is my disagreement with Newbold in choosing f116v as the starting point for clues to the manuscript's presumed cipher.
*******************************
From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Saturday, December 2, 2006 10:05 PM To : vms-list@voynich.net
Subject : RE: VMs: 3x3 matrix of f58r and the f68r3 moon-ring
Robert
I wrote a few minutes ago: " At this point I still consider the 1078 - 153 = 925 or 925 + 153 = 1078 interpretation to be thin. For one thing, what is so special about those numbers? "
How about this:
7 x 153 = 1071
1078 - 7 = 1071
6 x 153 = 918
925 - 7 = 918
The Pleiades are "The Seven Sisters". The Pleiades cluster was also known as "The sailing stars" for navigational purposes. f68r3 is the Pleiades page, and it has Viete's curve implying sine-wave calculated motion, be it a ship on the ocean, or the moon in the sky.
I still think the 3x3 numbers case is a bit thin, but with the above, it just suddenly got a lot thicker.
Berj
****************************
From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Saturday, December 2, 2006 10:51 PM To : vms-list@voynich.net
Subject : RE: RE : RE: VMs: The whirlpool in the VMs
jean-yves artero wrote Saturday, December 2, 2006 5:46 PM:
" ... Otherwise I consider that your comments about flowers and crystals (crystal-like flowers or flower-like crystals) are very interesting. ... "
Hello Jean
I've often wondered about mineralogy in the VMS. There is for example that bluish sugar-cube in pharma f102r, above the deep-blue crown-like thing. Berj
****************************
From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Sunday, December 3, 2006 12:30 AM To : vms-list@voynich.net
Subject : Re: VMs: 3x3 matrix of f58r and the f68r3 moon-ring
The overlayed pix from the Starry Night planetarium program you just sent me offlist - can you send me the input data so that I can try it with Solex 8.5 (a good excuse to relearn using it), which is what I have working here. It looks like all you have to do is to move the observation point around a bit in Europe?
I'm not familiar enough yet with the method where the stars with the unusual number of arms compared to their companions, are obviously special marker stars (discussed somewhere in the archives), but in the f68r3 bottom pie-wedge of stars it looks to me like there is one more object besides Saturn to account for.
Rudolphe was dead by 1615. I'm ok with that because I think MS 408 is a daughter copy of a much older original, the mcP document. And the mcP's daughter documents were updated with contemporary and local material.
Berj
From: "Robert Teague" Reply-To: vms-list@voynich.net To: <vms-list@voynich.net>
Subject: Re: VMs: 3x3 matrix of f58r and the f68r3 moon-ring Date: Sat, 2 Dec 2006 23:05:34 -0500
If I'm right about what f68r3 depicts, the wavy line indicates that the moon will occult the Pleiades the next night.
Robert
**************************
From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Sunday, December 3, 2006 11:24 AM To : vms-list@voynich.net
Subject : Re: VMs: 3x3 matrix of f58r and the f68r3 moon-ring
Robert Teague wrote Sun, 3 Dec 2006 07:32:36 -0500:
" In doing VMs astroarchaeology research, I use Prague as my viewing site (seems like a good spot, since we don't know where it's from). The date was 29 December 1615. I don't remember the time; I made that picture something like a year ago. I'll send you offlist a Word file of dates when the moon occults the Pleiades over a period of 200 years (1400s-1500s) I worked up. "
Coincidentally one of the first things I was going to ask you this morning was for just such a dates list - I have been pondering the possibility that f68r3 represents, plotted as overlaps, not a single event associated with the Pleiades, but more than one, those events covering some centuries. That could take care of extra stars (the unusual-number-of-arms ones) that seem to throw out of kilter otherwise matching patterns between the f68r3 diagram and the planetarium projections. Conceivably the f68r3 diagram depicts events from the past as well as a predicted event(s) in the f68r3 author's future. Could the moon-ring text be a list of dates, the numbers written not necessarily in the same format / species ?
Another thing, I'm not up on this, but how confident is astronomy about its data on variable stars, and how complete are astronomical records of five centuries ago and further back?
Lack of sleeptime lately has been having its consequences - I saw that earlier in this thread I had left out a bare-bones table of assignments that really is necessary to follow this discussion. I'll paste in here now the 27 NOV 2006 offlist email that gives the bare bones table so that others following this thread have it accurately, although I recommend to them to obtain from you your full assignments doc with its vastly greater details, including vowels and consonants assignments:
* * * * * * *
From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Sunday, December 3, 2006 11:52 AM To : vms-list@voynich.net
Subject : RE: VMs: 3x3 matrix of f58r and the f68r3 moon-ring
J HALEY wrote Sunday, December 3, 2006 8:48 AM:
" The mention of Viete is interesting and certainly got my attention. ... "
Good morning Jeff
Viete has always amazed me in multiple ways. I would also vote him the handsomest mathematician of all time, putting to shame any Hollywood leading man, bar none.
More relevantly, Viete is one of the major original reasons the Voynich mathematics continues to be a focus for me: I've always wondered how Viete and other early modern-era mathematicians suddenly erupted forth with so much advanced mathematics as they did. Many of them, Viete anyway, were diplomats and in the thick of cryptography. This is why I suspect that the history of mathematics will have to be re-written: those guys knew things long before mathematics history has it, but they kept it secret and among their own privileged circles. Batchelor's Republic of Codes is good to revisit:
http://www.stanford.edu/dept/HPS/WritingScience/Cryptography.html
My only criticism of Batchelor is that I don't think he goes back far enough - the republic of codes is older than you think :-)
Berj
**********************************
From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Sunday, December 3, 2006 1:50 PM To : vms-list@voynich.net
Subject : RE: VMs: The whirlpool in the VMs
jean-yves artero wrote Sunday, December 3, 2006 6:57 AM:
" In my view there is a strong link between mineralogy and alchemy. The latter is mineral in essence, although some herbs are used as symbols for minerals. "
Hello Jean
I'm one of those guys who talks with plants and takes them seriously as creatures. Well not all of them - I do have standards for the company I keep.
As far as I'm concerned, regardless of the scientific view of it, plants can become friends - over many years I've noticed that certain house plants prefer each other's company. I also think some plants form little communities with "prejudices" different from other plant communities.
Some of the Voynich botanical illustrations have me wondering if similar themes are being discussed on those pages. Have a look at a few:
f11r, f23r, f24r, f34v, f40v, f42r, f43v, f87v
And f68v2 seems to make a point of putting a flower at the center of the mineral astronomy universe.
Anyway, two of the most fascinating books I've ever read concern this general subject, and might be handy to have when studying the botanical section of the 9RMS:
The 1959 edition of "The Power of Prayer on Plants: Based on astonishing facts and extensive laboratory Experiments", by Rev. Franklin Loehr, a research chemist. I don't have my copy handy, but I think he named "aquator" the water that was the vessel of the prayer energies.
The other book is Tompkins and Bird's: The Secret Life of Plants. My favorite story in that book is the mathematician who happens to be a cactus plant.
This stuff is interesting; nutty maybe from the conventional scientist's perspective, but we are trying to understand a mystery that originates in an era where ideas like the ones in these books were quite at home.
Berj
********************************
From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Sunday, December 3, 2006 3:47 PM To : vms-list@voynich.net
Subject : RE: RE : RE: VMs: The whirlpool in the VMs
jean-yves artero wrote Sun, 3 Dec 2006 21:07:19 +0100 (CET):
" Moreover, life is life, would it be mineral, zoological, or herbal. VMS is defintely a book about life. "
Agreed - it is hard for me to view the nine rosettes and not think that the book concerns an earnest philosophy of, and about, life.
Are minerals alive? I've spent thousands of hours in the laboratory experimenting with the bluish-gray (to my eyes) cubic crystal mineral Galena, lead suplhide, PbS. [1]
Over so many, many experiments I've encountered a fair number of anomalous incidents with Galena. If you pressed me to summarize those anomalies in the very fewest words, while also allowing free choice of casual language, then I would say:
Galena sometimes acts like it is alive.
Berj
[1] http://webmineral.com/data/Galena.shtml
********************************************
From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Monday, December 4, 2006 4:49 PM To : vms-list@voynich.net
Subject : Re: VMs: 3x3 matrix of f58r and the f68r3 moon-ring
Greg Stachowski wrote Monday, December 4, 2006 10:02 AM: " Your question is a little broad. What do you mean by 'data on variable stars' and 'astronomical records' ? " and Larry Roux wrote Monday, December 4, 2006 10:53 AM: " We can postdict heavenly events for millenia going back. "
Hi Greg, and Larry
Let me attempt to get this straight in my mind, at the expense of maybe being a bit longwinded, but I believe the subject is worth the discussion.
I have lately begun to really appreciate the significance of Robert's approach in attempting the forcing of a crack in the walls of Castle Voynich.
I arrived at that appreciation by borrowing some of his tools (hypothesized Table of Voynich-glyph = number) for something else, the f58r 3x3, but presently I consider the f58r thing still too thin to stand on its own; but the f58r 3x3 theory certainly does not hurt anything in Robert's approach as far as I can see. So far, it has me becoming very interested in Robert's attacks, and this leads to the crux of the matter:
If Robert, or someone using his method, arrives at a plausible explanation for one of the VMS's stars diagrams, especially the most obviously likely one to be some kind of star map: the Pleiades panel f68r3, then what are the possible weaknesses, what are the main counter-attacks that the plausible explanation of f68r3 must survive, especially survive in the eyes of the astronomy community?
I have to be clear on those possible counter-attacks if I am to understand and spend time on Robert's, or similar approaches, or even just follow developments in them. And of course I also want to know what weaknesses there might be in the counter-attacks themselves, as they attack weaknesses in the original f68r3 analysis. I have to know the possible weaknesses on both sides, as the castle is being stormed.
Now it has been many years since I let expire my subscription to ASTRONOMY and since I've been following the goings on in astronomy with regular attention, and I can't remember the last time I plotted an orbit or used RA and declination in an equation, and I've become so lazy in using wonderful computer programs like Solex that I realize I'm ill prepared even in asking the right questions concerning weaknesses. Nevertheless, I will try to. The questions are many, and I don't expect them all to be easily and quickly resolved.
Here are the main points as I presently see them:
1.) Notation.
Under what circumstances is it acceptable that f68r3 depicts not just a single astronomical configuration, but two or more as overlays?
For example, suppose that two planetarium configurations are found. And when, with proper alignments (Pleiades cluster), one configuration is overlayed upon the other, the resulting picture matches f68r3 in all respects, except say, the "filler" stars, the many stars of not-unusal-number-of-arms that fill, along with a few unusual-number-of-arms stars, the wedges.
Must the unusual-number for star-arms be the same for all the wedges? That is, if 7 is the un-usual number, then 7 and only 7 is unusual in any wedge, regardless of rarity in any wedge?
Are the differences in number of star-arms even to be considered significant in the presumed star-map? Are they acceptable as a some sort of astronomical notation? That is, they are not simply an illustrator's accident?
What is reasonable for astronomical notation in the VMS?
"star" = star
"unusual star" = planet
"star or unusual star" = some other sky phenomenon
S-curve = sine-wave
etc. ?
Should the judgment of f68r3 as a possible accurate star map, insofar as notation and mapping-complexity are concerned, be any more severe than the standards by which ordinary ancient star-maps are analyzed, just because the f68r3 diagram appears in a document that is strange for many reasons? f68r3 is altogether associated with some pretty strange items, like the balneological illustrations.
2.) Variable stars, and gaps in the world's astronomical records of the past.
What about aperiodic brightening of a normally dim star, the brightening lasting only a very short time, and for some reason surviving only in one record that has made it to the present day? I think of it along the lines of this made-up story:
It has been overcast all over Europe for days and will be for quite a few more. Roger Rudulf is out walking his dog at midnight. Suddenly there is a break in the ceiling and Roger sees some stars he is familiar with in and around Taurus. But there is something unusual - a fairly bright star he has never seen there before. The ceiling closes up again, and Roger rushes home to write down what he can remember. A week later the weather clears, the unusual star is suddenly gone, but Roger is so sure of its existence the week before that he decides to record the event permanently, and his record eventually becomes f68r3. Nobody else among the record keepers in Europe saw the sudden short-duration brightening of the normally dim star because it was overcast. For one reason or another there is a gap in non-European records, and Roger's is the only record of an unusual sky event.
If it comes down to a single un-explainable star preventing an otherwise explanation of f68r3, is it because any version of the above story is inconceivable 400 years or so further back in time from the present day?
3.) Mis-perceived optical phenomena and folk-records.
I know from my experiences in flying aircraft both daytime and at night that our atmosphere can create optical effects that, were it not for one fortunate clue at the end of the encounter, would result in the observer swearing to the end of their days that they had had a dramatic and harrowing close-up encounter with a real nuts and bolts made-of-metal classic UFO spaceship. I've also, at night, stood on the ground, and watched for a few minutes up in the sky an impossible multi-colored UFO, that would have had me without any explanation for what I saw, until a friend of mine landed and, then watching with me the silent thing in the sky above, told me he had just a few minutes before flown through the sharpest temperature inversion in all his thirty years of flying. If I were an educated person living hundreds of years ago, with the knowledge available to me then, I would have thought that event worthwhile to record (actually I have recorded it in my personal notes).
Suppose then that a local, very dramatic sky phenomenon occurred hundreds of years ago that Roger Rudolf witnessed. It was local, so there is no chance it will be in Chinese or other astronomical records. Roger has no conceptions of dramatic atmospheric temperature inversions, and to him what he saw was a strange star or group of stars, or a one-night comet, or he-can't-conceive-what, but it's important and he makes a record of it, in his notation, and it winds up as f68r3, or one of the other star diagram pages.
Hundreds of years later: we find a fit for f68r3, except for an unusal "star". Now, if there is a fit, we all know what it means: a date. Suppose one of us just by luck comes across the local record of a "UFO" on that date in some obscure European record of folk-tales.
What then? By what criteria do we accept or reject, or more realistically, deem possible, the planetarium fit, and the date it gives us?
4.) Effect of belief in cipher on interpretation of star map.
If we believe that the VMS text is not just in an unknown alphabet, but also uses a cipher to encrypt its information, how does this affect our attitudes on the notation in f68r3 and its related panels?
One can conceive of a situation where in fact an attack on the VMS is closing in on a solid and important clue, a date for example, but we fail to capitalize on it, or even realize it, because we have not systematically expressed our views on the strengths and weaknesses of the attacks and counter-attacks.
Any and all thoughts on this I am very interested in.
Berj
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From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Friday, December 8, 2006 10:48 AM To : vms-list@voynich.net
Subject : RE: VMs: The whirlpool in the VMs
Marianna Ridderstad wrote December 7, 2006 8:43 AM:
" So, if the characters are numbers, there probably are more than one number inside one "word" and we should be able to find the separator(s)... "
Good morning Marianna
Yes this has me thinking also. Especially in light of the possibility of mixed number species within the same VMS symbols group, and without us knowing the conventions. For example, we can write: 1D6B == 7531
Inside the hex-word in the 3rd digit position, there is a "D", and we know to read, as its contribution to the complete number-word: 13 x 16^2
That's bad enough in the VMS guessing game. But what if also, when in the VMS, the symbols-groups represent numbers, they are anagramed according to some sheme, in addition to all else?
Say: 6BD1 must first be reverse anagramed into 1D6B, before it can then be further decoded.
For me, there is in working on the mystery, a continuous struggle in trying to assess just how clever, just how subtle, just how convoluted and extreme the encryptions (presumed) are, that the author(s) designed into the mansucript, while leaving enough clues to figure it out. I'm having this problem currently in checking into something in f68r3, after getting an idea from discussions in the f58r 3x3 matrix thread.
One of the things I am sure of: the author of the Nine Rosettes Manuscript understood the psychology of people, especially intelligent-educated people, very, very well.
Berj
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From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Sunday, December 10, 2006 2:19 PM To : vms-list@voynich.net
Subject : Re: VMs: Of Numbers and Star Maps, Cabbages and Kings
David Suter wrote Sunday, December 10, 2006 11:59 AM:
" As I posted a couple weeks back I am perhaps one of the few on the list to have witnessed the brief flaring of Halleys comet sometime in the late '80's or early nineties, which was seen by a few nightowls on the East Coast U.S. in the very depths of the nightime.
My experience ( here I am invoking my credentials as someone not only uneducated but half-asleep!) was thus of someone seeing something absolutely unpredicted or publicised. So I can, as I say, speak as a complete naif....
While what I saw did not have a pronounced "tail" it nevertheless did show an unmistakable sense of movement- and movement fast enough to register it as such, as opposed to movement imagined or the product of eye fatigue, etc.
So I would imagine that, my perception being essentially like that of a surprised medieval observer, I would possibly have noted the impression of movement- perhaps by drawing a "tail" more as a kind of set of "action lines" to show direction, as in a comic book..... "
Hello David (and Greg and Robert)
I've been waiting for an excuse to bring this up, and you just gave it to me. Two items about comets:
1.) The 1983 closest-to-Earth-in-ages Comet IRAS-Araki-Alcock counts as close to the most amazing thing I've ever seen in the sky. Because: it had no tail, and I could see it moving against the background stars.
