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+--- Thread: [Article] New solution announced by Nicholas Gibbs (/thread-2083.html)
RE: New solution announced by Nicholas Gibbs - Koen G - 10-09-2017
If each character can represent 23 words you get billions upon billions of possible translations. A one way cipher of Stellar proportions.
RE: New solution announced by Nicholas Gibbs - -JKP- - 10-09-2017
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RE: New solution announced by Nicholas Gibbs - BrianCham1994 - 10-09-2017
(10-09-2017, 04:14 AM)Koen Gh. Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.If each character can represent 23 words you get billions upon billions of possible translations. A one way cipher of Stellar proportions.
I think cipherman meant that each letter in the Voynich alphabet represents one and only one word, and there are ~23 letters in the Voynich alphabet, so there are only ~23 words in its vocabulary. That's the way that I read the Gibbs quote too.
Either interpretation would be strange though. If every letter in the alphabet maps to only one word, then the vocabulary would be about 30 at most, with a few extras from the "weirdo" characters. This would easily beat Green Eggs and Ham in its text-size-to-vocabulary ratio.
Applying what little we see of the proposed solution to the entire text certainly reads like Green Eggs and Ham too...If, on the other hand, Gibbs meant that every letter in the text can map to multiple words, then we get too many possibilities and unacceptable information loss during encryption, as you mention.
It's really strange how this has been touted as the definitive solution and we can all pack up and go home. In the past, even the biggest proposals in the media got headlines like "has the Voynich Manuscript finally been solved?" or "This professor may have decoded the mysterious Voynich Manuscript". They were all good progress or a strong proposal, not "the one". This time, for instance, Ars Technica's headline uses no questions or "maybe", it just says that it has finally been solved after a century and that's that. I've never seen this level of confidence in a publicised solution, especially one that has not been published!
RE: New solution announced by Nicholas Gibbs - Anton - 10-09-2017
Quote:I've never seen this level of confidence in a publicised solution, especially one that has not been published!
Were it published, the confidence would diminish, so I think that's the point
RE: New solution announced by Nicholas Gibbs - -JKP- - 10-09-2017
(10-09-2017, 10:43 AM)Anton Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Quote:I've never seen this level of confidence in a publicised solution, especially one that has not been published!
Were it published, the confidence would diminish, so I think that's the point
RE: New solution announced by Nicholas Gibbs - nickpelling - 10-09-2017
When we've been presented with outright bad solutions in the past, I'm just about the only person who steps forward and says they're rubbish (and exactly why they're rubbish).
If you see bad solutions and say nothing, you are contributing to the atmosphere of foolish tolerance that has allowed nonsense theories (such as Gibbs') to flourish and even be celebrated by know-nothing media idiots.
While I feel sad for Gibbs that he has wasted three years of his life on basically nothing, he's not the first or last to do so. But I feel sadder that his theory has found itself promoted and viralized in a way that makes a mockery of us all. :-(
RE: New solution announced by Nicholas Gibbs - Koen G - 10-09-2017
As far as I can see, the 'news' has not infected the Flemish media yet. As soon as it does, I am planning to contact those which report without the necessary reservations.
RE: New solution announced by Nicholas Gibbs - Anton - 10-09-2017
Quote:As far as I can see, the 'news' has not infected the Flemish media yet.
Russian neither.
RE: New solution announced by Nicholas Gibbs - -JKP- - 10-09-2017
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And one of the few writers who made an effort to verify or deny the information in Gibbs's article...
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RE: New solution announced by Nicholas Gibbs - Anton - 11-09-2017
As Nick hints on his blog, Mr. Gibbs is already on the VMS Wikipedia page along with Newbold, Stojko and others. Not bad.
