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The Cardan grille approach to the Voynich MS taken to the next level

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  • The Cardan grille approach to the Voynich MS taken to the next level
• The Cardan grille approach to the Voynich MS taken to the next level

• RE: The Cardan grille approach to the Voynich MS taken to the next level

  lurker > 05-05-2021, 12:42 AM

  (04-05-2021, 10:32 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I also don't understand this comment.

  
  Let me explain it differently.
  
  Stolfis grammar describes dependent choices. It must therefore be possible to choose between different wheels for each position.
  
  Stolfis grammar also describes optional rules. Therefore the number of wheels has to be variable.
  
   

• RE: The Cardan grille approach to the Voynich MS taken to the next level

  ReneZ > 05-05-2021, 06:17 AM

  (05-05-2021, 12:42 AM)lurker Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

  (04-05-2021, 10:32 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I also don't understand this comment.

  
  
  
  Let me explain it differently.
  
  
  
  Stolfis grammar describes dependent choices. It must therefore be possible to choose between different wheels for each position.
  
  
  
  Stolfis grammar also describes optional rules. Therefore the number of wheels has to be variable.

  
  Wheels can have empty cells. It is the case for the example in Figure 1.
  
  On the first point, the observed dependency can come from different word frequencies in the plain text.
  Also, certain groupings can be together on a single wheel.
  
  It is exactly this search for groups, preferred combinations, forbidden combinations, that this paper might usefully lead to.

• RE: The Cardan grille approach to the Voynich MS taken to the next level

  Davidsch > 05-05-2021, 09:56 AM

  Another option that is not discussed but can be a method that gives similar results as a Cardan Grille and that is using sequences that count up to a particular point, then mutate, and then fall back to a predefined position which is often the same or shows an altered primary position (the latter case can be perhaps seen in the Rohonc, but that's another unfinished story).
  Anyhow, the final result will resemble a grille with nullified text, but it isn't.

• RE: The Cardan grille approach to the Voynich MS taken to the next level

  ReneZ > 05-05-2021, 12:02 PM

  Hi David, could you give an example?
  
  By the way,  the Rohonc probably deserves its own thread.
  I'm still waiting for the new book by Benedek Láng to become available.
  
  There should also be a second paper in Cryptologia reasonably soon, from the two proposed solvers.

• RE: The Cardan grille approach to the Voynich MS taken to the next level

  RenegadeHealer > 05-05-2021, 02:05 PM

  I was going to say @Davidsch, before Rene beat me to it, I feel like the method you describe merits a simple illustration. I'm intrigued, but I think I'd have to see it visually to fully understand how it works. What you describe immediately brings to mind Patrick Feaster's observation that the segments or "syllables" of vords seem to cycle, at different rates and seemingly independent of each other (or dependent in a way that isn't simple or obvious), over the course of a Voynichese paragraph. He illustrates this with sliding strips on his webpage. I have an image in my head of three completely different sized gears interlocking and turning each other, with each gear then rotating at a different speed. If one were to number each sprocket tooth, and then make a sequential list of which teeth make contact with which others as the gears turn, one might come up with a pattern very similar to the "deep patterns" Prof Feaster sees in Voynichese.
  
  @Rene, I'm very much looking forward to Lang's work on the Rohonc Codex too. I'm no cryptography expert, but I think what both the VMs and the RC might end up teaching us, is that encipherment techniques in the olden days may have been much more varied and sophisticated than the received historical record would have us believe. After all, if I really wanted a piece of information to remain secure, I'd come up with a wholly novel and unprecedented method of encipherment, and never talk or write about how it works.

• RE: The Cardan grille approach to the Voynich MS taken to the next level

  Mark Knowles > 08-05-2021, 04:30 PM

  In this paper there are what the author has termed fragments. I wonder when the idea of mapping 3 or 4 letters to a sequence of Voynichese characters was first suggested. Obviously I appreciate that this idea was not original to this paper, though the unusual 3 wheel system very probably was. However it would be of interest to know how far the idea dates back and who originated it.

• RE: The Cardan grille approach to the Voynich MS taken to the next level

  ReneZ > 08-05-2021, 05:56 PM

  I used "word fragments" in order to avoid the more common term syllables, such as used also by Gordon Rugg.
  The latter has a specific meaning, which does not have to apply to what I am doing. The parts do not have to be syllables at all.
  
  I do not understand exactly what is meant with "mapping of 3 or 4 characters to a sequence of Voynichese characters". The paper proposes a range of possibilities and options, and where earlier ideas have been reused it is clearly mentioned (e.g. Rugg and Stolfi).
  
  Verbose ciphers in general (including so-called "word games") have been mentioned since the beginning of the old mailing list (1990's) and one case in the paper would be an example of that.

• RE: The Cardan grille approach to the Voynich MS taken to the next level

  Mark Knowles > 08-05-2021, 07:16 PM

  (08-05-2021, 05:56 PM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I do not understand exactly what is meant with "mapping of 3 or 4 characters to a sequence of Voynichese characters".

  
  I was referring to the following:
  
  "The choice  of  three  wheels  with  24  different  entries  each  also  allows  other  possibilities.  The  number  24 represents  the  number  of  characters  in  the Greek  alphabet,  but  also  Latin  (when  equating I  with  J  and  U with  V)  and  Italian  (when  not  considering  k  or  w).  A  text  in  any  of  these  languages  could  have  been  split into  groups  of  three  characters,  where  each  character  would  then  be  mapped  to  a  Voynich  word fragment  according  to  the  three  wheels.  This  is  of  course  highly  speculative."
  
  I also note you say the following:
  
  "In  case the wheels  are used  to  set up  an  enumeration  system,  it is  not even  needed  to  actually  create the  wheels  and  turn  them.  The  combinations  can  be  written  down  without  this.  This  may  be  illustrated by  Table  9,  which  shows  a set  of wheels  that  would  generate  all  Roman  numerals  up  to  4999"
  
  I don't know either when that kind of thing was first suggested.

• RE: The Cardan grille approach to the Voynich MS taken to the next level

  Davidsch > 08-05-2021, 10:31 PM

  (05-05-2021, 12:02 PM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Hi David, could you give an example?
  
  By the way,  the Rohonc probably deserves its own thread.
  I'm still waiting for the new book by Benedek Láng to become available.
  
  There should also be a second paper in Cryptologia reasonably soon, from the two proposed solvers.

  
  In this case, at this point I can not provide examples nor explain it further.
  I regret to have made this comment, because it was a bit too cryptic and it was nothing more than a thought that was wrongly formulated by me.

• RE: The Cardan grille approach to the Voynich MS taken to the next level

  julian > 03-08-2021, 07:01 PM

  The paper by Rene is inspirational! 
  
  After reading it a couple of times, some playing around with Stolfi's Core/Crust/Mantle grammar and trying various ways of placing the gyphs within a set of co-rotating three wheels, I found that the following machine is able to account for ~93% of the words in the VMS. (I showed this in the inter-Gallows counts thread, but it's more appropriate here.)
  
  
  
  A VMS word can be reproduced from these wheels using the following prescription:
  

  • Select none or more glyphs from the outer ring
    
    
  • Append none or one glyph from the middle Gallows ring
    
    
  • Append none or more glyphs from the inner ring
    

  I suppose this may be simply a pictorial representation of Stolfi's grammar? It certainly doesn't get us any further, but I throw it in anyway. I am obsessed with the notion that a few cipher wheels were used to generate the text, perhaps geared together, and perhaps with cams that rotate adjacent wheels at certain positions :-)
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