The no-tail aspect was what really made it dramatic: it appeared like a whispy silvery-glowing round cloud sailing silently across the black sky among the sparkling stars, and over and over during the days that I followed it, I thought: if I were living hundreds of years ago, I would certainly see this as a God-sent omen messenger. No other thoughts fit the spectacle!
I would not be surprised if anyone hundreds of years ago thought of a no-tail comet as a star that had ventured into Earth's vicinity, and then recorded the comet in a diagram with a star symbol.
2.) I've seen NASA photographs of comet tails, where the impression is that a dramatic shear has occurred in the space-time fabric that the comet sailed through: the tail's earlier and more recent (closer to the nucleus) portions are split into two parallel, but laterally apart sections. On the photos it looks as if God grasped the comet by its nucleus and about halfway down the tail, and then shoved it laterally some, while shearing it from the earlier parts of the tail.
Or, the comet took a real quick right-angle turn, went some ways real, real fast, and then turned back real quick to resume the original direction.
What I don't know is if this rarity has been observed by the naked eye. Greg would know. If yes, then it would undoubtedly be something to record, even if the Church or someone forbade it for some reason.
Berj
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From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Thursday, December 14, 2006 12:41 PM To : vms-list@voynich.net
Subject : RE: VMs: re: announcing a rumination
John Reynolds wrote (replying to GC) Thu, 14 Dec 2006 11:44:55 -0500:
" If it was written circa 1530 by a student of medicine, then it surely wasn't written at Cambridge where medicine was not taught till much later. "
Hello John
The Cambrige theory has improved some in believability for me, since I saw that some of the VMS botanical drawings very much appear as if they were synthesized from parts of drawings in the Bodleian MS Ashmole 1431, the 11th c. Herbal from the St. Augustine monastery in Canterbury.
But I don't believe the Voynich's material is the product of one person, nor of one person's lifetime. I think it is a collection of material from across Europe drawn from inspirations going back to at least St. Hildegard.
Berj
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From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Sunday, December 17, 2006 4:19 PM To : vms-list@voynich.net
Subject : Re: VMs: Astronomical Research Update
I'm not really convinced, yet, that it is a solar eclipse description. However, not to rule anything out: in the flower, or fat star as some in Voynichville call those, it is the colors in that particular f67r1 astro diagram that catch my attention (also the slight assymmtery at 5:30 o'clock). So I thought, perhaps someone wanted to describe / record the colors-spectacle, as perceived by them, just as the sun goes behind and again emerges from behind the eclipsing object (moon presumably). Such a description could I suppose run to the amount of text on that page.
Or maybe the author was in a bar-room brawl and got hit on the head by a beer mug and saw stars and decided to describe that. That could explain the wincing-in-pain face :-)
Berj
<grin> Or, perhaps, it is instructions on how to make canes out of the various flora found elsewhere in the Voy for those that ignore that suggestion!
Larry Roux
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From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Friday, December 22, 2006 3:03 PM To : vms-list@voynich.net
Subject : VMs: Analysis of the f68r3 Pleiades - moon curve
As a result of discussions in [1] I decided to consider the proposition:
Voynich ms f68r3 PM-curve = ciphered-signal
I investigated in the f68r3 astronomical diagram the approximately 4.2 cm long sinewave-like curve that extends between the Pleiades and the moon, according to this experimental question:
Is the curvature of the f68r3 PM-curve a carefully crafted enciphered message, rather than a mere scribal artifact?
A yes answer would have major implications for the profile of the f68r3 author as well as any intended reader(s) of f68r3.
My data seems to indicate that the PM-curve is an intentional mathematical message, and is encoding, quite accurately, either:
a.) one oscillating ellipse of average eccentricity 0.6, or
b.) two ellipses, one of eccentricity 0.69457 and another smaller-scale ellipse of eccentricity 0.55277 that have made some kind of geometric contact.
When, on the .sid image of f68r3, we examine carefully the pen tracing that is the PM-curve, and compare it with the tracings that made the diagram's circles, it is quite plausible that a French-curve type template was used, implying that the PM's curvature was important enough not to sketch merely by freehand. For example, above the PM-curve's label, GC-oae1coe, it looks like a point where the template was adjusted, the pen was re-inked, and the curve-drawing then continued to the left.
For analysis I first had to capture the curve. In the following I describe the investigation in all detail necessary for checking it, and conclude with brief comments.
The following is divided into these sections:
1.) Curve-noise and distortion estimate: roundness of the f68r3 diagram's circles
2.) Transcribing the f68r3 Pleiades PM-curve; digitizing the curve
3.) Analysis of the transcribed PM-curve:
3-1.) Basic gauging of the PM-curve
3-2.) Discreet Fourier Transform (DFT) of the PM-curve
3-3.) Discovering the PM-curve's functional form
3-4.) Calculating practicality: How much precision for pi and e is in the PM-curve?
4.) Comments
1.) Curve-noise and distortion estimate: roundness of the f68r3 diagram's circles.
By curve-noise I mean any unintended contribution to the transmission of the curve from its designer's mind as conceived, to its capture by transcription.
The first concern is: how true, to the original drawing intent of the PM-curve, is its appearance in the available .sid image of f68r3 ?
Has the parchment warped?, was the parchment flat on the table when the .sid image was taken?, etc. etc. and so on.
I assumed that the diagram was based on true circles that were well drawn by the artist, and I measured how good the circles in the .sid image are.
Apparently, originally 4 circles were drawn. Numbering them 1-4, with 1 being the innermost, and 4 the outermost, circles 1 and 2 define the moon-ring containing a band of text. Within circle #1 is the moon. The moon, and the fading of circle 1, make circle 1 difficult to distinguish. Circles 3 and 4 define the outer periphery of the diagram, and within them contain the outer band of text.
The PM-curve extends from circle 2, at about 10:30 o'clock, to and into the Pleiades cluster, which, radially, sits roughly halfway between circles 2 and 3.
A fold in the parchment obviously distorts the diagram's right half. Fortunately, the PM-curve lies in the left half, in the northwest portion of the circular diagram.
I cropped the diagram out of the .sid image as a .bmp image, and loaded it into IrfanView. I had Irfan convert the color picture to gray scale, and slightly adjusted the contrast, brightness, and gamma to make the circle lines appear easier to see. Then I printed the picture to fit the 8.5 x 11 inch paper: this resulted in the diagram's outer circle #4 diameter coming out very close to 19.5 cm. With the available information I can only guess, but this may not be all that far off from the true diameter of the physical f68r3 diagram. The longitudinal span-length of the PM-curve on the print-out is 4.2 cm, and the maximum width of its trace is 1 mm. It's lobes peak-to-peak is about 7 mm.
I went back to the .sid image at maximum useable magnification to try to determine the center-point of the diagram - where the artist had placed the compass reference point. It appears to be in the moon's nose, fairly close to the vertical axis of the nose, and a little above the bottom of the nose. The diagram's horizontal ruling does not quite intersect this nose pimple. It doesn't matter for the PM-curve once it is captured.
With the printout on a hard flat surface I adjusted my compass, and found that it was at its limit for circle 4, but was fine for measuring the more important circle 3 - on the printout its radius is ~ 9.28 cm.
I was astonished at how good the agreement was between my compass tracing, and the image of circle 3 on the printout, in the left half of the picture. From the southwest text-bearing radial all the way to 12 o'clock at the top, the fit is just excellent. Happily, the PM-curve lies right in the middle of that region. Predictably, the distortion is at its worst at around 3 o'clock, where my tracing ran about 5.5 mm further out than the diagram's, its circle-tracing of course being pulled in by the fold in the parchment.
Next I traced circle 2, placing the compass initially in the nose pimple, and the point where the PM-curve contacts circle 2. Again the results were excellent in the region of interest, and the run-out at 3 o'clock amounted to about 1 mm.
These measurements satisfied me that it was not necessary to invent some complicated shaping-function corrections for distortion, which would rest upon assumptions anyway, and that the measurement and analysis of the PM-curve from the .sid or the printout would indeed provide some true information about its nature. [2]
2.) Transcribing the f68r3 Pleiades PM-curve; digitizing the curve.
I thought the best approach would be to transcribe the curve onto a rectangular reference frame, a rectangular grid-graph, and then digitize it to the best convenient and sufficient resolution. This would give us the PM-curve as a set of numbers, allowing us to graph the curve in many ways, and with those numbers and graphs we could compare it to any curve that was also expressed as a similar set of numbers.
I magnified the .sid image until the curve spanned the computer screen, and cropped that out as a .bmp. Next I spent a considerable amount of time deciding on the actual endpoints of the curve, and used a paint program to draw a straight line through those points: the curve now had an x-axis, on which the moon-end was at right, although everything was still tilted. With IrfanView I found that a ccw rotation of 29.6 degrees brought the x-axis perfectly horizontal. [3]
Next, to avoid visual distractions, using copy and paste, I removed the surrounding text and stars, resulting in an appearance of a portion of VMS parchment with nothing but the curve and its drawn x-axis on it. Where the crossover, from left lower lobe to right upper lobe, of the curve's ink-trace-middle intersects the drawn x-axis, I placed a drawn y-axis with the paint program. The curve was now fastened onto crosshairs: gPMf68r3.bmp
What is really striking, is that the curve crosses the drawn crosshairs right where, above the label, it looks like a template adjustment was made.
The left lobe's curvature is a bit more complex, and its rendering is not quite so smooth as the right lobe's.
I think it would be good if those who are following this experimentation, see this image. You get a whole new perspective of the designer / artist of f68r3. What you see appears as if it is an illustration right out of a mathematics textbook. There are many other curves of comparable size throughout the VMS. If you fasten them onto cross-hairs, you do not get an impression of mathematical execution - see for example the beginning of the text of f42r.
From this image I prepared another that I would actually use for the digitization; I did this to save digitizing work. I first cropped width-wise so that the resulting image exactly framed the curve's full horizontal span of 865 pixels. Then I carefully located the peak of the curve's right lobe, identified the mid-point of the ink-trace there, and cropped height-wise, so that the resulting image's top row of pixels held that ink-trace mid-point. I left room to spare underneath the left lobe, which extends downward.
This digitization-work image, dPMf68r3.bmp, as displayed by IrfanView, has its (X=0,Y=0) origin at top-left. The X-axis runs normally from left to right, but the Y-axis runs from top to bottom, requiring later a simple transformation to normal (x,y) rectangular coordinates (the 2nd step in the digitization). I set IrfanView to a Zoom of 2595 x 849 to do the digitizing. Digitizing is a partly subjective process that depends on judging the middle of the ink-trace along the curve; it is partly subjective because the ink-trace is not sharp at its edges, and there is also some fading along it.
PM1: The left end of the curve is at (0,57)
PM2: The left-lobe low-point is at (153,143)
PM3: The cross-over is at (429,57)
PM4: The right-lobe high-point is at (677,0)
PM5: The right end of the curve is at (864,57)
The curve's vertical peak-to-peak span is resolved into 143+1 = 144 pixels, including the 1-pixel "thickness" of the x-axis. Axis-thickness can be a little problem with digitized curves: ideally we'd like at least 100:1, at least, and here we have 144:1, so we're ok. In some analytics the 1-pixel thickness of the curve's x-axis is removed, giving a curve peak-to-peak vertical span of 143 pixels, and therefore 142 delta-y-pixels.
The first step in the curve's digitization from the dPMf68r3.bmp is: move the cursor to selected points on the curve, in the middle of the ink-trace as judged by eye, and record the Irfan reported values for X and Y. The selected values for X are determined by the resolution chosen. The strategy for resolution is explained next.
As many as 865 curve-points could be transcribed to represent a curve spanning 42 mm on the printout. That would come to over 20 points per mm.
How many points are enough?
For most of the curve, the ink-trace seems to be around 10-15 pixels thick. It is less at the ends. Only in the left-lobe portion of the curve, from above its label, does the ink-trace suggest departure from excellent curvature smoothness. If a template was adjusted there, then the resulting vertical mis-alignment seems to be no more than 4 or 5 pixels across a horizontal X-interval (delta-X) that I estimate as 10-20 pixels.
So it seems to me that 3 pixels to cover a delta-X equal to the average width of the ink-trace, say 12 pixels, would be sufficient. Then: 865/12 = 72 and (72x3)-72 = 216-72 = 144, and counting the first point at left at X=0 we'll have a total of 145 points along the curve's X-axis span. 864/144 = 6, so we'll start at X=0, and then take every 6th X: X=6, X=12, X=18, etc. and the X=864 reading will be the 145th point. The 144 little intervals amount to digitizing at 3.4 points / mm curve-span on the printout. I think that's sufficient at this stage of experimental inquiry. If necessary, doubling the number of points is easy: read the X=9, X=15, X=21, etc. points, and interleave them into the 145-points set.
Once these 145 (X,Y) points are collected, the 2nd digitization step is to transform them to a regular (x,y) reference frame with:
Eqs. 1 & 2
x = X
y = 57 - Y
After all this tedious work is completed we have the curve digitized, based on an (x,y) reference frame with the start of the curve at the Pleiades end at x=0 and the end of the curve at the moon-end at x=144. Later if we want, we can easily change reference frames, for example we can choose to view the curve as having a "direction" that runs from the moon-end toward the Pleiades end. Or, we could go back to a cross-hairs referencing. Also, we can normalize the y-axis amplitude values to, say, +/- 100, depending on some desired x:y aspect ratio. Other techniques, for example Fourier, allow us if desired to greatly increase the number of points in the curve beyond 145, while keeping its shape and smoothness.
Here are the 145 points for the PM-curve, given in two blocks, separated as paragraphs for convenience in analyzing the left and right portions of the curve separately when desired.
Table 1: digitization step 1
Raw hand-digitization from dPMf68r3.bmp, in two blocks, the left and right portions of the PM-curve, 72 and 73 points respectively. The format is: X-Y,
0-57, 6-71, 12-79, 18-86, 24-95,
30-104, 36-110, 42-116, 48-121, 54-125,
60-128, 66-130, 72-133, 78-134, 84-136,
90-138, 96-139, 102-139, 108-140, 114-140,
120-141, 126-142, 132-143, 138-143, 144-144,
150-144, 156-143, 162-142, 168-141, 174-140,
180-139, 186-137, 192-136, 198-134, 204-132,
210-132, 216-130, 222-129, 228-127, 234-125,
240-124, 246-123, 252-121, 258-120, 264-119,
270-118, 276-116, 282-114, 288-112, 294-109,
300-107, 306-106, 312-104, 318-102, 324-100,
330-98, 336-96, 342-94, 348-91, 354-89,
360-86, 366-84, 372-81, 378-78, 384-75,
390-73, 396-71, 402-69, 408-66, 414-65,
420-62, 426-60,
432-55, 438-52, 444-50, 450-49, 456-46,
462-45, 468-44, 474-42, 480-39, 486-37,
492-34, 498-34, 504-32, 510-30, 516-28,
522-26, 528-25, 534-23, 540-21, 546-19,
552-17, 558-16, 564-14, 570-12, 576-12,
582-11, 588-9, 594-8, 600-8, 606-7,
612-6, 618-5, 624-5, 630-3, 636-3,
642-2, 648-2, 654-1, 660-0, 666-0,
672-0, 678-0, 684-0, 690-0, 696-1,
702-2, 708-3, 714-3, 720-4, 726-5,
732-5, 738-6, 744-8, 750-9, 756-9,
762-11, 768-12, 774-14, 780-15, 786-15,
792-17, 798-20, 804-23, 810-25, 816-29,
822-31, 828-34, 834-38, 840-42, 846-46,
852-49, 858-52, 864-57
Table 2: digitization step 2
Digitization of the PM-curve in normal rectangular (x,y) coordinates, obtained from Table 1 via Eqs. 1 & 2. The format is simply the list of the y-values. Their corresponding x values, 0 - 144, are specified by the order:
0, -14, -22, -29, -38, -47, -53, -59, -64, -68, -71, -73, -76, -77, -79, -81, -82, -82, -83, -83, -84, -85, -86, -86, -87, -87, -86, -85, -84, -83, -82, -80, -79, -77, -75, -75, -73, -72, -70, -68, -67, -66, -64, -63, -62, -61, -59, -57, -55, -52, -50, -49, -47, -45, -43, -41, -39, -37, -34, -32, -29, -27, -24, -21, -18, -16, -14, -12, -9, -8, -5, -3,
2, 5, 7, 8, 11, 12, 13, 15, 18, 20, 23, 23, 25, 27, 29, 31, 32, 34, 36, 38, 40, 41, 43, 45, 45, 46, 48, 49, 49, 50, 51, 52, 52, 54, 54, 55, 55, 56, 57, 57, 57, 57, 57, 57, 56, 55, 54, 54, 53, 52, 52, 51, 49, 48, 48, 46, 45, 43, 42, 42, 40, 37, 34, 32, 28, 26, 23, 19, 15, 11, 8, 5, 0
The final step 3 in the digitization is to account for the artificial compression of the horizontal span from 864 pixel-intervals to 144 delta-x intervals, in order to recover the curve's true x:y aspect ratio. The compression is by a factor of 6: 864/144 = 6 and therefore the easiest thing to do, is to multiply all the y-values in Table 2 by one-sixth, or divide them by 6. The results are in Table 3. [6]
The 145 numbers in Table 3 can be hand-plotted on a sheet of graph-paper with a 1:1 aspect ratio for x:y, to obtain an approximation representation of the PM-curve. Of course it is more convenient to have a computer do it. But as an absolute check to make sure I had made no mistakes, I hand-plotted the Table 3 numbers on a sheet of Vernon Royal Line R 2470-20 1:1 graph paper, resulting in a curve of span 18.3 cm with my curve-trace ~ 1 mm thick. I then had IrfanView print the dPMf68r3.bmp image to a length of 18.3 cm - the ink-trace comes to an average width of ~ 2.5 mm. Overlaying my hand-plot graph on the printout, and holding up to strong light, I determined that my transcription plot remained well inside the 2.5 mm ink-trace image for the entire span of the curve. The transcription process was therefore very satisfactory.
