I don't oppose the idea, but I wonder if in the case of the VM is would help. The Voynich has an extremely strong intrinsic appeal, and one would be surprised to know how many people have secretly been working on some VM theory.
For me, the balance of having a prize on solving the VM would be positive if this would attract more academics to the cause. If the only effect it had would be to increase and intensify the crazy, I would be against it.
The next logical conclusion would be that the prize should be substantial in order to also appeal to academics. Let's say hypothetically if Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk (more likely) put a million dollar on it.
But in that case, when the prize is not some loose change but the value of a house and more, the stakes are also higher. Who would decide if it was solved? Now already there are a few dozen people who claim the honor of being the one who solved it. This will get even worse if there's money on the line.
Moreover, I think "cracking" the VM will be done by someone who can build upon the work of many others. Imagine after ten years of work you decide to publish everything you found so far, without actually cracking the code. And this is enough for someone else to realize how it should be cracked, even though he did only 10% of the work. It is your life's work that made this possible , but the other person will be the one getting a million.
After this winding monologue, I have reached a conclusion for myself: a prize on solving the VM would be a bad idea because I do not believe it will be solved by an individual. If it is solved, it will be by combined efforts. Additionally, it may be harder to determine whether the VM is actually solved, while mathematical proof is, well, mathematical proof. This may be why mathematics lends itself to such prizes, when the solution is found, it will be clear. This would work for breaking "modern" codes too, but not necessarily for an enigmatic historical document.
But let me rephrase it as some questions:
- How much should the prize be?
- What will be required for the prize to be won?
- What will you do if the person who won the prize did not actually do most of the work?
To give a concrete "bad" example, imagine how much worse the Cheshire media storm would have been if there had been money on the line. If the prize committee is as easily swayed as the editors of Romance Studies, he'd now be rich.
For me, the balance of having a prize on solving the VM would be positive if this would attract more academics to the cause. If the only effect it had would be to increase and intensify the crazy, I would be against it.
The next logical conclusion would be that the prize should be substantial in order to also appeal to academics. Let's say hypothetically if Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk (more likely) put a million dollar on it.
But in that case, when the prize is not some loose change but the value of a house and more, the stakes are also higher. Who would decide if it was solved? Now already there are a few dozen people who claim the honor of being the one who solved it. This will get even worse if there's money on the line.
Moreover, I think "cracking" the VM will be done by someone who can build upon the work of many others. Imagine after ten years of work you decide to publish everything you found so far, without actually cracking the code. And this is enough for someone else to realize how it should be cracked, even though he did only 10% of the work. It is your life's work that made this possible , but the other person will be the one getting a million.
After this winding monologue, I have reached a conclusion for myself: a prize on solving the VM would be a bad idea because I do not believe it will be solved by an individual. If it is solved, it will be by combined efforts. Additionally, it may be harder to determine whether the VM is actually solved, while mathematical proof is, well, mathematical proof. This may be why mathematics lends itself to such prizes, when the solution is found, it will be clear. This would work for breaking "modern" codes too, but not necessarily for an enigmatic historical document.
But let me rephrase it as some questions:
- How much should the prize be?
- What will be required for the prize to be won?
- What will you do if the person who won the prize did not actually do most of the work?
To give a concrete "bad" example, imagine how much worse the Cheshire media storm would have been if there had been money on the line. If the prize committee is as easily swayed as the editors of Romance Studies, he'd now be rich.
![[+]](https://www.voynich.ninja/images/collapse_collapsed.png)