Cipher Mysteries

Perhaps because of its geography (spanning a mountain range) or its powerful neighbours (France, Milan), Savoy is one of those nebulous, hard-to-grasp historical regions with a perimeter seemingly made of rubber. Here's a map of 15th century Savoy courtesy of the very useful sabaudia.org: as landmarks, you can see Milan, Turin, Genoa and Lyon - just off to the lower left are ...

Today's Cipher Mysteries post comes from long-time Voynich researcher Jan Hurych, who very kindly agreed to go through Otakar Zachar's (1899) monograph on the "Cesta spravedliva v alchymii" ("The True Path of Alchemy") manuscript by Antonio of Florence dated 1457. Here's what Jan found... * * * * * * * While Otakar Zachar's name is now generally unknown, he appears ...

A vast constellation of curious books revolves around the hazily uncertain core of the Voynich Manuscript: as with most things, some are outright good, some are just plain bad, while most live in a mixed-up zone in the middle. Henry Carrington Bolton's (1904) " The Follies of Science at the Court of Rudolph II" is a poster-child for that mixed-up zone - equal parts ...

While writing my MBA dissertation a few years ago, I spun off a short paper called "Justified True Belief: Three Words, Three Lies?", where the abstract explained its title:- Cornelius Castoriadis once famously described the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics as “four words, four lies”: here, I examine each of the three words of “justified true belief” in turn to ...