3.) Analysis of the transcribed PM-curve [4]
Provided that an analytic operation on the curve's numbers depends only upon the y-values, then the Table 2 integer numbers may be used for convenience, speed, and better accuracy. However one must know exactly what one is doing. Generally it is less confusing to just work with the Table 3 numbers that represent the curve in its 1:1 aspect, and as it is visualized on the f68r3 parchment.
3-1.) Basic gauging of the PM-curve
Taking the basic characteristics of the curve can, within the context of pursuing the Voynich mystery, give the impression of wishful numerology. But it is essential to gauge the curve in order to get to know it, so I list a few of the basics first.
The ratio of the areas bounded by the curve's lobes is ~ 1.477 and therefore falls between the square-root of 2, and the ratio of 3 to 2.
The ratio of lobe-peak magnitudes is:
87/57 ~ 1.5263 or 57/87 ~ 0.6551
and if the x-axis is seen to have a thickness of 1 pixel then we obtain:
86/56 = 1.5357 and 56/86 = 0.651
To quick-check the possibility that the curve's lobe-peak amplitudes, by their magnitudes ratio, may encode suggestion of the golden ratio, ~ 1.618033988, I assumed that my transcription's curve-endpoints were correct, but that I had introduced some curve-noise due to mis-judgment in my vertical positioning of the x-axis, and I simulated sliding the curve up and down the cross-hair's vertical axis:
Table 4
left-lobe amplitude-magnitude, right, [left/right]
85, 57, 1.49122807
86, 56, 1.535714286 - - (as transcribed)
87, 55, 1.581818182
- - - - - - - - - - - - - 1.618033988 golden ratio
88, 54, 1.629629629
The golden ratio is within two pixels distance from my transcription, specifically the x-axis would have to slide up slightly from where I transcribed, to lengthen the left lobe in relation to the right. How much upward slide in millimeters, on the parchment? Using the available data:
(42 mm / 864 delta-pixels)(2 delta-pixels) = 0.097222222 mm
in other words less than one-tenth mm, that being considerably smaller than the width of the ink-trace on the parchment. Of course, sliding down a couple of pixels from where I had set the X-axis, would remove us that much more from the golden ratio, but one has to check these things, and many more, to get a preliminary feel for the curve.
The ratio of the distances of the lobe-peaks from the cross-over is:
(429 - 153) / (677 - 429) = 276/248 = 1.1129 being very close to that of the successive prime numbers 19/17 = 1.117647
The ratio of the lobe-peaks distances from curve endpoints, right over left, is: 187/153 which is curiously vaguely reminiscent of the f58r 3x3 matrix entries when they are interpreted as Teague numbers. [1]
3-2.) Discreet Fourier Transform (DFT) of the PM-curve
I calculated a Fourier spectrum for the curve, n running up to 71. As expected, the bulk of the spectrum bunches up in the long wavelengths. The following table shows the situation:
Table 5
Fourier a, b coefficients for PM-curve as per Table 3
a0: -2.986111166692704
1: -.8553657873334783 -11.73127277633253
3: .5167060056997881 -2.363931426715772
4: .5014842324267361 -1.0945590100734
5: .4962779160870148 -.4712057369633494
6: .2426384414093906 -.2809745098336969
7: .2296735735889767 -.2153740114648478
8: .1789495058903421 -.1338616821287313
9: .1793745526847049 2.635150318481365D-02
10: .1549120926635991 4.356978661785565D-02
11: 7.119509722628947D-02 3.318840018599167D-02
12: 7.729341948966494D-02 1.094300798135859D-02
13: 5.090374695828513D-02 4.836167262802998D-02
14: .0611082406871195 -1.698415488954784D-02
15: 6.998036150316181D-02 .0519415852162851
16: 4.127423211549158D-02 2.415490674006406D-03
................................................................ etc.
I took just a0, and coefficients a1 - a9, and b1 - b8, and formed the (abbreviated) Fourier series. The resulting curve constructed of the 17 harmonics matches the PM-curve so closely, that were it printed to scale and overlaid upon the printout of f68r3, the maximum y-axis deviation of the Fourier curve at any point from the 4.2 cm long PM-curve would be less than one-third millimeter.
3-3.) Discovering the PM-curve's functional form
Next, came the real penetrating work: trying to figure out the PM-curve's functional construction, as the author had conceived it. I considered only wave functions for the core function, motivated by the PM-curve's astronomical context, although conceivably it could have been constructed from a segment of a non-periodic function of some kind.
The strategy was to construct a wave function and adjust its constants, until this generated curve closely matched the transcribed PM-curve. If the generator-function's form proved to be consistent with something astronomical, and especially if it was a simple or elegant function, that is relatively simple, rather than an ugly brute-force curve-fitting, then it would be reinforce the impression from the crosshairs gPMf68r3.bmp picture: the PM-curve was mathematically constructed.
Inspection of the PM-curve indicated that its functional form might be as follows:
Eq. 3
y(W1, W2, x) = [ h(x) ] z(W2, p(W1, x))
where:
Eq. 4
h(x) = Be^-Qx
in which e = 2.718282 shapes the curve's envelope. And where:
z(W2, p) is a periodic wave function on the x-axis and W2 = 2pi / x-axis-period
and p(W1, x) is a period-variator function, that is it alters the normally linear progression of the independent variable x that z sees, and feeds to z a non-linear, a stretched-and-contracted, version of the x-axis, so that the left-lobe and right-lobe peaks of y align with those of the PM-curve, those peaks being asymmetrically placed with respect to the cross-hairs' mid-vertical axis, and the wave 1-cycle end-points. Fortunately, the curve can be accomplished with W1 = W2, and from now on it is just W, nominally = 2pi / 144.
Conceived as a signal generator, the y would be generating a carrier wave that was both amplitude and frequency modulated.
The functional forms of p and the envelope-shaping function remained essentially the same throughout the investigation, as they were easy to figure out, and worked well. The envelope appears like negative exponential damping across the wave-cycle, as seen above, and constants B and Q are to be determined. The form for p(W, x) is:
Eq. 5
p(W, x) = x + [ Ce^-Dx ] sin Wx
the constants C and D to be determined.
For the wave z I began with a simple pure sinewave:
Eq. 6
z(W, x) = sin(Wp) where p = p(W, x)
The constant B in Eq. 4 would of course have to be negative. With Eq. 6 for a wave function I was able to get y from Eq. 3 to match the PM-curve quite closely with adjustment of all the constants, equivalent to a deviation-from-PM of an overlay upon the printout of ~ 0.41 mm, but each improvement came at greater and greater increase in the required precision of the constants, one of them going to 11 decimal places. The trouble was always the same - mismatch at the ends of the curve near y = 0, where the PM-curve is steeper than a sinewave wants to be. It was clear that I was forcing the sinewave into the required shape, and the generator function was becoming ugly.
And so I knew that Eq. 6 could not be considered the likely wave function. I thought that the ends of the PM-curve reminded me of ellipses, implying the f68r3 author knew of elliptical orbits, and next I looked for the simplest way to make z an elliptic wave. The function I found is indeed simple. The derivation of this z "esine wave" is analogous to how a sinewave is derived from a circle centered in a rectangular reference frame:
We begin with a rectangular frame (u,z) in which we center an ellipse:
Eq. 7
(u^2/a^2) + (z^2/b^2) = 1
Let b = 1 and write:
Eq. 8
u^2 = (a^2)(1 - z^2)
Now, in (z,u) let v be the auxiliary angle between the horizontal and any terminal ray from the (0,0) vertex, just as we are used to with theta running counter-clockwise to make 2pi once around etc.
Write:
Eq. 9
sinv = z / (+)sqr (u^2 + z^2)
and substitute Eq. 8 into Eq. 9 to obtain (after letting A = a):
Eq. 10
z(v) = (Asinv) / sqr (cos^2 v + A^2 sin^2 v)
where the denominator reads: square-root of cosine-squared v plus A-squared sine-squared v and it is understood that the denominator is always positive.
Just as a sinewave shape does not very much resemble the circle shape, so also the wave resulting from plots of z(v) does not very much resemble ellipse shapes. However, z(v) has a whole spectrum of shapes, depending on the value of A. And that is very handy. When A = 2 the shape of each lobe begins to resemble a pot, definitely so by A = 5, and by A = 10, we see a respectable rectangular wave with rounded corners. With A < 1 the shape changes are more dramatic, and by A = 1/10 we can see where things are heading as A approaches zero: alternating spikes at intervals of v = pi / 2.
Thus the area bounded by the curve's two lobes ranges between zero and pi + pi = 2pi. It must have occurred to the whoever sketched versions of this curve that each ellipse has a companion complementary ellipse of different eccentricity such that the sum of their curve area integrals would conserve to = 2pi.
Let v = Wx
This z(W, x) wave function, which is essentially a transformed elliptic trajectory, is, I believe, the heart of the PM-curve. It is the curve that the f68r3 author was thinking of first when he or she began telling the mathematical-astronomy story that is the PM-curve. Considering [3], the curve-constants would change, but the form would remain z(W, x).
We write z in its final form by replacing x with p(W, x) :
Eq. 11
z(W, p) = (AsinWp) / sqr (cos^2 Wp + A^2 sin^2 Wp)
Equation 5 for p is substituted into Equation 11, and the resulting equation is multiplied by Equation 4 to obtain the final specific expression of Equation 3 for the curve generating function y(W, x) for which the constants must be determined. Finding good constants went very quickly: an indicator that the PM-curve's natural form had been found. These values for the 6 constants and pi and e :
Table 6
B = -16.5
Q = 0.00481
A = 1.25
C = 17.063
D = 0.009882
W = 2pi / 144.46
e = 2.718282
pi = 3.141592654
generated a 145-points curve with a peak-to-peak of 24.3897486 (the PM-curve has 24.0) that differed at its worst from the PM-curve (Table 3) by + 0.80818208 at point #19 according to a point-by-point difference curve:
Eq. 12
diff(x) = PM-curve(x) - y(x)
In other words, the maximum magnitude of diff(x) = + 0.80818208 occurring at diff(19). Translating this to the parchment, actually to my printout with the 42 mm span PM-curve:
[( 42 mm / 864 )( 142 )]( 0.80818208 / 24 ) = 0.2324459 mm
in other words, on the printout y(x) departs from the PM-curve at its worst by less than one-quarter millimeter. Thus the traces of the two curves never come close to separating to make a gap between them. The curve-fit is excellent.
Because A > 1 the formula for linear eccentricity can be used straightforwardly:
Eq. 13
ecc. = sqr(A^2 - 1) / A = 0.6
I considered the possibility that the PM-curve is actually two different, but cryptically joined curves: the left and right halves. I split the left and right halves. With each, I attached to it its inverted mirror. These two new curves were then symmetric full-length 1-cycle wave versions representing their respective halves. Using Eq. 3 to generate mimics for them, I obtained characteristic eccentricities for them:
left portion of PM-curve: ecc. = 0.69457
right portion of PM-curve: ecc. = 0.55277
3-4.) Calculating practicality: How much precision for pi and e is in the PM-curve?
The Table 6 values are not the only set that will give good results of course. This relates to the important questions:
a.) how much precision did the f68r3 author calculate the PM-curve with in their no-computers / calculators age?
b.) did the f68r3 author know about e = 2.718282 or was a different base used, say an integer like e = 10 ?
These questions relate directly to trying to date the PM-curve, but they are rather tedious to explore thoroughly. For one thing, all calculating aids like computers and computer programs and sine and cosine tables, paper and electronic, have to be adjusted for chosen precisions. Nevertheless, I did some experiments, and they were eye-opening. These low-precision, of maximum 3-significant-digits constants:
Table 7
B = -20
Q = 0.004
A = 1.25
C = 16
D = 0.004
W = 2pi / 145 = = 0.043
e = 10
pi = 3.14
where the existence of the natural exponential base 2.718282 is presumed not to be known, and in its stead e = 10 is used, resulted in a surprisingly excellent curve-match:
maximum difference diff(115) = 2.565264 ~ 0.75 mm
I reviewed some mathematics history at the macutor website; people like Kepler complained about tedious calculations, but of course they certainly did them, and often with great precision, especially if the calculation concerned orbits or navigation.
Finally, I did a pencil and paper calculation experiment, using the Table 7 constants to compute curve point x = 123 with these simulated tables:
a.) sine and cosine tables to four decimal places, resolutions to 3 degrees intervals
b.) a table of fractional powers of 10 to two decimal places for 10^.01 to 10^.99
I was somewhat haphazard in my rounding and truncating and interpolating. I had to do it twice because the first time I made the proverbial minus sign mistake. The second time I obtained y(123) = 6.1248 for a difference on parchment amounting to about 0.75 millimeter. The calculation required about forty minutes, including hand extraction of the square-root, but I believe that once in the routine, a curve-point could be computed in well under thirty minutes at this precision. If the curve was calculated at 100 points, that would mean a total of around 50 hours; probably less time if the Table 5 Fourier theory was known to the PM-curve mathematician.
Altogether, at this point, my guess is that the PM-curve is a carefully sketched copy of an original that was calculated with a precision of three or four significant figures.
4.) Comments
The foregoing convinced me that the PM-curve is an intentional mathematical graph,
Undoubtedly I've missed some things here and there in the analysis, and it is by no means exhaustive. I hope there are no typo and other errors. But at this point, I do think the author / designer of f68r3 was a formidable mathematician-astronomer who knew that common orbits are elliptical. I wonder if the PM-curve author thought about elliptic arc lengths, and if he / she was experimenting with dynamics ideas behind the elliptic kinematics.
f68r3 is the right-most of a three-panels astronomical foldout that are associated with VMS missing pages. I wonder if all three panels are describing the same astronomical event, perhaps a split comet, or two comets disturbed by something, or two rival theories of the same astronomical phenomenon.
The Pleiades - moon curve is yet another indication of sophisticated mathematical thinking hidden in the Nine Rosettes Manuscript. [5]
Berj / KI3U
[1] vms-list thread: VMs: 3x3 matrix of f58r and the f68r3 moon-ring; Saturday, December 2, 2006 9:12 PM
[2] I don't know who prepared the .sid images of Beinecke MS 408, f68r3, but if you are reading this: you did a great job. Thank you.
[3] On my printout, the curve x-axis, when extended, passes slightly above the moon's nose-pimple, rather than through it. If the PM-curve's 1-cycle is considered a little longer than its sketch shows, a corresponding x-axis will intersect the nose-pimple.
[4] Tools: Casio fx-7000G Graphics Scientific Calculator; MS Quick Basic 4.0 interpreter-compiler; 1949 Ninth Ed. CRC Math. Tables.
[5] see for example vms-list post: VMs: braided prime number equations in f6r; Tuesday, April 4, 2006 1:39 AM
[6] Table 3: digitization step 3. The PM-curve points-set is in 1:1 graphic aspect ratio, x=0 to x=144. These numbers are the Table 2 numbers divided by 6.
PM1: (0,0)
PM2: (24 or 25 or 24.5, -14.5)
PM3: (71 or 72 or 71.5, -0.5 or +0.3333333 or 0)
PM4: (112 or 113 or 112.5, 9.5)
PM5: (144, 0)
0, -2.333333, -3.666667, -4.833333, -6.333333, -7.833333, -8.833333, -9.833333, -10.66667, -11.33333, -11.83333, -12.16667, -12.66667, -12.83333, -13.16667, -13.5, -13.66667, -13.66667, -13.83333, -13.83333, -14, -14.16667, -14.33333, -14.33333, -14.5, -14.5, -14.33333, -14.16667, -14, -13.83333, -13.66667, -13.33333, -13.16667, -12.83333, -12.5, -12.5, -12.16667, -12, -11.66667, -11.33333, -11.16667, -11, -10.66667, -10.5, -10.33333, -10.16667, -9.833333, -9.5, -9.166667, -8.666667, -8.333333, -8.166667, -7.833333, -7.5, -7.166667, -6.833333, -6.5, -6.166667, -5.666667, -5.333333, -4.833333, -4.5, -4, -3.5, -3, -2.666667, -2.333333, -2, -1.5, -1.333333, -.8333333, -.5, .3333333, .8333333, 1.166667, 1.333333, 1.833333, 2, 2.166667, 2.5, 3, 3.333333, 3.833333, 3.833333, 4.166667, 4.5, 4.833333, 5.166667, 5.333333, 5.666667, 6, 6.333333, 6.666667, 6.833333, 7.166667, 7.5, 7.5, 7.666667, 8, 8.166667, 8.166667, 8.333333, 8.5, 8.666667, 8.666667, 9, 9, 9.166667, 9.166667, 9.333333, 9.5, 9.5, 9.5, 9.5, 9.5, 9.5, 9.333333, 9.166667, 9, 9, 8.833333, 8.666667, 8.666667, 8.5, 8.166667, 8, 8, 7.666667, 7.5, 7.166667, 7, 7, 6.666667, 6.166667, 5.666667, 5.333333, 4.666667, 4.333333, 3.833333, 3.166667, 2.5, 1.833333, 1.333333, .8333333, 0
*******************************************************
From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Friday, December 22, 2006 6:40 PM To : vms-list@voynich.net
Subject : Re: VMs: Analysis of the f68r3 Pleiades - moon curve
Larry Roux wrote Fri, 22 Dec 2006 17:29:28 -0500:
" Also, did you notice that it appears the 2 parts of the arc appear to be made using the same tool? If you flip one part and rotate it, you will see the 2 dots above the "o" in oalchcol match those to the right of the "l". There are very similar light/dark spots as well along the lines. "
Good point(s) Larry :-) There isn't a doubt in my mind that curve was plotted, as opposed to written "artistically".
