[Article] Harvard physicist's take on the VMS

[Jorge_Stolfi]

If Voynich is meaniningless, matching the imagery won't help to crack it but is still useful. It helps to understand better where and when the manuscript was created and what the author wanted to express through the pictures.

Agreed. And, with a lot of luck, it may lead to the identity of the Author.  It is quite possible that the VMS itself will not tell us that, even after it is completely deciphered.

We cannot for sure exclude scenario like VM was written much later by someone as Wilfrid Voynich who got a bunch of medieval parchment. But most people agree that a chance of such event is very low.

Agreed.  But it is also possible that the BL MS 408 is a copy C2 from an older manuscript C1 (the "first copy"), also on vellum. This second copy C2 would have to be made in ~1420 (because of the C14 result); the first copy C1 could then be older. This hypothesis could explain why the material and execution are so poor.   On the other hand, it complicates the analysis.  Which details of the figures were copied from C1, and which ones were contributed or modified by the C1 copyist?

All the best, --stolfi