Re: VMs: Can one "prove" a hoax? - and a request.

[Nick Pelling <incoming@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi everyone,

At 13:57 18/02/03 +0000, Rob Hicks wrote:
> The initial problem, when it comes to proving a that a text is randomly 
> generated, is to identify the different types of generation possible.

Has anyone heard of any analyses being done of the types of randomness 
employed by hoaxers pre-1600? Personally, I haven't heard of any - but that 
doesn't mean they don't exist.

Computer scientists have a long-standing love-affair with random (and 
especially pseudo-random) sequences, so it would be a great 
cross-disciplinary MSc: "The algorithmic construction of pseudo-random 
strings pre-1600".

My first guess is that there will probably not turn out to be any 
algorithmically constructed texts out there at all, so this might well turn 
out to be a very slender (though complete) thesis. ;-)

My second guess is that truly random texts, even if they did turn out to 
exist, would probably have ended up with completely flat statistics, and so 
look nothing like the VMS. ;-)

Oh, and just in case there's anything been written about this in the 
alchemical herbal literature, I'll ask Sergio Toresella: but, frankly, I 
think that's a bit of a long shot. :-o

Cheers, .....Nick Pelling.....

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