So then, what is the astronomy being told in f68r3? Robert said that one of his suspicions is that the left-most panel is about a comet. And I now suspect that all three panels are discussing the same astronomy. And from the eccentricities the planets are ruled, and asteroids and comets are indicated.
By the way, on my second read-through of the launch-post I found a typo, fortunately minor: in section 3-3.) where it says: With A < 1 the shape changes are more dramatic, and by A = 1/10 we can see where things are heading as A approaches zero: alternating spikes at intervals of v = pi / 2. It should say: ........... intervals of v = pi
Berj
***************************
From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Saturday, December 23, 2006 8:40 PM To : vms-list@voynich.net
Subject : RE: VMs: Re: Analysis of the f68r3 Pleiades - moon curve
Robert Teague wrote Saturday, December 23, 2006 6:56 AM:
" I did try some measurements to see if the distance between the moon, the Pleiades, and Aldebaran was proportional to the actual distances, but never got very far. I'm pretty sure the two stars in the upper right are Algol and Mirfak; a proportional distance between them could be investigated as well. "
I agree it it worth investigating: I think there must be more high-precision data in f68r3. Of course there is the matter of coordinate system. For the PM-curve I assumed it had been plotted on the parchment in rectangular coordinates. But for Aldebaran and the Pleiades and the moon, perhaps the system is celestial spherical coordinates.
There are still many assumptions. Now for instance, I concluded A = 1.25 and therefore lin. eccentricity = 0.6 implying not-a-planet and therefore making comets attractive as a theme in f68r3. Why A = 1.25 ? Well of course other values of A and the other constants could give good results, but by doing a seat-of-the-pants calculus-of-variations I found that when A = 1.25 all the other constants start to cooperate quickly in allowing themselves to be walked down into the minimum precisions that will give excellent curve-fit. This doesn't mean A = 1.25 is chiseled in stone, and it could still be that the PM-curve encodes another, a planet's eccentricity. But then the rather marked oscillation of orbital period must be accounted for - what planet could be disturbed so radically? - a moon of Jupiter? I don't know the data; Jeff suggested the moon's libration and I had also considered it, but never looked up the numbers because I thought the astronomy is coming closer and closer to us in time, rather than staying somewhere "back then" in the age of write-it-on-animal-skins.
Same for the Fourier analysis - it did two things: first, it verified my visual impression of gPMf68r3.bmp - that the PM-curve is the result of a theoretical generator-function rather than a scribe's flourish, and second, with 16 or 17 harmonics as its bulk, I should expect that generator to be not "simple" in the absolute sense.
Presently, my instinct is that the three f68 panels are describing a spectacular comet event: a split comet, parts of which came close enough so that someone thought they saw the moon turn red. Or something like that. I just don't know enough astronomy, and am guessing now.
Berj
************************
From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Saturday, December 23, 2006 10:48 PM To : vms-list@voynich.net
Subject : Re: VMs: Analysis of the f68r3 Pleiades - moon curve
As soon as I had plots of the PM-curve, I looked at the Dec. 1615 transit qualitatively with Solex 8.5 and realized immediately that in order to get numbers for that transit-curve to compare with the PM-curve, I would have to go back and relearn enough astronomy coordinate systems details to take me a week of being confident about what I was doing. So I thought: let Robert do it, since he's in the groove with this. :-)
There is no doubt that all this is a lot of work: I would have to get into Solex much more to find out how, but perhaps Robert knows how to get Starry Night to give him the digitized points (they don't have to be exactly 145 points) for that transit-curve. Regardless of coordinate systems - if you tell me which, I can transform the PM and the transit curves into the same one for comparison.
Berj
From: Greg Stachowski Reply-To: vms-list@voynich.net To: vms-list@voynich.net
Subject: Re: VMs: Analysis of the f68r3 Pleiades - moon curve Date: Sun, 24 Dec 2006 03:38:37 +0100 (CET)
Berj, Robert. Before I comment on Berj's analysis, have either of you compared the sinusoidal line to the path of the Moon on the sky over about 36 hours prior to the occultation of the Pleiades on the night 30/31 Dec 1615? (If Robert has mentioned this, I've forgotten, and I apologise.)
For anyone listening in, plot this in a decent planetarium program. I've done it, although I haven't tried to compare the curve drawn in the VMS in any measured way.
****************************
From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Sunday, December 24, 2006 1:44 PM To : vms-list@voynich.net
Subject : Re: VMs: Re: Analysis of the f68r3 Pleiades - moon curve
Robert wrote Sunday, December 24, 2006 4:42 AM:
" Orbital eccentricity....An ellipse with an eccentricity of 1 is a parabola. Greater than 1 is a hyperbola. They describe the orbit of a one-visit comet. But I don't think there is a comet on f68r3. I'm re-evaluating my thoughts on f68r2 as possibly being another comet. "
Regarding eccentricity: I might have clarified the eccentricity description in more detail in the launch of this post, but I was already straining to keep the length of the post from becoming too eccentric :-)
Anyway, here is clarification: the key step in deriving the esine-wave Eq. 10 for z(v) is the setting of b = 1
Everything in figuring out the heart of the PM-curve's form, follows from that innocent looking little step, where the ellipse's vertical semi-major axis is normalized to length = 2, so that its upper half = 1. If the horizontal semi-major axis, 2a, happens also to = 2, then the ellipse has become a circle, of diameter 2, and esine-wave = sine-wave.
I redefined a = A purely to make the equations easier to read in email plain-text: experimenting with writing in the email y = Af(x) and so on, I realized that it was best to write the constants in the equations as capital letters. So, the usual math textbook "a" representing the ellipse's longer major axis, is "A" in my descriptions. There was no need to worry about b because it was set = 1 at the outset.
For A > 1 the ellipse is elongated horizontally, and for A < 1 it is elongated vertically. But because we've fixed b = 1 we have some extra care to take when telling of the particular ellipse's eccentricity.
The simple formula for the linear eccentricity of an ellipse is: Eq. 14 (A)(ecc.) = sqr(A^2 - b^2)
or in our case: Eq. 13 ecc. = sqr(A^2 - 1) / A
where I am using "ecc." in place of the usual "e" because elsewhere in the discussions I have already used e = 2.718
Of course when A = b = 1 we have a circle and its linear ecc. = 0
As long as A => 1 the straightforward formula for linear eccentricity works fine. When A < 1 it becomes incidentally an invitation to theoretical exploration of the esine-wave in the complex plane that we neither need nor want to get into here. We just want the ellipse's eccentricity, which now is elongated vertically. So we need to turn our heads 90 degrees so-to-speak.
The simplest thing to do is to write Eq. 13 this way: Eq. 15 ecc. = sqr(RLS^2 - 1) / RLS
where RLS = magnitudes-ratio of the ellipse's longer axis of symmetry to its shorter.
For example, A = 1.25 and b = 1 and RLS = (1.25 / 1) = 1.25 so that ecc. = 0.6
But, now let A = 0.8 ( and b = 1 of course ) Then RLS = b / A = (1 / 0.8) = 1.25 and once again ecc. = 0.6
The A = 0.8 and the A = 1.25 ellipses both are of identical linear eccentricity, 0.6, but the A = 0.8 ellipse is smaller in size.
The number A at a glance tells us a lot about the ellipse under consideration. The further away that A is from 1, either above or below 1, the more eccentric is the ellipse. And also, ellipses of A < 1 are smaller in size than ellipses of A > 1.
Elsewise, it may not be conventional, and it may not be balanced, but it is I think a small price to pay for setting b = 1. We just must be careful with the eccentricity numbers, if we accept that Eq. 3 in its specific form is the message of the PM-curve. I hope I got the above all right - it is a challenge to do this in plain email text without diagrams, and it's easy to make mistakes.
Regarding comets: As soon as I had A = 1.25 and therefore ecc. = 0.6 from the PM-curve, and realized that planets were ruled out, I considered comets, and then remembered that one of your proposals was that the f68r1 panel is about a comet. That led to the thought: suppose all three panels then are about the same astronomy, specifically a major comet event? All those stars in those three panels - a spectacular meteor shower from the splitting of a very close comet? Why not? And the moon: in f68r3 it just does not look like a phased moon to me - it looks like it is wearing a shawl. So I thought, ok, how about that is to mean that the comet - meteors event had the observer believing they saw the moon get a red aura.
Berj
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From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Tuesday, December 26, 2006 11:16 AM To : vms-list@voynich.net
Subject : Re: VMs: Re: Analysis of the f68r3 Pleiades - moon curve
Some more clarification on eccentricity so as to synchronize those following this thread onlist with some of the offlist discussions.
I haven't paid close attention to astronomical coordinate systems since the 1980's, and that is why in the launch of this thread I stuck mainly to discussing the the curve as a curve, rather than as an orbit. I think, but am not sure, that "astronomical eccentricity" means conic sections eccentricity (haven't looked at conics since high school and freshman colllege!) and if so, then:
orbital ecc. = lin. ecc. / A = 0.6 / 1.25 = 0.48
but I'm not sure, because there still must be a reference frame, and so then, which astronomical frame? But in any case the A = 1.25 means a pretty respectable egg. And most importantly, it is referenced to b = 1 which is, I say, the main thought behind the PM-curve. The PM-curve is a general statement, about ellipses, and its specific statement of A = 1.25 within the context of an astronomical diagram naturally suggests an orbit of some obect(s).
We would like to know what it is, and its date.
Berj
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From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Tuesday, December 26, 2006 3:44 PM To : vms-list@voynich.net
Subject : RE: VMs: Ellipses, conic sections and planetary orbits
Jeff
I found here:
http://foxtalbot.dmu.ac.uk/letters/transcriptName.php?bcode=Zach&pageNumber=4&pageTotal=9&referringPage=0
this:
" .....In the last issue of the Philosophical Journal of Edinburgh, there is a work by Dr Robertson on Harriot's manuscripts which you discovered. He claims that there is nothing therein which merits publication, since what there is, we have known for a long time, and better yet than Harriot. But it has escaped the learned doctor, that it is of the greatest interest to the history of science to prove, as you have done, the point at which Harriot had arrived in his time. For example, you have proved irrefutably, it seems to me, that the count of Northumberland knew the true formula for the orbit of comets. There is good cause for surprise that astronomers should have taken so long to discover it, since it is but a special case of Kepler's elliptic theory. The honour is normally given to Newton, or to a German astronomer named Doerfell, but it is manifest that it should be given to Harriot's friend. I should have liked to send a copy of the letter from the count of Northumberland which you published in your German astronomical correspondence (*<****>) to the Edinburgh journal, but I did not have it to hand.... "
Berj
From: "J HALEY" Reply-To: vms-list@voynich.net To: "VMS mailing list" <vms-list@voynich.net>
Subject: VMs: Ellipses, conic sections and planetary orbits Date: Tue, 26 Dec 2006 17:17:15 -0000
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbit_(celestial_mechanics)
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From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Tuesday, December 26, 2006 4:11 PM To : vms-list@voynich.net
Subject : VMs: David Suter's elementary-art-patterns analysis
David
Yes I can play it with Irfan, but I can't seem to slow it down for a really concentrated study.
Nevertheless I get the point - and it is a really imaginative and interesting one, and exactly the kind of thing that, if shown as three or four still frames to art / history-of-art students, ought to arouse their interest to see the .mov and motivate them further by realizing that they too have an angle for attacking the mysterious manuscript. Therefore I want to reply to you here on-list.
You made me see something new. Good job!
Berj
From: MONET273@XXXXXXXXXXXX To: ki3u@XXXXXXXXXXXXX
Subject: Re: .mov files Date: Tue, 26 Dec 2006 15:11:17 EST
See if you can play this. It's not to be taken too seriously but if you can view the clip, it studies congruences between VMS f100r and a famous panel from the "Villa of Mysteries", Pompei. My thesis being that we are dealing with an artefact which has many ancient references expressed in subtle visual forms.- the "persistence of memory" Adam Maclean mentioned just before he "retired" from the List. Let me know if you can view it- David
<< POMPNEWEST.mov >>
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From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Tuesday, December 26, 2006 4:50 PM To : vms-list@voynich.net
Subject : Re: VMs: David Suter's elementary-art-patterns analysis
David wrote Tue, 26 Dec 2006 16:29:07 EST:
" .....and as before I urge everyone to reread "The Goldbug" by Poe, ..... "
I'll see if I can find it in the local library. But I think I already understand your idea as a great method to deduce what sort of training / background the 9RMS author had, what images made major impressions upon his / her mind, and were, if not consciously, then unconsciously / subconsciously precipitating in the designs of the mss pages.
Berj
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From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Tuesday, December 26, 2006 11:00 PM To : vms-list@voynich.net
Subject : Re: VMs: Re: Analysis of the f68r3 Pleiades - moon curve
Recapitulating the major questions on the f68r3 Pleiades-moon curve, for which convincing arguements for any answers given, are sure to be of interest to all who pursue the VMS mystery:
1.) Is a critical examination of the PM-curve relevant to penetrating the mystery of f68r3 in particular, and to the entire manuscript in general?
2.) Is the PM-curve a mathematical execution, YES or NO ?
3.) If the PM-curve is a mathematical execution, what is its most likely intended mathematical expression, and what does that expression indicate for the meaning of f68r3 ?
Berj / KI3U
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From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Wednesday, December 27, 2006 2:50 PM To : vms-list@voynich.net
Subject : RE: VMs: Ellipses, conic sections and planetary orbits
Tony Mann wrote Wednesday, December 27, 2006 4:41 AM:
" There is a famous letter from William Lower to Harriot, encouraging him to publish his work, which lists a number of achievements for which Harriot lost the credit because others published first. One of these is the discovery that the orbits of the planets are not circular, in which Lower says Harriot preceded Kepler. AFAIK nothing has been found in Harriot's manuscripts (which have been extensively studied) to throw light on this claim. Lower doesn't mention ellipses! "
I'm wondering if "ellipse" was discussed cryptically before it was discussed openly. For example, Galileo communicated to Kepler some astronomy correspondence by anagram, and even more complicated cipher.
Many of those guys in the 16th century had the Church or somebody powerful breathing down their necks about questioning / upsetting Aristotle, and divine circles and spheres, and so forth. I think I read somewhere that John Dee was brought up on charges of "calculating". If the VMS astronomy sections were written in Robert's time-frame of early 16th to early 17th century, and some parts from an ellipse-friendly perspective, then it seems very understandable why heavy astronomy is disguised as garden variety late medieval / early Renaissance astrology-book-for-the-man-in-the-street.
Berj
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From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Wednesday, December 27, 2006 5:24 PM To : vms-list@voynich.net Subject : RE: VMs: Fractions
Good point Jeff. I do that myself unconsciously-more-or-less sometimes, and did it a couple of times during the calculation of y(123) for the PM-curve. Berj
From: "J HALEY" Reply-To: vms-list@voynich.net To: "VMS mailing list" <vms-list@voynich.net>
Subject: VMs: Fractions Date: Wed, 27 Dec 2006 21:21:04 -0000 People like Harriot did not use fractions. For the number 1 he would use 1000000. This kept the precision and all he had to do was remember which
digit indicated the termination point of the integer.
Jeff
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From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Thursday, December 28, 2006 10:38 PM To : vms-list@voynich.net
Subject : Re: VMs: Re: Analysis of the f68r3 Pleiades - moon curve
Hello to all of you interested in this thread.
I thought I'd play selective journalist for a moment and report bits and pieces of the off-list discussions, the ones I'm privy to, on the topic of this thread: the f68r3 PM-curve and its significance to the mystery.
I believe you'll find the below interesting. And I believe they belong in the list's archival record. In addition to the off-list correspondence, diagrams and pictures have been going back and forth. Yesterday evening I took the liberty to email to a number of list-members a 158 kb version of the PM-curve on crosshairs picture (PMoncrosshairs.jpg). I guess it is true that a picture is worth a thousand words.
Personally, to me, the PM-curve crosshairs picture symbolizes the telescopic sight of a high-power rifle aimed directly at the center of the backbone of the elegant enigma. And to pull the trigger, I think we have but to complete a satisfactory answer to PM-curve major question number 3.):
What is the most likely intended mathematical expression of the PM-curve, and what does that expression indicate for the meaning of f68r3 ?
