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So much for that Voynich manuscript "solution"
Last week, a history researcher and television writer named Nicholas Gibbs published a long article in the Times Literary Supplement about how he'd cracked the code on the mysterious Voynich Manuscript. Unfortunately, say experts, his analysis was a mix of stuff we already knew and stuff he couldn't possibly prove.
As soon as Gibbs' article hit the Internet, news about it spread rapidly through social media (we covered it at Ars too), arousing the skepticism of cipher geeks and scholars alike. As Harvard's Houghton Library curator of early modern books John Overholt put it on Twitter, "We're not buying this Voynich thing, right?" Medievalist Kate Wiles, an editor at History Today, replied, "I've yet to see a medievalist who does. Personally I object to his interpretation of abbreviations."
The weirdly-illustrated 15th century book has been the subject of speculation and conspiracy theories since its discovery in 1912. In his article, Gibbs claimed that he'd figured out the Voynich Manuscript was a women's health manual whose odd script was actually just a bunch of Latin abbreviations. He provided two lines of translation from the text to "prove" his point.
However, this isn't sitting well with people who actually read medieval Latin. Medieval Academy of America director Lisa Fagin Davis told The Atlantic's Sarah Zhang, "They're not grammatically correct. It doesn't result in Latin that makes sense." She added, "Frankly I'm a little surprised the TLS published it...If they had simply sent to it to the Beinecke Library, they would have rebutted it in a heartbeat."
Previously: Voynich Manuscript Partially Decoded
(Score: 5, Interesting) by ledow on Tuesday September 12 2017, @07:12PM (2 children)
General rule: If YOU say you've cracked some long-running puzzle that's baffled experts for decades/centuries, you haven't.
If, however, you quietly submit a paper, which then spreads of its own accord, is confirmed by others, builds momentum, and becomes public knowledge by some other person unrelated to yourself, leading to you having to then answer questions and provide answers like "I hoped, but I wasn't sure", etc. then maybe you have.
As a mathematician, the first thing I'd do if I thought I'd cracked some puzzle is show it to other people, of varying amounts of trust, and if they thought it was worthy they'd do the same, take the time to double-check it, etc and ensure my credit. I wouldn't be claiming "Yee ha! I cracked it! You're all useless and I'm a genius!" on national TV as the first thing.
Hint: If you have a mathematician friend and he says "No, sorry, I only took a brief look at it", then that's the polite version of "It's tripe, you don't understand the first thing about maths, fuck off with this shit".
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bob_super on Tuesday September 12 2017, @09:16PM
> I wouldn't be claiming "Yee ha! I cracked it! You're all useless and I'm a genius!" on national TV as the first thing.
I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess you were born before 1990
(Score: 2) by JeanCroix on Wednesday September 13 2017, @04:12PM