Re: VMs: Cardan Grille

[Rene Zandbergen <r_zandbergen@xxxxxxxxx>]

--- "David R. Jones" <drjones@xxxxxxx> wrote:

> This was recently posted to another group, and I
> thought it might be of 
> interest here.  I know that Cardan and Dee were
> associates, though they 
> had a falling out at one point.  My main point was
> if anyone had seen 
> this in the context of the Voynich MS and if they
> found the arguments 
> presented convincing.

Yes, the originator of the theory (Gordon Rugg)
has been in communication with all of us on
this list and I assume that he is still around.
(Nicely organised site, by the way, Gordon!)

I wonder if you would be able to tell me (us :-) )
how a Cardan grille would have normally been
used in the times of Dee. Was it a cryptographic
device? Would it be to scramble text, or to be
able to select only certain words from a text? 

To answer your question: I am personally not
convinced that the VMs could have been generated
in the manner described. What might convince me
is if he managed to define a table, set up with some
kind of logic behind it, which actually does 
reproduce some part of the MS text. Currently,
table fagments I have seen are set up in order
to duplicate the known statistical properties
of the text, but without any order or rule.

Apart from that, I wouldn't exclude the
possibility that the VMs contains meaningless
text and is a hoax in one way or another.

Kind regards, Rene 

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