I've given the best answers I can think of, so far, earlier in this thread. But it is not easy answering this question, and a satisfactory answer may yet take a little while. Because first of all, a great deal of mathematics and astronomy and physics, and their histories, has to be taken into account. And also, because research quickly shows, like in the case of Thomas Harriot, that scientists and mathematicians back then knew more things than we can readily figure out. They were secretive for various reasons.
And are we any different today, where some of the most penetrating work into the elegant mystery is being kept off-list? And as back then, off-list competitions inject secretiveness even among allies. It is, definitely, all extremely interesting. I'd like for you to be in on it, as much as possible, especially with your ideas and considered criticisms. So therefore, I present this little bit of admittedly biased and selective journalism. The order of bits and pieces is as it is currently circulating in the journalist-reporter's mind. I will list the quotes anonymously, and prefix my own simply with two asteriks.
" I originally dismissed it as freehand,..... "
** Same here. In fact, before waking up to Robert's fundamental thesis, which I interpret as: precision astronomical data is contained in the astro section!, I viewed the entire astro section as astrology fluff for the purpose of having some variety pages upon which to write the cryptic text.
** But I don't understand what I'm supposed to be seeing in Robert's movie - the Pleiades are stock-still, yet the background stars move. Has the frame of refence been transformed to the Pleiades? If yes, then why do the Pleiades appear at all, and as if seen from Earth?
" The view is from Earth, but with the field of view fixed on the Pleiades. You see the Moon move across the sky and occult the Pleiades. The reason the whole thing swings around (the Pleiades also rotate if you look carefully) is that the angle to the horizon changes as the Pleiades rise, move across the sky and set. It's a bit confusing if you can't see the horizon. Imagine that you are standing looking at the Pleiades. The zenith is always up and the horizon is down, and you are turning to follow the Pleiades as they move East-West in the sky, first rising then setting. Using ecliptic or equatorial coordinates rather than alt-az would have removed the rotation and made it easier to understand. "
** I understand it now - thanks. I'm going to experiment a little with Solex's trace or track feature: the object (moon say) can be made to leave a track as it traverses the sky. That track could be transcribed, even by hand, although at this point I need a break from that.
** You can't get y = AsinWx to fit that swoosh.
** I could not get simple and multiplied sinewave motion to convincingly match it. But I could have overlooked something, even something that should have been completely obvious.
** It is an elliptic curve - unless I missed something and there is a clever way to get it with some astronomically-convincing combination of sinewaves (other than getting it by Fourier). I told Robert last night (cc: you - don't know if you ever rx it) that I'm pretty sure that no matter what ref. frame the PM is thrown into, it will remain elliptic.
" Yup, correct (well, unless you get into wierd relativistic frames with singularities or something) "
** I meant to ask you about that. I don't think we need the PM in a relativistic frame because I'm certain it's not empirical - it's calculated. But, suppose it was indeed simply a plot of something sailing the sky that he saw, as Robert thinks it is the moon's path. Did they observe well enough back then so that today relativity effects can be squeezed out of their numbers? Say in Tycho's data? I have no feel for that old astro data's precision.
" These guys, together, have almost 100 years in Astrology field. It was impression of both of them that those "charts" drawn in VMS are not Astrological charts. The person who draw them was kidding or was "nuts".(he he he). "
** .....that the PM-curve most likely says: ellipse! We'll see. I never worry about taking wrong turns in this mystery as long as the road turned into is interesting. If this one winds up egg on my face, it'll be an orb ecc. = 0.48 egg :-)
" Only long period comets and the odd (odd) asteroid have that kind of
eccentricity, as Robert mentioned. "
" That is pretty impressive. Probably the best evidence yet. Great job! "
" .....The ellipse here is then an expression, a shadow, of the model used. This leads on to many other questions, of course, not the least of which is how the author had knowledge of such an effect. "
** He must have been both an excellent mathematician, and a practicing astronomer, or had access to really good astro data. I thought of the possibility that the PM-curve is just an empirical plot of an observed object in a weird reference frame, and that the author did not realize that the curve contained the ellipse. But the curve is too clean to be empirical it seems to me - doesn't have enough noise. It's generated.
" The PM curve represents some deeper, other, hidden meaning, which we have yet to elucidate. The ellipse then encodes some information which we do not understand at this time. "
** I suspect there was experimentation, or at least thoughts of dynamics. The reason is that once he (and this time I think it is a he) had a few sketches of y(x) he must have seen the implied conservation theorem (area integral) for companion ellipses, and where there is conservation, dynamics lurks nearby. Once the curve's equation was derived, a dozen or so points calculated for sketches would serve - no need to calculate the entire curve at 100 points or more, to make a familiarity sketch.
" Indeed. Now this and the earlier points would seem to push the VMS into the late 16th or even 17th century, as the appropriate methods and paradigms were not available earlier. Which would agree with Robert's 1615 date, for example, but not with GC's 1530 or Toressella's 15th C. "
** Dates: we could all still be right I think, because I think it (VMS) draws on traditions going back to St. Hildegard via Christine de Pizan and St. Elisabeth. Look at the symbols in the middle of the f28v flower from left to right: an asymmetrically underlined "4", a vertical stroke say "1", and the U-thing - that U-symbol is a dead-ringer for the letter "l" (L) in Hildegarde's Ignota Lingua alphabet. In any case, as far as the astro section goes, at least f68 anyway, I think Robert's hundred-years range of early 16th to early 17th c. is right on, and most likely, early 17th c. Another thought since the PM-curve: what if the VMS author purposely wrote on parchment (paper by then more easily available) to make the book look like an older, outdated and passe medical astrology thing not worth a second look?
** I must do more anti-spyware work here - I'm battling the computer again.
" Kepler publishes math while sipping from wine casks in which are naked babes holding up stars :-)) "
** I did use the simplest approach to getting the constants: trial-and-error, or as I called it on-list: seat-of-the-pants calculus of variations: fix each constant in turn, to find out which one lets the others walk down to lowest precision while simultaneously improving curve-fit. Very soon I got: A = 1.25
" Seems reasonable. "
" You saw Greg's pdf of the PM curve. Here's an explanation for it, taken from a web site: Lunar Parallax ....... "
** I'm not wedded absolutely to comets in this thing, and will not mind if it reconciles with the moon in the end, but I have my doubts about that because of the big eccentricity. Then there is something else: f68r3 implies an angle: 90 + 29.6 = 119.6 degrees between the P-M line and the horizon. What's that all about?
** The direct trigger that made me drop everything to study the curve, came from the comments Greg and you made on 4 DEC in the f58r 3x3 thread: Greg admitting the curve could be an enciphering, and you "One question that nags is...."
" Personally, I also think the astro section represents real astronomical data, but on the whole represented in 'sketch-map form' rather than with star atlas precision.......... However, the PM curve is somewhat of an anomaly, as it seems almost too precise for it's surroundings. My personal jury is still out....... But I do now think that the general form of the PM curve was deliberately chosen to represent something, rather than being a complete accident. That doesn't necessarily mean that it encodes actual meaningful numbers, just that the author used that shape deliberately rather than, say, a straight line. Jury is again still out on the encoded numbers until they can be tied into something reasonable. "
** Well I better see if I can get this email out before the machine freezes on me again.
" ... the VMS needs to work as a whole. "
** Assuming that I accept that, it does work as a whole if the overall hypothesis about it is good enough. I've never had trouble with this aspect of it, because I've been seeing the mathematician member of the VMS authorship team / secret-society throughout the ms: navigate the prime numbers!
" My point was really more to the effect that a generated, meaningful (in some way) PM curve in this contexts constrains both the nature of the author (as you say) and also the time frame; both the mathematical methods and the astronomical data and models would have had to be available and of sufficient accuracy. (Robert has mentioned Tycho on-list in this context). My worry at the moment (as in the on-list mail with Robert) is that I'm not sure that sufficiently good data and models were available at the time we think the VMS was created. (Although this depends on how exactly we interpret the PM curve). "
" Just for kicks, here's the same image with another copy rotated 180 degrees and overlaid. The two halves aren't symmetrical, contrary to what someone on-list (xxx?) said. PMoncrosshairs-rotated.jpg "
** You've turned me (KI3U) upside down! Subconscious projection? :-) Seriously, pretty cool pix..... I think Robert should see that picture..... "
" Epicycles are identical to Fourier series, and both can be used to approximate ellipses. No quibbles with it being an elliptic curve or that those are astronomically useful, the only question is meaning in this case and how deeply that meaning is hidden. "
** Epicycles = Fourier I didn't know that. But now that I think about it, it makes sense. Which reminds me of the Fourier problem: it's pretty quick and easy to calculate a pretty good PM-curve with nothing but a sine table, on an abbreviated, say 16 or 17 terms series with integer coefficients - I did it way back at the start, and dismissed it because of THE PROBLEM. The problem is this: if you are a mathematician, then after doing 3 or 4 curves like that, you are absolutely bound to go: Hey wait a minute! I'm generating all these great curve shapes so easily - I WONDER IF ANY CURVE SHAPE could be generated with enough sines and cosines thrown together? So, a hundred years before Euler was even born, and way before Fourier was born?? Could it be? Your epicyles statement has me really wondering about this - we might think about this. He might have done it that way after all, and remotely-possibly not ever realized that his "Fourier" series represented an elliptic curve a la Eq. 3.
And so, the trigger finger is slowly squeezing. You are invited to help squeeze it, or alternatively just as well give considered views to retard the squeeze, on-list or off-list. Perhaps the long-awaited shot, when it comes, will be on-list.
(drum-roll.... :-)
Berj
*********************************************
From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Saturday, December 30, 2006 12:53 PM To : vms-list@voynich.net Subject : Re: VMs: Fractions
stevo wrote Sat, 30 Dec 2006 11:42:48 EST: " I'm not sure I understand your question, but the signers have been ecstatic at having their main form of communication finally accepted as a language in its own right. They're no longer seen as having no language. "
I was at Gallaudet University in early 1978. I walked onto the campus and noticed a crowd in front of an academic building. Even from afar I could tell that something very tense was going on. As I approached, keeping a respectful distance, because I did not know sign language, I saw that a very heated argument was in progress, with two chief protagonists, surrounded by their "teams" for lack of a better word, and then the crowd of other students around them. At least at one point it appeared to me that it could very easily go to physical blows - it was intense!
I managed to figure out somehow, from a variety of clues including certain books being waved about, at times menacingly, that the argument was about some point of philosophy.
It was all in total utter silence! This violent debate was proceeding completely via a sea of unbelievably rapid hand movements, and of course body language and facial expressions. I was absolutely amazed - it had never occurred to me that such detailed communication could be carried on just with the hands, although I should have known better as I had by then long been a telegrapher. Apparently they must have also highly developed peripheral vision, because I could tell that everyone was "hearing" what was being shouted throughout the crowd.
Now, I find it really hard to believe that any one of those students, or the professors at the periphery of the crowd, that I saw that day, had any doubts that they had a language in its own right, and I find it very hard to believe that they were under any feelings of lack of self-esteem because some non-practitioners of sign-language had not yet recognized their form of communication as a language. That is what set me to chuckling when I read your post.
However, I could see where it would be politically worth celebrating, by practitioners, that their langauge had been recognized by some politically useful organization.
I hope I am making myself understandable here.
Berj
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From : MorphemeAddict@xxxxxxxxxx Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Saturday, December 30, 2006 1:22 PM To : vms-list@voynich.net Subject : Re: VMs: Fractions
In a message dated 12/30/2006 11:59:13 AM Central Standard Time, ki3u writes:
Now, I find it really hard to believe that................ understandable here. Berj
Indeed you do, and I thank you for the anecdote. On the other hand, if you consider the perception of sign language when Gallaudet University was first founded, I believe that your scenario could not have occurred.
stevo
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From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Saturday, December 30, 2006 1:59 PM To : vms-list@voynich.net Subject : Re: VMs: Fractions
stevo wrote Sat, 30 Dec 2006 13:22:28 EST:
" On the other hand, if you consider the perception of sign language when Gallaudet University was first founded, I believe that your scenario could not have occurred. "
Yes, and that is amazing isn't it? That such a long road must be travelled before there is "official" recognition of some concept, a concept that everyone who has bothered to observe it, has already long known. Of course in my case with Gallaudet college it was a fortuitous accident - I learned something big that day without having previously had any thought of looking into the phenomenon. Believe it or not, when I walked on campus I didn't even know it was a school for the hard of hearing. It was just one of the 125+ campuses across the country that I had set out to pilgrimage-visit, chosen from a catalog of location and student-body size, with no other information.
I think "we", that is society, tend to under-estimate "us", that is the sub-societies, down to the individual.
Berj
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From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Saturday, December 30, 2006 6:10 PM To : vms-list@voynich.net Subject : RE: VMs: Gallaudet
Robert wrote Sat, 30 Dec 2006 17:09:09 -0500:
" My wife is a sign language interpreter. She works for a company that provides interpreters for almost any situation. She rarely works as an interpreter, though-- she's Senior Assignment Coordinator, or as I like to say, she tells the interpreters where to go. : )
Our 20th wedding anniversary is in 2008, and we're planning to go to Gallaudet as part of the celebration. "
I'm glad to find out that Gallaudet University is so well admired here on this list. It was still Gallaudet College back in '78 when I was there. I've been to an awful lot of college and university campuses over the years, big ones and little ones, and that event I described in the other thread is truly the one that stands out where I witnessed a real playout by students of passionate academic beliefs and desires. And I couldn't hear a word!
It was like what I had read used to happen in some medieval universities where academic discussions could get so heated they could get out of hand and buildings could burn down - well of course we don't want that.
But those students that I saw there really were intensely passionate about their existence and its meaning, and obviously not just there to get a piece of paper as easily as possible so as to go out and make a buck.
That Gallaudet incident makes me wonder if sign language is the more fundamental, and speech-based language rests upon it. I have a vivid image in my mind of one of the protagonists, near the point of a physical altercation but retaining his self-control: his face contorted with emotion, and I thought I was seeing an arc of glowing energy from his brain to his right hand where his fingers were whirling like the propeller of a P-51 in a strafing attack. That eye-hand coordination upon which so much of being human depends - that's where the language was being born, and being directly expressed.
Berj
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From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Sunday, December 31, 2006 11:30 AM To : vms-list@voynich.net Subject : Re: VMs: Sebastian Kneipp take 2
David wrote Sun, 31 Dec 2006 10:23:29 -0500:
" The only really worthwhile statements on the list are a specific key associated with a string of enciphered text and a string of deciphered text such that anyone can do the deciphering in a short enough time. "
David, the text is just one aspect of it, as you frequently imply, and demonstrate with ideas I am a convert to. Also, I don't think "anyone" can understand the f68r3 PM-curve. Elsewhere some of us are discussing it as "relatively simple", but that relatively is not "anyone" simple, by a long shot, as has been seen in some recent list statements. The PM curve certainly was not meant by its author to be recognized, much less understood, by "anyone".
"anyone" who cannot even grasp that numbes are numbers, and notations of numbers are notations of numbers, and that in this here:
(582/97) x (314/300) = (157/25) <==> 2.00 x 3.14 = 6.28
THE IMPORTANT THING IS THE RATIO THAT IS BEING EXPRESSED, and that there are different ways of expressing that ratio for purposes of calculation, Babylonian cuneiform for instance, just doesn't have a chance of comprehending the PM-curve's significance, comprehending its significance both for Voynich astronomy pages and Voynich text, even after having been shown it.
The PM-curve is proof-positive that a high-level mathematical mind, very likely also an astronomer, is behind at least portions of Beinecke MS 408. One can of course ignore the curve, but that amounts to permanently exiting Voynichville through an Exit marked: To The Ostrich Club, all the free sand you want.
Berj
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From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Sunday, December 31, 2006 3:22 PM To : vms-list@voynich.net
Subject : Re: VMs: Gallaudet; other kinds of sign language
stevo wrote Sun, 31 Dec 2006 13:57:35 EST:
" I hadn't thought of them, but they don't really fit my idea of a society. They are way too specialized. "
Ok then, how about the guy at the top of the inner circle of cosmo f85r2 - he sure looks like he is signing something, doesn't he?
Berj
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From : Berj N. Ensanian <>
Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Sunday, December 31, 2006 3:49 PM
To : vms-list@voynich.net
Subject : RE: VMs: Sign language Thomas Harriot
" ...He anticipated the law of refraction, corresponded with Kepler, observed comets, and may have been the first to recognize that the straight line paths of comets might be segments of elongated ellipses. "
http://schulers.com/books/he/t/Thomas_Hariot/Thomas_Hariot1.htm
Berj
From: "J HALEY" <>
Reply-To: vms-list@voynich.net
To: "VMS mailing list" <vms-list@voynich.net>
Subject: VMs: Sign language Thomas Harriot
Date: Sun, 31 Dec 2006 19:37:46 -0000
******************************************
From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Monday, January 1, 2007 1:34 AM To : vms-list@voynich.net
Subject : Re: VMs: Analysis of the f68r3 Pleiades - moon curve
Investigation: the PM-curve as possible accident, or possible cipher.
