Cipher Mysteries

(I'll declare my hand: back when my 2008 History Today article on the early history of the telescope came out, Enrique Joven very kindly translated it into Spanish for the magazine Astronomia, so I know Enrique pretty well. That said, Cipher Mysteries reviews don't have star ratings & I'm not one to hide what I'm thinking, so this connection shouldn't ...

As a Voynich Manuscript marginalia cognoscente, I'm always alert for new angles on the various incidental marks apparently added by its later owners. So, when Tim Tattrie left a comment about the "chicken scratch" marginalia on my recent Voynich-frontiers-circa-2010 post, I thought it was probably time to revisit them here. Tim's query was whether anyone had pursued the initials scribbled ...

There are colours in my eyes, history flickering and sputtering as a beautiful infinity reaches out to hold my bloodsoaked hand... * * * * * * The Brazilian girl's plan is stone-cold in its vision, fractal in its detail, awesome in its thinking. Yes, the organizers have put the necessary overnight protection squad in place: but the two guards merely ...

Fifteen hours in the air coming back from Taiwan (even if it was ultimately to the wrong airport) does lead you to click through all (and I really do mean all) the listings on China Airlines' seatback audio/video on demand gizmo. And so it was that I listened to Eminem's 2009 album Relapse (Bagpipes in Baghdad, etc), and watched not only ...

When Wilfrid Voynich bought his (now eponymous) manuscript in 1912, it was accompanied by a 1665 letter from Johannes Marcus Marci to Athanasius Kircher. In that, Marci noted three things that Raphael Mnishovsky (King Ferdinand III's Czech language tutor) had told him about the strange artefact:- "that the said book belonged to Emperor Rudolf" "that [Rudolf II] presented 600 ducats to the messenger who brought ...

Though the Dean at All Saints in the Citadel of Prague was one of the earliest people to mention the Voynich Manuscript (in two letters to his old friend Athanasius Kircher), poor old Godefridus (Gottfried) Aloysius Kinner of Löwenthurn hasn't really featured much in the discussion so far. In Kinner's letter dated 4th January 1666, he mentions to Kircher that their mutual friend Johannes Marcus Marci ...

Much as I enjoyed watching Micky Bet covering the Voynich Manuscript, I couldn't help but wonder how much better it would be had it had a slightly funkier script. So (courtesy of the kind people at Overstream) I added my own captions. Enjoy! :-) (If you can't see this in your browser or email client, here's a ...

I've had a few recent emails from historical code-breaker Tony Gaffney concerning the Voynich Manuscript, to say that he has been hard at work examining whether Voynichese might in fact be an example of an early Baconian biliteral cipher. This is a method Francis Bacon invented of hiding messages inside other messages, by (say) choosing between two typefaces on a letter-by-letter basis - that is, ...

German fans of Pater Castell and of the Voynich Manuscript have a treat in store coming up, with the episode due to be aired on 5th November 2009 at 20:15 called "Das Voynich Manuskript" (hopefully you can translate that from the German). Here's my rough translation of the programme blurb:-...

Just to let you know that a Voynich Manuscript radio interview I gave a few days ago (either download it, or click on the Flash Player play button [half a screen down on the right] to hear it) has just gone live on the Red Ice Creations website. They wanted me to chat about all things ...