My recent blog post, "The Long-Awaited Voynich Radiocarbon Report", has a link to the report for anyone interested.
https://proto57.wordpress.com/2021/05/14/the-long-awaited-voynich-radiocarbon-report/
As I wrote in my blog,
"For almost a decade now I’ve had express permission to obtain and disseminate the original 2009 radiocarbon report of the Voynich vellum samples. Nonetheless it has been a long, confusing and sometimes frustrating trail to finally achieving that goal. I’m glad to say it has finally transpired, and the report is now up at Voynich.net for download."
Hope all is well with everyone,
Rich.
I don't understand the numbers under "Radiocarbon Age (yrs BP )". Can someone explain to me how this is converted into concrete years ?
(16-05-2021, 10:51 AM)bi3mw Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I don't understand the numbers under "Radiocarbon Age (yrs BP )". Can someone explain to me how this is converted into concrete years ?
Hi... "yrs BP" means "Years Before Present". But for "present" the year 1950 is used (for reasons relating to nuclear testing having altered levels of radioactive carbon unnaturally in the environment after that point).
So for the sample from f8, for instance, which reads: 490 ± 37 BP, it is read as "490 years, plus or minus 37 years, before 1950". The plus or minus 37 is an error range. So the tests are showing that the sample from f8 tests to the year 1460, with an error range from 1423 to 1497.
The varied dates within the error range also vary in probability, and the math behind those probabilities is something I'll leave to someone more mathematically inclined to explain. I mean I understand what they are, and the reasoning behind the derivation of the probabilities, but I am not well versed in the mathematical notation and process used.
I hope that covers it...
Rich.
Thank you proto57, that is exactly the answer to my question.
It is worth noting that the tolerance of the results is not the same. For folio 8 the tolerance is ± 37 but otherwise uniformly ± 35. Shouldn't one assume with the same measuring method that the tolerance is also always the same ?
I think I know the answer to that. Accuracy (or precision to be exact) varies at different points along the calibration curve. The flatter the curve, the greater the imprecision.
The story with the report (sorry, "internal report") might be incomplete without this You are not allowed to view links.
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Koen G's blog.
bi3mw, the tolerance should (at least partly) depend on the volume of material burned. General statistics rule says that in order to increase tolerance by N times one should make N*N times more experiments.
As an example of this rule take the results from the report. 4 out of 5 (for whatever reason) were use to obtain overall average:
550 +- 35
506 +- 35
514 +- 35
490 +- 37
Average result is clearly 515
(=(550+506+514+490)/4)
Since number of experiments is 4, the overall tolerance increased 2 times and is roughly 18 (=(35+35+35+37)/4/2)
So final result is 515 +- 18 (as is stated in "Averaging the Results..." section, rounding errors may apply)
(of course this can only be done if we are repeating
the same experiment
)
(16-05-2021, 03:28 PM)farmerjohn Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Average result is clearly 515 (=(550+506+514+490)/4)
Since number of experiments is 4, the overall tolerance increased 2 times and is roughly 18 (=(35+35+35+37)/4/2)
So final result is 515 +- 18 (as is stated in "Averaging the Results..." section, rounding errors may apply)
You go to the nut of my only complaint with this process... the averaging. Would anyone have averaged the results of, say...
- A German Land deed had a result of 550 BP
- An Italian letter resulted in the 506 BP
- A French poem gave the 514 BP
- And a British will came up with the 490 BP
That is, would we average them, and claim that they all were made between 1404 and 1438? Of course not. The Voynich results were only averaged on the preconception that the pages of the Voynich were all created within a short period of time, and that they were not assembled from a stock or stocks of calfskin from the range of dates actually obtained.
Yes, they could have been. But the results don't support that. Only when the preconception is applied, and the results averaged, do we arrive at the commonly used "result" of 1404-1438.
I feel the data from scientific testing should drive opinions and conclusions, and that data should not be manipulated on speculations. The danger of this is apparent when we read, as we often do, statements such as, "We know the Voynich calfskin was created in a short range of time, because the C14 testing tells us this". No, the C14 testing "tells us" that the calfskin was created over a period of 50 to 60, and even longer... generations... period of time.
(16-05-2021, 03:28 PM)farmerjohn Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The story with the report (sorry, "internal report") might be incomplete without this You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. in Koen G's blog.
I'm not clear on the connection that has to this thread, but since you bring it up, (for completeness) I'd like to post the rebuttal to Koen's post here:
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In short, and with respect, Koen's statement, "You see, the New World theory rests on two pillars: the interpretation of a specific plant image as a sunflower (a New World plant) and the interpretation of the above beast as an armadillo (a New World species)."
- is incorrect. Agree or disagree with the New World theories, or for that matter anything which proposes a later timeline, but they "rest" on a great many "pillars", not just the two Koen mentions.
Richard
Hi Rich, thanks for sharing!
I haven't read the report yet, but I looked at the conference slide presented in your blog post, and I'm afraid there might be certain misunderstanding there. One has to know what exactly are the figures therein presented. Firstly, I suspect that the carbon ages values are uncalibrated there. Secondly, what are those plus-minus numbers? Is it 95% confidence interval, or what?
EDIT: Briefly checked the report itself, and those figures are indeed uncalibrated. The plus-minus is not 95% confidence, it's one sigma (not sure with which confidence).
@farmerjohn wrote:
Quote:4 out of 5 (for whatever reason)
As the report explains: four samples were taken. One sample was processed twice with different pre-treatments, in order to select the appropriate pre-treatment. It was necessary to select the more intensive pre-treatment, so that version was selected for all four samples.
On the general discussion, whenever dates are presented as: 490 ± 37 BP, this means that these are uncalibrated dates. These are not quite the "concreate years" that @bi3mw was looking for.
@Anton already answered his own question.
The report does not really explain everything, it just gives some of the reasoning and of course the results. Many more details can be found here: You are not allowed to view links.
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