The problem of reconciling the PM-curve's mathematical sophistication with mathematical sciences history "back then", back when we think the Nine Rosettes manuscript was designed, is highly dependent upon how the curve was conceived and calculated.
The best description yet of this entire problem that I have heard is by Greg Stachowski:
" However, the PM curve is somewhat of an anomaly, as it seems almost too precise for it's surroundings. "
The PM-curve truly is an anomaly - it is a mathematical enigma within the elegant enigma. It's there in the Nine Rosettes Manuscript staring us in the face - how do we explain it?
What is clear is that the PM-curve is elliptic, a rather sophisticated mathematical expression even in its elementary guises. What is not clear is when, how, and why the PM-curve got onto the f68r3 diagram of the world's most mysterious manuscript, and what its detailed message is.
Could the f68r3 author have discovered the PM-curve accidentally?
With Eq. 7 and following, I derived the PM-curve's core function from the starting formula for an ellipse.
But, could the curve have originally been calculated without any explicit elliptic starting formulas? Without any thoughts of ellipses?
Technically, yes, a curve can be generated without starting with ellipses, and that curve can be made to approximate the actual PM-curve on parchment as close as we please. One way to do it is with the pre-cursor of Fourier series: trigonometric series. [7]
Even if yes, the curve's appearance in the f68r3 astronomical diagram would still leave the question: did the author realize that the curve was actually elliptic? After all, the author placed the curve in the f68r3 diagram between the moon and the Pleiades, strongly suggesting astronomical motion. And astronomical motion is often elliptic, in fact, Kepler's announcement of that fact is considered a turning point in the mental history of mankind.
Whether it was accident, or a deliberate derivation starting from elliptic thoughts, the PM-curve unequivocally projects that its designer was a highly mathematical mind, and very likely also an advanced astronomer. So that much now we know about Beinecke MS 408.
Here I report on some trigonometric series results I investigated, specifically for the purpose of looking into the possibility that the PM-curve was originally obtained either accidentally, or with design thoughts in mind that reflected mathematics other than astronomical, mathematics concerned with cipher codes, and mathematics concerned with the theory of prime numbers. Much, much more could be investigated along these lines than what I have done to date. This kind of investigation is such, that one could easily breeze by a code sequence already well known in the Voynich, but for one more little adjustment of the trial trigonometric series.
Let us write the trig series so that its form is nearly identical to the way a Fourier series is written in modern notation:
Eq. 16
f(x) = A0/2 + SUM(An)(cosWnx) + SUM(Bn)(sinWnx)
It will be a finite series, that is n will be some modest number, so that hand calculating practicality will remain. The mathematician working with this numbers generator, and therefore curve generator, needs to know nothing about later mathematical technical ideas like piecewise continuous and Dirichlet conditions and infinite series convergence and coefficients formulas and so on and so forth. He doesn't even need to know what a "function" is.
All he needs to know is that he's got a procedure for adding up some numbers using his sine table (which also serves as his cosine table), and then he's got a new table with the results, f(x), and the numbers that gave him the results: the x's, and atop the new table he's noted the particular A and B coefficients for that particular new table. And that table he can use to sketch one curve. And after sketching a few curves based on different A and B coefficients, and different n, he gains familiarity with the effects of different A's and B's and different n and he can start trying to design curves that he wants.
It cannot possibly take him long to realize that he can encode numbers in this way. Suppose he wants to send his fellow secret mathematician friend the code sequence:
Table 8
1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 7, 5, 3, 1, 4, 7, 4
All he has to do is calculate a curve with the Table 8 numbers as his trig series coefficients, sketch the curve as an innocent looking flourish in his letter to his friend, and mail the letter. When his friend receives the letter, knowing from pre-arrangement the usual n or perhaps reading the n as a casual number elsewhere in the letter, and perhaps along with some other innocent clues, and he also being familiar with trig series curves, generates some curves until he's got a match to the one in the letter, and thus he knows the code that was sent to him. The numbers so decoded might even be decoded further into alphabet letters, and therefore a plain-text message. For extra guarantee of accuracy, a second curve might be flourished in the letter, a complementary one to the first, the two together amounting to some sort of parity-check scheme.
By hand, it is laborious work to be sure, but it is entirely conceivable that "back then" this sort of idea was seriously investigated as a possible practical cipher scheme. Why not? For sending an extremely sensitive code sequence the labor could well be worth it: one would need to keep the code-curve-bearing letter away only from the handful of equally competent mathematicians in the world - everyone else would be clueless, even if they were certain the letter contained somewhere in it a secret message. They might spend endless hours pouring over the text, never realizing that a flourish held the secret. [8]
From this point of view I investigated some trig series with integer coefficients. The Table 8 sequence is associated with Dr. Strong's efforts to decode the Voynich manuscript. My non-exhaustive experiments with it were unsatisfactory: the resulting curves were much too crude and bumpy contenders for a match to the PM-curve.
The only good modest-n trig series with integer coefficients I have so far found, came from the Table 5 Fourier analysis: I just blew up the original Table 5 Fourier coefficients into integers, and then adjusted the integers a little for best fit. The trig series mimicing the PM-curve does need a scaling multiplier constant, M, and therefore its equation is:
Eq. 17
y(x) = Mf(x) where f(x) comes from Eq. 16. Here are its constants:
Table 9
M = 1/8 = 0.125 W = 2pi/144
A0 = -23
A1 = -11
A2 = 3
A3 = 3
A4 = 3
A5 = 2
A6 = 2
A7 = 1
A8 = 1
B1 = -97
B2 = -17
B3 = -7
B4 = -5
B5 = -2
B6 = -2
B7 = -1
B8 = 0
The zero-ing term, A0, and all the coefficients, A1-A8, and B1-B7, are all prime numbers, and include the Voynich-famous 17.
The curve fit is rather good, and diff(5) ~ 0.97378 or on parchment ~ 0.28 mm
If A0 = 24 so that A0/2 = 12 then ~ 0.287 mm but at pt. # 144
It is important to understand that diff(x) alone is not enough as an indicator of good curve-fit. Once a reasonably low diff(x) is obtained during experimentation, the generated curve should still be overlayed upon the actual PM-curve. From doing that I saw that the Strong's codes curves were bad fits, even though they held the promise of low diff(x).
One or two coefficients more, or one or two coefficients less than the 8 in Table 9, and the curve-fit becomes bad: evidently a bunch more coefficients than one or two are needed, if they are to be integers.
Even though the Table 9 curve is pretty good, the overlay just doesn't give the same impression as does the elliptically generated curve of Table 6 or even the less precise elliptically generated curve of Table 7.
In other words, at this point, it looks to me like the elliptic origin of the PM-curve is gaining in probability, and therefore the curve encodes astronomical messages directly, beginning with orbital eccentricity = 0.6 etc.
Therefore, it seems reasonable at this point to next try some trig series where the coefficients are chosen from numbers that have some relevance to astronomy "back then", say Bode-Titius numbers, or numbers associated with Robert's proposed astronomical events for the f68 panels.
If you've got any ideas, please let us know - don't worry about the hard math if you haven't studied math that far, but rather think conceptually: can you think of say 7 or 14 numbers that are relevant to the 7 Sisters f68r3 panel that might be worth a try as trig series constants, in the pursuit of the origin of the anomalous curve?
Berj
[7] Apparently, trig series were known in some parts of the world frequented by Jesuits in the 16th century. This wikipedia article has information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerala_School
but unfortunately also has this rather un-imaginative statement:
" James Gregory, who first stated the infinite series expansion of the arctangent (the Madhava-Gregory series) in Europe, never gave any derivation of his result, or any indication as to how he derived it, suggesting that this series was imported into Europe. "
If Gregory figured out how to do a great calculation, why should he necessarily tell everyone else in a highly competitive atmosphere?
[8] Remarkably, the possibilities only multiply. It is not even necessary to sketch a secret curve! Suppose for example, that a "curve" of 145 points, 145 numbers was calculated. The numbers are then converted into alphabet letters that become the trigonometric cipher text, the plaintext being the handful of "curve" constants. In other words it isn't even necessary to think in terms of graphed curves.
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From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Tuesday, January 2, 2007 1:38 AM To : vms-list@voynich.net
Subject : Re: VMs: Analysis of the f68r3 Pleiades - moon curve
Trigonometric-curve cryptography as a gauge for the PM-curve's origin
[ erratum on my previous post in this thread, Investigation: the PM-curve as possible accident, or possible cipher. The correct orbital eccentricity number is 0.48, not 0.6 ]
To look deeper into the possibility that the PM-curve enciphers code without thoughts of ellipses, or even more deviously, enciphers non-astronomy code while suggesting that it is enciphering elliptic thought, I decided to try some trigonometric series cipher experiments, by encoding a made-up statement. The statement's hypothetical message is sure not to be lost on students of Beinecke MS 408:
THE NINE ROSETTES ARE EIGHT PLANETS ORBITING THE SUN
We want to turn this statement into a decodable curve that is passable as an innocent curve in some medium of transmission, say a "freehand" flourish in a fancily rendered document or object of art.
Because in these experiments of hypothetical late medieval / early Renaissance trigonometric-curve cryptography we are after a curve that is smooth enough to serve as an innocent flourish, we must invoke some mathematical constraints - I will comment on the particular chosen ones; these include keeping the number of harmonics in the curve, n, to a low number. Since we will use a straightforward mapping of the plain-text to curve-harmonics, the above plaint-text with its 44 letters is too many, unless we break it up into more than one curve, making for more complications. So lets take the easy route, and contract the plain-text:
THE EIGHT ROSETTES ORBIT THE SUN
Now it has 27 letters, still too many, so lets contract again:
8 ROSES ORBIT YE SUN
or if you like:
8ROSESORBITYESUN
altogether a total of 16 letters, or 16 terms in the trigonometric series - that's fine. Now, assigning according to: 8 = 8, A = 1, B = 2, C = 3, etc. we obtain 16 numbers, listed here in two sets of 8:
Table 10
8, 18, 15, 19, 5, 19, 15, 18
2, 9, 20, 25, 5, 19, 21, 14
We assume that the ambiguity between 8 = 8 and H = 8 will be successfully resolved by the decoder from context. Now write:
Table 11
W = 2pi/144
A0 = see below
A1 = 8
A2 = 18
A3 = 15
A4 = 19
A5 = 5
A6 = 19
A7 = 15
A8 = 18
B1 = 2
B2 = 9
B3 = 20
B4 = 25
B5 = 5
B6 = 19
B7 = 21
B8 = 14
Lets leave out A0 altogether, to save calculations. [7]
We now write our trigonomteric crypto-curve generating equation:
Eq. 19
f(x) = SUM[-1^n](An/T)(cosWnx) + SUM[-1^(n+1)](Bn/T)(sinWnx)
where: T = 2^(n-1) n: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
The chosen alternating polarities are one scheme for introducing smoothing, while retaining sufficient mapping sensitivity so that even slightly different plain-text will remain distinguishably decodable.
But that is not enough, and we've also introduced one more scheme for smoothing the curve: dividing the successively higher harmonics coefficients by successively higher powers of 2.
And so f(x) is ready to be calculated. In my experiments I continued calculating 145 points curves: for points x = 0 to x = 144.
The resulting curve appears as a pair of somewhat asymmetric wings about a central hump. It could well serve as a flourish decoration at the top of a document.
To decode the curve and obtain the Table 11 A and B coefficients or Table 10 alphabet-map numbers, the decoder would need to know that the curve was generated via the general specifications of Eq. 19 - that is the system in use. Even knowing so, it would still not be an easy task. His familiarity with the curves of Eq. 19 would determine how quickly he could generate test curves that better and better matched the objective curve, until he was sure he had found it.
A severe test for decoding resolution, is replacing the plain-text's first alphanumeric, 8, with either 7 or 9. The results showed that it would take considerable precision, six significant figures, both in encoding, and in decoding the curve, to tell if it was 7, 8, or 9.
Another one-letter change I tried was replacing Y in the plain-text with M:
8 ROSES ORBIT ME SUN
The result was pleasing, because it altered the original curve just enough so that a mathematician's eye would spot it - slight changes in slopes, but the curve would appear the same as the original to the untrained eye. This:
8 ROSES ORBIT YE SUA
where the B8 harmonic is changed by a factor of 14, again would require very good precision. For capturing the secret curve, assuming it to be of the dimensions of the PM-curve, with its height of only about 7 mm, it would be necessary to accurately magnify the secret curve's height by a factor of about 20, and its length by a factor of 6 or 7. Or alternatively, have the code-flourish rendered much larger than the PM-curve's dimensions.
A completely different 16-letters message:
LOUIS PREPARES WAR
results in a considerably different curve from 8 ROSES ORBIT YE SUN: it is markedly asymmetric about what is left of the central hump. Yet it still is good for a piece of flourish.
How practical would this cryptographic system have been four hundred something years ago? First, I have no doubt that someone would have at least investigated a system like this back then. Whether or not it was actually ever used I couldn't venture a solid opinion on without a lot more thorough investigation. For one thing, non-trigonometric curves, say polynomial, might work better - I don't know, as I have not looked into it. Certainly there could be more sophisticated schemes for improving the "innocence" of shapes while simultaneously increasing mapping sensitivity, than the simple alternating polarity and division by powers of 2 schemes used above. But let me theorize some upon the practicality factors, and then address directly the VMS text.
Having practiced the system, and developed skill in it, would undoubtedly make it easier to use, even if only as a last resort in an extreme security situation. The curve must be rendered accurately, and get to its intended recipient accurately. Once generated at the encoding end, it would seem that an accurate template would be cut for it, and the template used to make the curve's transmission copy - be it a flourish on a document, or the edge of a small piece of furniture.
If the curve was transmitted in a small dimension, then likely some kind of accurate magnifying system would be necessary at the receiving end. Sending the curve as the edge of a piece of furniture, rather than a flourish in a document, would be an attractive idea for a number of reasons. The template itself might be sent, as part of an ordinary shipment of lumber wood. The document form though would be necessary for a secret textbook on the system.
Calculating effort might not be as big a problem as it seems for those knowing the system. Just hire 16 different professional number crunchers, or university students in need of money, and assign to each the calculations of a term in the trig series. None of them would known what it was about - they would have no need to know, and would merely be doing another professional job calculating this table or that for someone who pays them. Only the encoder and decoder would put all the calculated terms together to make the whole, and know what it was about. Furthermore, each use of Eq. 19 would add to the stock of available tables that could be re-used in different combinations.
If the system was not known by potential interceptors, and if the secret message was of extreme sensitivity, and the plain-text message was short enough, say a date consisting of just numbers and therefore adding additional ambiguity for the would-be decipherer, the protection offered would be tremendous. Not only that, even if it was suspected by interceptors that curves were being used to transmit messages, the simple counter would be to pepper the transmission medium with plenty of noise curves - curves without meaning, and just enough different from the system secret curve so that the intended decoder would recognize them as such and not waste time de-calculating them.
Finally, there is the possibility of dispensing with the curve as a graphic, and transmitting its information as "verbose" cipher. Interceptors would know that a secret message was being transmitted, but consider their challenge.
It would work like what the Voynich text looks like. Let us say that we calculated the curve not to 145 points, but just to 100, and each point to a precision of 6 numbers. Strung together, that would be a total stream of 600 individual numbers. Translate the numbers into the letters of an unknown alphabet. Then parse these 600 symbols into "words" according to scheme. And write them into the transmission document. The 600 symbols would be carrying the 16 payload numbers: a payload of about 2.7%
The intercepting would-be decipherer would need to know the parsing scheme, and the unknown alphabet scheme, in addition to having to realize that it all represented a curve, a curve according to some generating equation with its payload constants.
This brief experimentation, and the theorizing, was necessary to get another perspective on the PM-curve. This last experimentation still has me convinced that the PM-curve itself is indeed expressing mathematical astronomy directly. The ellipse equation as the starting point for generating the PM-curve still seems to me to be the most mathematically natural handling of the PM-curve.
Berj
[7] If we wanted the zero-ing term, A0, we could get it easily enough by setting f(0) = 0 and solving for it. But why bother, when the curve is going to be placed somewhere convenient without, definitely without, its reference frame.
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From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : voynich-de@yahoogroups.de
Sent : Saturday, January 6, 2007 10:36 PM To : voynich-de@yahoogroups.de
Subject : RE: [voynich-de] Betrifft: Eine Abschrift?
Modran schrieb Sun, 07 Jan 2007 02:37:27 -0000:
" Der clue liegt wohl darin, den "fettesten Faden" in diesem Wirrwarr zu
ergreifen. "
Hallo Modran (und Willkommen Norbert)
Ich sage das der fetteste Faden die f68r3 PM-Curve ist:
http://www.gameszoo.org/voynichmonkeys/viewthread.php?gr=1&num=6740&root=6740&numre=5#m6740
Berj
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From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Tuesday, January 9, 2007 8:33 PM To : vms-list@voynich.net
Subject : Re: VMs: Analysis of the f68r3 Pleiades - moon curve
Scaled copying of crypto-curves by Euclidean construction methods
In the previous section / post in this thread, Trigonometric-curve cryptography as a gauge for the PM-curve's origin [10], I noted:
For capturing the secret curve, assuming it to be of the dimensions of the PM-curve, with its height of only about 7 mm, it would be necessary to accurately magnify the secret curve's height by a factor of about 20, and its length by a factor of 6 or 7. Or alternatively, have the code-flourish rendered much larger than the PM-curve's dimensions.
This left open the question of procedures, skills, and amounts of time necessary "back then" to copy curves that hold encoded numbers, copy them both up in scale as a magnified recovery for purposes of analytic de-ciphering, and also copying down-scale from a calculated original graph, at the originating end, for purposes of preparing the cipher transmission medium.
Accordingly, I did some experiments to investigate this, and here I describe them. My descriptions will be much easier to follow if you try the techniques yourself. I note that it requires only a five-minute walk through some of the galleries of the Louvre to see that even in deep medieval times, there were artisans who could produce miniatures, even in three dimensions, of such astounding realistic detail and proportional accuracy, that the manual dexterity and eyesight necessary for copying a 16-constants crypto-curve would have been available to elites concerned with sensitive communications.
And it does turn out to be relatively easy, with the most elementary, while also probably the most accurate method: pure Euclidean construction. High quality Euclidean tools are necessary: compass, straight edge, and flat working slab of just the right hardness. The work must proceed in lighting such that no shadows interfere. The sheets make a big difference: I was continually annoyed by the paper sheets I had available, because all of them were so white - making it necessary for me to move my angle of view all the time in order to see well the scribed lines and points. I imagine that parchment or vellum would be much better in this regard, not being nearly so white as today's widely available computer printer paper that I used.
And of course, good manual dexterity, patience, and eyesight are necessary. Being past my eye-sight prime, the work itself constantly reminding me of that fact, I tried working both with my reading glasses, and without them but using a cheap magnifying lens instead. The latter proved more satisfactory, because I could easily manipulate its relative attack, whereas my reading glasses were fixed to the orientation of my head.
Basically, two major operations are called for during the transfer of a point from the source curve to the copy destination curve, be the latter a magnification, or a reduction:
1.) construction of accurate perpendiculars, which may when necessary, be continued to construct accurate parallels.
2.) accurate re-adjustment of the compass to the scale-factor specific to the curve-point being transferred
The goal in my experiments was to explore accuracy, but I soon realized that that was not the major problem - pure Euclidean construction willingly gives pin-point accuracy. Instead, it turned out that copying efficiency was the thing to explore. And it became clear that some experience in copying was the way to understand the relevant factors. Thus, in my initial experiments I copied curves smaller and more complex than the PM-curve, transferring accurately curves with [delta-y / delta-x] ~ [1 mm / 1 mm] but soon focused on seeing what would be necessary for minimizing the number of motions during copying.
For a compass and straight-edge I used medium-grade shop tools, as they were available, my best instruments being at a different location. The brass compass I used has an arm-length of 15 cm, with steel needle-points. The steel straight edge was 15 cm, the ruler marks on it being ignored. For a slab I used the fiber-board from an ordinary clip-board.
After some initial trials with a pencil drawing compass to re-aquaint myself with Euclidean techniques, I went over to pure Euclidean. Lines and point-indentations were made with the steel needle-points of the shop compass.
For accuracy, lines should be scored to be visible, but as sharp as possible. Points should be pierced or indented into the sheet to be visible, but also as tiny as possible. Once all the desired points of the curve have been copied, the copied points can be connected by a smooth line drawn with a French curve if so desired. For obtaining the relative (x,y) values from the copied curve, so that curve calculations can begin, this French lining is not even necessary, and may even introduce curve noise by making the point holes more difficult to see.
Several utility lines were scored conveniently away from the immediate curve regions to serve for compass re-adjustments. Suppose the compass has just been set for the y-coordinate of a point, and the scaling is to be x4. Place the compass on a utility line, and pivot the compass along it three times. Then re-adjust the compass so that its needles fit exactly into the left-most and right-most points holes. For scaling down, say to x(1/4), the procedure is the reverse, the compass being re-adjusted until exactly three pivots of it cover the original span.
This same procedure is the check on accuracy: when the compass points fit exactly into the points being measured, then it is established that the maximum pin-point accuracy of the available instruments has been achieved. When you can construct going around a circle, and your leading compass-point exactly comes down into the starting pinhole, you know you have the technique for accuracy. There are no ruler lines from any ruler whatsoever involved in this pure Euclidean construction, much less a protractor.
I found that a scale factor of, say, x20 or x(1/20) is best done in two stages, for example x4 followed by x5. The y-scaling factor and the x-scaling factor are independent, and for a particular stage can be chosen for convenience. The greatest challenge in multi-stage magnification is the first stage, and of course in multi-stage reduction it is the final stage.
If it is important that the transmission copy of the curve not reveal the compass-point holes used to construct it, then a final-scale version of the curve from its construction sheet can be transferred at scale = 1 to the transmission copy in some different ways, for example with a prepared template. At any stage, additional copies can be made simultaneously by having sheets underneath the work-sheet. I restricted myself to just one additional sheet during my experiments so that accuracy was maintained.
During this work it is natural to ponder how the accurate instruments of long ago practitioners were fabricated - one gets ideas about instrument construction, and checks the history of instrument making.
I think the key to the entire process rests upon experience with it because of the first, and critical decision that must be made: a convenient reference cross-hairs must be scored onto the worksheet somewhere, and it is that somewhere that greatly determines the efficiency at which the curve will be copied. The cross hairs need not be symmetric, it can be mostly defining just one major work quadrant.
In my final experiment I worked with a printout of f68r3 turned upside down. In that orientation, the cross-hairs (0,0) was located below and to the left of the Pleiades cluster, and the x4 copy curve points were transferred to upper right, into the area that in the normal f68r3 view is the west-southwest wedge of stars. I copied each point twice, the second being a projection back upon the y-axis of the cross-hairs, so that I could conveniently measure (by Euclidean method) the accuracy of x4 delta-y versus delta-y between points-pairs. Thus I thought of that y-axis of the cross-hairs also as a check-line.
The first key step is the scoring of the horizontal of the cross-hairs, what I called the base-line, that references the curve's longitudinal extent. It can be thought of as an x-axis of the curve, but it does not need to be for purposes of calculation, only for purposes of copy construction. Furthermore it does not even need to be parallel to the eventual mathematical calculations x-axis, although it must be placed such that perpendiculars to it will intersect only one point on the curve. So it can indeed be "slanted" relative to the x-axis that defines calculations in the final copy.
Copying efficiency is clearly related to experience. For example, one can score parallel to the baseline, a line that intersects several curve-points. Essentially then those several curve-points can be copied in not much more time than it takes to copy one point.
I tried different perpendiculars for the initial main perpendicular to the baseline. For my final experiment I found it convenient to locate it cutting through the approximate middle of the PM-curve. So therefore the reference crosshairs had its y-axis cutting the curve more or less in its middle, but the x-axis of the cross-hairs was some distance away from the curve.
The f68r3 printout I worked with was printed so as to have the PM-curve's horizontal span = 3.05 cm. As I mentioned before in this thread, we don't really know the exact dimensions of the PM-curve on its f68r3 parchment. From the Beinecke's given dimensions for MS 408 of 225 x 160 mm, and the images of f68 and f67 and the surrounding pages, measuring and comparing and interpolating the visible cover of the book and whatever else I could think of, I had at the begininng of the PM-curve work estimated that the curve's on-parchment horizontal span lay in the range 3.5 - 4.2 cm. I have used the higher 4.2 cm figure throughout this thread. Whatever the actual length is, it does not affect calculations, except the few on-parchment in millimeters deviations figures. For example, Table 6 and Eq. 12 led to diff(19) = 0.2324459 mm. That was based on a span of 4.2 cm. If the actual span is 3.5 cm, then the diff(19) is correspondingly less: 0.1937 mm
Once a small source-curve has been copied to final magnification, with its inherent ratios accurately intact, those ratios can be obtained in a number of ways. Perhaps the simplest is to use a ready accurate ruler, or make one: in the PM-curve .sid image we saw earlier that that curve's vertical peak-to-peak span was covered by a vertical span of 144 pixels, or a y-delta-pixels = 143. So, one could scribe a check-line and sharply mark on it the peak-to-Negative-peak distance of the magnified curve's left-lower and right-upper lobes. And then pivot a compass to make 143 intervals marks on that line, thus creating a ruler that would be equivalent to the from-IrfanView-screen transcription process that I used. But it would be systematically easiest to make a ruler that was marked according to powers of 2.
To sum it up, if "back then" Cardinal X dropped by and asked me if a curve cryptography scheme could be made practical, I would answer: give me about six or seven cheerful nuns with excellent eyesight and manual dexterity and artistic calligraphy and calculating skills, and enough of a budget to obtain the necessary high quality instruments and materials, and a good place to work, and yes, the system could be made practical without a doubt.
Cardinal X would of course want to know how much time it would take to make a typical curve reduction or magnification. In my experiments I was averaging 20-30 minutes per curve-point double-copied, the second copy being upon a check-line. So, if the average crypto-curve was to be resolved to 50 points, then 50x(1/2 hr) = 25 hours total work-time, or about 1 nun-day, and of course less time if efficiency techniques like transferring multiple points in one set-up had become polished. All apparently entirely practical, when it is remembered that "back then" some intercepted secret messages could take months to crack.
So far, perhaps the biggest surprise in these investigations of curve-cryptography is that so many of the labor intensive steps can be farmed out to skilled specialists who need not have any knowledge of the overall operation, or at least its payload aspects.
It would be interesting to see a competition, as in an international Olympics, of teams competing to decipher a given small crypto-curve. This would really permit seeing what the reliability, security, and speed characteristics of this technique are. I have no doubt that if the best apply themselves to a discipline, then results that are astonishing can be obtained; in that vein I remember attending the 50th anniversary game of the Little League World Series - I had to continually remind myself that these children I was watching were, after all, the very best on Earth at their skills, for the feats they were demonstrating just a couple of hundred feet from my eyes were almost unbelievable for such little ones.
Throughout this thread the central theme has been: what is the PM-curve all about?
Since realizing the anomalous character of the PM-curve, I have been looking at many images of old hand-written manuscripts to find a sinewave-like flourish that is similar to the PM-curve. I have not yet found one. All the sinewave-like flourishes that I have so far looked at, appear just as what they almost certainly are: single-stroke calligraphic flourishes with their varying trace thicknesses, those often being fattest in the middle of the stroke, and thus being a major contributor to their artistic beauty.
The PM-curve is different: it is not artistically beautiful, instead, it is mathematically beautiful. And very!
And so, what is the PM-curve all about? I think the PM-curve is not a crypto-curve in the sense of carrying secret codes via curve-cryptography. Examining its highly magnified .sid image it is clear to me from its essentially uniform trace-width and the French curve or other template adjustments that were used to draw it on the f68r3 parchment, that the intent was to signal to a highly restricted readership the message: elliptic curve, sufficiently accurately drawn so that eccentricity numbers can be recovered. And from a familiarity with the final form of Eq. 3, that is the curve of a transformed elliptic trajectory, the intended reader of f68r3 can even estimate the eccentricity numbers carried by the PM-curve, without yet copying a single point.
The PM-curve is the signature of the author of the world's most mysterious manuscript.
Berj / KI3U
[10] erratum: apparently in that post I re-used an end-note number and a Table-designation number already used before. The references can all be distinguished though, by noting the section they appear in.
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From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Thursday, January 11, 2007 1:21 AM To : vms-list@voynich.net
Subject : Re: VMs: Analysis of the f68r3 Pleiades - moon curve
Hello again from I, Journalist,
once more reporting interesting snippets of the off-list discussions surrounding the PM-curve. As before, the order in this second journalism installment reflects the circulation in the journalist's mind, and the selections are admittedly biased. As you will be able to tell, a major effect of the PM-curve on the considerations of those who are variously interested in it, is the problem of what its anomalous existence means for the dating of the Nine Rosettes Manuscript. As before, I report my own comments preceeded by two asterisks, and those of my correspondents anonymously.
Please enjoy. Berj
** I get a strong subjective feeling from the PMoncrosshairs picture that it was drawn by a woman. I'm convinced though that the mathematics was done by a man. Any thoughts on this?
" My view is that the illustrations, cartoon type drawings and all graphics are the work of possibly one woman. "
" I don't really think it's a hoax either, for much the same reasons as you, but sometimes that seems to be the only explanation. ;) "
** But there is another possibility for the old look: conceivably the author was putting together a long family tradition of philosophical thought, going back to their great grandparents and so on. As for parchment - we can still get it today, and even some books are still published using parchment, apparently.
" If he was putting together something like this., I would have thought that the drawings would be redrawn in a more modern style; but of course that is just a guess. "
** Yes it is the most realistic, but I disagree that it is not optimistic - I recently have freed myself of the dating-shackles, and so therefore this view is for me very optimistic.
** The PM-curve has forced me to throw out ALL pre-brain-washed notions of the manuscript's dating. Even notions I brain-washed myself into. This morning I even looked into the possibility that Boole's daughter had some odd stuff from her father, and then together with her husband, the ever-resourceful "Count" Voynich, they put it out as Roger Bacon etc. But I couldn't find anything suggesting that Boole would have produced something astronomical and secret, much less had an old family tradition of math and science that tied in with the VMS other cultural elements. But the exercise shows my new open-mindedness.
** Here are the guidelines I currently search with for potential VMS author:
1.) Highly and very broadly educated, certainly classically - access to all kinds of books. Possibly has antiquarian interests.
2.) Superb mathematician.
3.) Astronomer.
4.) Family background of intellectual interests as well as practical interests including botanical / herbal.
5.) Has motive or strong interest in secrecy, or privacy, or cryptography.
6.) Either is a woman, or is networked with women.
7.) Is reactionary against the notion that women are inferior to men.
8.) Has medical knowledge, or is close to someone who has.
9.) Has tremendous patience, or has helpers who have the patience and skill to prepare the manuscript.
10.) Has private access to high-quality instruments - e.g. Euclidean tools.
11.) Is esoterically Christian, and is anti-Catholic, or if Catholic is
anti-Pope / Vatican authority.
12.) Is well networked with leading contemporary intellectuals, and understands their psychology extremely well.
13. Is mystical, and extra-ordinarily interested in symbols, especially the symbolic aspects of numbers.
14.) Prepares the VMS, or its original, as a legacy for a restricted audience, for the purpose of establishing a complete philosophy that unifies thought across the spectrum from purely mystical to purely scientific-mathematical.
15.) Spent some time in, or at least personally passed through St. Moritz.
" So for me the verdict for St. Moritz remains 'not proven'. Still, it has given us another useful 'suspect' in Georg Hartmann. "
" ..... 6 and 7 are perhaps weaker than the others, or at least harder to demonstrate. "
** I think women have to be involved because the human figures feature women: the few men are marginalized in the illustrations.
** That's why I think it is esoteric Christianity: more pagan / gnostic, definitely ... "
" Quite. I think many educated people through the 16th and 17th centuries were questioning 'conventional' Christianity, in light of the new science that they were uncovering. Simply many of the dogmas were becoming increasingly untenable, even given an overall belief in God. "
" Again, Herriot would fit the bill, not that I am necessarily advocating him, although he is an interesting member of the 'possibles' list. "
** Yeah he definitely is - right down to having been in America, where he was very interested in the natives' foods - thinking herbs and so on, sunflower of course. I have to give Jeff credit: Harriot is definitely a major suspect.
** I forgot to mention some items, but they are implied; for example when I reduced the PM-curve from its original, I discovered the obvious: it is easiest to reduce by factors of powers of 2.
" ..... but I'm increasingly convinced that we've all missed the boat somewhere, and that I for one am going to be kicking myself soundly when someone figures it it. Er, it's simpler than you think. :) "
** A late 17th century polymath disguising a complex philosophy in 15th century garb is a pretty simple idea, don't you think? Or think of it this way: if you, Xxxxx, were truly motivated, would it be all that difficult for you to create an esoteric xxxxxx book that appeared to date from around 1750? A key tactic you might use would be to write it on parchment prepared the traditional way - such parchment can be obtained even today.
** But I think it is not just mathematics, but also science. For example, I am very suspicious of that "RGB color wheel" at lower left on f67v2: it might actually be meant to discuss a color theory. I mentioned that onlist not long ago. On that same page, at top left, the reverse-4 balloon-heads-man: I recently told Robert off-list that my original notes on it concluded it was similar to an old Roman surveying symbol, but since he (Robert) had made me take the astro pages seriously, I now think the reverse-4 symbol is meant to indicate astronomical "surveying" - take observations from different parts of Earth's orbit, that is different times of year.
" In short, I feel that this is a work of medieval science, not influenced by the soon-to-develop Renaissance discoveries and theories. "
** Your comments about change are right on: ...
" I see no signs whatsoever of that change in the manuscript. Either it is truly of that period, or the author took extraordinary pains to make it seem so. The latter is certainly possible, but I tend toward the simpler explanation whenever possible. "
** That's it right there in your last sentence. WHAT IS THE SIMPLER EXPLANATION? Prior to the PM-curve I thought much in line with the consensus, although always reminding myself of the personal guideline:
12.) Is well networked with leading contemporary intellectuals, and UNDERSTANDS THEIR PSYCHOLOGY EXTREMELY WELL. The PM-curve has forced me to realize that "it is simpler than you think" to make part of the strategy of the mystery: the appearance of the work to be much older than the reality.
** The best bet I think for two agreements is in astronomy, and lets say the PM-curve is one of them. The other could be an astronomical event relating to the curve that unifies an explanation for all three f68 panels. Another possibility is finding another curve that is as "anomalous" as the PM. Take a close look at the f68v galaxy spiral arms: most of their lines are junky, but a couple or so look like they might have been plotted, and surrounded by junky ones to hide them. Even more curious, is that the author, as with the PM-curve, seemed to know that parchment folding would ruin chances for recovering the curves, if they were not positioned strategically, and as with the PM, the good spirals are positioned in the flat part of the parchment - right half of the whirlpool galaxy panel. Curious, no?
" You proved it was done mathematically precise, which is a new fact about the VMs that implies much more. "
** In a hundred years of attempts to storm the Castle of the Nine Rosettes, Robert was the one guy who came along and identified it's weakest wall, the astro section, and then it's weakest wall-stone: f68r3. Sooner or later his persistence in attacking the weakest wall-stone was bound to gain followers, and so it became just a matter of time till the stone cracked. That crack turned out to be the PM-curve.
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From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Friday, January 12, 2007 1:32 PM To : vms-list@voynich.net
Subject : Re: VMs: Analysis of the f68r3 Pleiades - moon curve
The PM-Curve: possible POI Robert Hooke
The PM-curve invites looking at the biographies of 17th century scientists for persons-of-interest, in the search for the author of the curve, and by implication, also the manuscript, Beinecke MS 408.
Robert Hooke, the man who, to his own later regret, gave Newton the idea for the inverse-square law, is, I believe, a person of interest. Here are excerpts of Hooke's biography from the mactutor website:
Robert Hooke; Born: 18 July 1635 in Freshwater, Isle of Wight, England Died: 3 March 1703 in London, England
http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Hooke.html
" Robert Hooke's father was John Hooke who was a curate at All Saints Church in Freshwater on the Isle of Wight.
It was a well off church being in the patronage of St John's College, Cambridge. As well as his duties in the church, John Hooke also ran a small school attached to the church and acted as a private tutor.
Robert's own ideas involved his observational skills and his mechanical skills. He observed the plants, the animals, the farms, the rocks, the cliffs, the sea, and the beaches around him. He was fascinated by mechanical toys and clocks, making many things from wood from a working clock to a model of a fully rigged ship with working guns. Waller, in the Preface to Hooke's Posthumous Works published in 1705, dates his belief in mechanics, in particular his belief that nature was a complicated machine, from the time that he let his imagination and his talents run riot at about age ten.
Not only did Robert show talents at science, but he also showed skills at drawing. There was a portrait painter, John Hoskyns, who was working at Freshwater at this time and Robert used to watch him at work. .... His talent was clear .... and his family sent him to London to become an apprentice to the Peter Lely, a portrait painter.
Hooke enrolled in Westminster School, boarding in the house of the headmaster Richard Busby. Indeed Hooke was fortunate to come under the influence of Busby who was an outstanding teacher who quickly realised that he had a quite remarkable pupil. Hooke had mastered the first six books of Euclid's Elements by the end of his first week at school but Busby seemed to understand that formal learning was not going to be best for Hooke and so encouraged him to study by himself in his library.
At Westminster Hooke learnt Latin and Greek but, although he enjoyed speaking Latin, unlike his contemporaries he never wrote in Latin.
He began to study at Oxford at a particularly significant time for Thomas Willis, Seth Ward, Robert Boyle, John Wilkins, John Wallis, Christopher Wren and William Petty were among those who regularly met as the "Oxford branch" of the "invisible college" or the "philosophical college" which had been set up in 1648-49 when some of the scientists meeting in London moved to Oxford.
In Oxford Hooke learnt astronomy from Seth Ward and impressed Wilkins with his knowledge of mechanics. Wilkins gave him a copy of his book Mathematical Magick, or the wonders that may be performed by mechanical geometry which he had published five years before Hooke arrived in Oxford. This book encouraged Hooke to continue to try to invent a flying machine and he conducted experiments in the grounds of Wadham College with pulleys. For a while Hooke assisted Willis with his dissection experiments. He was involved with the top English scientists of the day, benefiting greatly by acquiring skills in a wide range of disciplines.
From 1655 he was employed by Boyle and his first project was to construct an air pump.
In 1660 he discovered an instance of Hooke's law while working on designs for the balance springs of clocks. However he only announced the general law of elasticity in his lecture Of Spring given in 1678.
In fact 1660 was the year when a rather strange event happened regarding Hooke's spring controlled clocks. In that year he was backed by Wren, Moray and Brouncker in his design of a spring controlled clock and a patent was drawn up. It could have led to him making a fortune, but when he realised that the patent would allow anyone who improved on his design to receive the royalties, he refused to continue with the patent.
Political circumstances now determined the course of events. After Cromwell's death in 1658 his son took over but was ineffectual. Many of the scientists in Oxford had been appointed because of their Puritan sympathies and they now lost their positions and moved to London.
On Wednesday 28 November 1660 a meeting in Gresham College constituted the Society for the Promoting of Physico-Mathematical Experimental Learning which they declared would promote experimental philosophy.
Hooke's first publication was a pamphlet on capillary action. On 10 April 1661 his paper was read to the Society in which he showed that the narrower the tube, the higher water rose in it. The Society at Gresham had by this time petitioned King Charles II to recognise it and to make a royal grant of incorporation. The Royal Charter, which was passed by the Great Seal on 15 July 1662, created the Royal Society of London and the Royal Charter contained a provision to appoint a Curator of Experiments.
He did however secure another appointment, namely that of Professor of Geometry at Gresham College, London, being appointed there in 1665. The position gave him rooms at the College and required him to give one lecture each week in term time. The lecture had to be given in Latin and subsequently repeated in English. He was required to be unmarried but was permitted a housekeeper.
The year 1665 was the one when Hooke first achieved worldwide scientific fame. His book Micrographia, published that year, contained beautiful pictures of objects Hooke had studied through a microscope he had made himself. The book also contains a number of fundamental biological discoveries. Westfall writes [1]:- Micrographia remains one of the masterpieces of seventeenth century science. ... [it] presented not a systematic investigation of any one question, but a bouquet of observations with courses from the mineral, animal and vegetable kingdoms. Above all, the book suggested what the microscope could do for biological science.
In addition to his post as Professor of Geometry at Gresham College, Hooke held the post of City Surveyor. He was a very competent architect and was chief assistant to Wren in his project to rebuild London after the Great Fire of 1666.
When Newton produced his theory of light and colour in 1672, Hooke claimed that what was correct in Newton's theory was stolen from his own ideas about light of 1665 and what was original was wrong. This marked the beginning of severe arguments between the two. In 1672 Hooke attempted to prove that the Earth moves in an ellipse round the Sun and six years later proposed that inverse square law of gravitation to explain planetary motions.
Frequent bitter disputes with fellow scientists occurred throughout Hooke's life. On the other hand, we should note that he was on very good terms with some colleagues, particularly Boyle and Wren. Historians have described Hooke as a difficult and unreasonable man but in many ways this is a harsh judgement. There is no doubt that Hooke genuinely felt that others had stolen ideas which he had been first to put forward. It is easy to see why this happened. Hooke did indeed come up with a vast range of brilliant ideas many of which were claimed by others ........
The diaries of Hooke are fascinating documents in that they tell us something about his character as well as painting an interesting picture of his times. Here are some examples taken from [10]:- He was a brisk walker, and enjoyed walking in the fields north of the City. ... he generally rose early, perhaps to save candles, and to work in daylight and prevent strain to his eyes. ... Sometimes Hooke would work all through the night, and then have a nap after dinner. As well as drinking a variety of waters ... he drank brandy, port, claret, sack, and birch juice wine which he found to be delicious. He also had a barrel of Flanstead's ale and Tillotson's ale. There are a few instances when he recorded that he had been drunk ... He was a gregarious person, who liked to meet people, particularly those who had travelled abroad ...
As Hooke grew older he became more cynical and would shut himself away from company. The papers which he wrote in the last few years of his life are filled with bitter comments. In February 1690 Hooke gave two lectures to the Royal Society which are reproduced in part in [26]. At this time, according to Waller [11], Hooke was:-
.. often troubled with headaches, giddiness, and fainting, and with a general decay all over, which hindered his philosophical studies, yet he still read some lectures whenever he was able.
After his death Waller edited [11], a major publication of previously unpublished works by Hooke. A large portion of this work is devoted to Hooke's lectures on earthquakes. Over a period of thirty years he made major contributions to geology, particularly his investigation of fossil remains which convinced him that major changes had occurred in the Earth's surface which had lifted fossilised shells of marine animals to high points in mountain ranges. "
Perhaps that is a self-portrait of Robert Hooke, drunk, on the left bottom of f66r? Leave no stone unturned I think.
Berj / KI3U
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From : Berj N. Ensanian <> Reply-To : vms-list@voynich.net
Sent : Saturday, January 13, 2007 4:25 PM To : vms-list@voynich.net
Subject : Re: VMs: Analysis of the f68r3 Pleiades - moon curve
The PM-Curve: possible POI Robert Hooke, part 2 : 76 and 76
Studying Robert Hooke's life and works appears to be an absolutely excellent way to build a mental reference frame, for thinking about the many puzzles of the Voynich manuscript that now include the anomalous Pleiades-moon curve, and combing the centuries-spanning "back then" NOI network of the educated elite, for potential suspects for the author of the Nine Rosettes Manuscript, i.e. Beinecke MS 408, a.k.a the world's most mysterious manuscript.
In the one indispensible book for Voynich manuscript research [11], Mary D'Imperio mentions Robert Hooke thus:
" Robert Hooke, a prominent seventeenth-century scientist and a member of the Royal Society, held the view that Enochian was essentially a cryptographic and espionage device, like a code. "
Alan Chapman in his 1996 lecture, England's Leonardo: Robert Hooke (1635-1703) and the art of experiment in Restoration England, [12], states:
" It was in his Helioscopes in 1676 that Hooke followed the popular seventeenth-century conceit of announcing a discovery in an anagram: cediinnoopsssttuu. He published its key two years later, in his most complete treatment of elasticity, ..... "
With its repititions-format, it sure is an interesting anagram from the Voynich-consciousness perspective. I wonder if "pssst" meant back then, what it means today. Chapman's lecture is so far the best overview of Hooke that I have found online. We learn much, including something of Hooke's relations with women. But Chapman states:
" Of all the individual branches of science to which Robert Hooke made significant contributions, astronomy was the most extensive. Astronomical matters concerned him, in one way or another, for well over forty years, as he dealt with the subject theoretically, observationally, and from the viewpoint of instrumentation. "
" But it is in his observations of the Pleiades star cluster, also recorded in Micrographia (Observation 59, p.241), that he initiated discussion into what modern astronomers refer to as the resolving power' of the telescope. Though Hooke was aware of the higher magnifications obtained with object-glasses of longer focal length, and that with a telescope of twelve feet he could see seventy-eight stars in the Pleiades, whereas Galileo had only been able to see thirty-six, he recognized the crucial principle that it was object-glass diameter that was of primary importance in seeing faint objects."
I counted 76 stars in Voynich f68r3, not 78, according to: 8, 16, 2, 18, 3, 14, 4, 11. But I did see that two of those stars seem to have a mark in their centers: in the 8 - 9 o'clock wedge of 11 stars, in the 2nd concentric of 2 stars out from the moon, the lower star has a dot in it. And also one of the Pleiades stars has a very heavy dot inside it: it is the star in the seven sisters cluster that the PM-curve's left end points to. I don't know if 76 + 2 = 78 in this way is significant to our concerns, but it's something to note: I believe Hooke was the first to discover double-stars; in the Pleiades.
But now it truly becomes highly curious, and I await the confirmation of this from among those who are interested in, and are following this PM-curve thread: I count 76 stars in Robert Hooke's Pleiades chart, (Schem. 38) in Hooke's Micrographia. [13]
Seventy-six stars in the Voynich Pleiades panel, and seventy-six stars in Robert Hooke's Pleiades star chart, published in January, 1665.
The Voynich panels left of f68r3: I count 59 stars in f68r2, and 29 stars in f68r1, both prime numbers again. I have been wondering now if these panels are supposed to be representations of telescopic views. The stars in these panels are depicted in some different ways, but these styles don't seem to correspond well with Hooke's method of indicating star magnitudes in his Pleiades chart. That would of course be entirely expected, if, Hooke was the primordial author of MS 408, and he wanted to be cryptic - we have already debated this crypto-star-chart idea on-list, and in fact it was that debate which directly triggered the PM-curve work. [14]
Incidentally, in that same Micrographia illustration, Schem. 38, Hooke has his drawing of a telescopic view of the moon - showing one of those craters with somewhat pentagonal walls that are so exciting in ET lore - Hooke's drawing of it is reminiscent of the pentagonal text spiral surrounded by 11^2 = 121 stars, in the northeast rosette of the Voynich nine rosettes foldout. That is the rosette with castles, and the embryo-like thing at its 7 o'clock radial.
Roses being ever of Nine Rosettes manuscript interest, especially since one of the most beautiful illustrations in the entire Voynich manuscript is the cosmological / astronomical f68v2, [15], wherein botany and astronomy seem to be fused, we note that Robert Hooke once identified a star constellation, still lost, "The English Rose". [16]
Hooke of course studied comets, two in particular: the comet of 1664-65, and the comet of 1677. We have been pondering if all three Voynich f68r astronomy panels are related to the same theme, and if that theme centers upon comets observed in the vicinity of the Pleiades, and if the PM-curve, with its elliptic nature, discusses those comets mathematically. Hooke of course is famous for his Hooke's Law of elasticity. I have so far not made a point of this on-list, confining my specific thoughts about it off-list to Greg, but if the detailed form of Eq. 3 describing the PM-curve is taken as describing one oscillating ellipse, then the mathematical physics structure of the equation could be interpreted as an elliptic trajectory that is oscillating in eccentricity because of elastic alternating retardation and acceleration.
Another interesting thing about the f68r3 Pleiades panel is that its text has one of those incognito symbols: the gallows incognito "H", a really crisp example of this incognito, located in the 12:30 o'clock text-radial, just after the 4o. Perhaps the incognito-H means "Hooke"? The exemplar does have a nice curved hook. Curiously, I first noticed this symbol way back when, hidden in one of Christine de Pizan's illustrations, of herself in her study writing, in a manuscript that came from her own publishing house.
Well, this exploration of Robert Hooke vis-a-vis the 9RMS is just beginning. Like everyone else who first began studying science decades ago, I was exposed to the stunning Micrographia, but revisiting it now in the context of serious pursuit of the MS 408 mystery, and with enough detailed knowledge of the enigma's puzzles in the forefront of my mind, I am harvesting new and fresh conceptions for understanding the enigma's pages. Hooke provides an absolutely excellent conceptual reference frame, even if it turns out that he was not the one who authored the Nine Rosettes Manuscript. Chapman said:
" In published researches covering nearly forty years, Hooke was constantly casting around for a consistent, underlying principle that could be shown to bind the whole of nature together: a 'Grand Unified Theory', as it were. "
" This concern with a vibrative agency that could express the motions of a fly's wings and also the propagation of light, or gravity, in space, was the nearest that Hooke came to a 'Grand Unified Theory' in the Mechanical Philosophy. "
Vibrations, waves, braids: the oscillating braided prime numbers relations expressed in the form of a "plant" in Voynich f6r, with its mechanical-geometry engineering interface between its roots and stem.
And I recall my personal guideline # 14, expressed earlier in this thread, that I currently use to search with for potential VMS author, and ponder an expansion of it:
14.) Prepares the VMS, or its original, as a legacy for a restricted audience, for the purpose of establishing a complete philosophy that unifies thought across the spectrum, from purely mystical to purely scientific-mathematical, and from the microscopic to the telescopic, and from the inanimate to the animate, mineral, animal, and plant.
With that in mind, some of the strange Voynich botanical illustrations now make a lot more sense. Lets just pick one example, Voynich botanical f3v, with its strange roots. Now take a look at the micro-zoological Schem. 33 in Micrographia.
With Robert Hooke, the master mechanical geometer as a reference, suddenly the Voynich illustrations are not so strange anymore. You just have to mentally use both a microscope and a telescope simultaneously when you view the world's most mysterious manuscript.
And with a mind as grand, and as capable of details, as that of Robert Hooke, we can expect a real smorgasboard of cryptographic techniques woven throughout the mysterious Voynich text, whoever is its author.
Berj / KI3U
[11] The Voynich Manuscript - An Elegant Enigma, by M.E. D'Imperio, Aegean Park Press, c. 1976-80, ISBN 0-89412-038-7, Sec. 9.4.4, p. 71
[12] http://home.clara.net/rod.beavon/leonardo.htm
[13] http://www.gutenberg.org/files/15491/15491-h/15491-h.htm
[14] vms-list thread: VMs: 3x3 matrix of f58r and the f68r3 moon-ring; Saturday, December 2, 2006 9:12 PM
[15] the middle panel of the Beinecke image designated as f68v. At top right of this VMS panel is the number "68", as in 6 and 8.
[16] In Search of the English Rose, Robert Hooke's Lost Constellation, Martin Beech; Feature article in the October 2004 issue of the Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada.
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